Press release: Have your say on the future

New website asks the general public for their views

What do you think about the future? For example, do you think that everyone will need to speak a foreign language by 2025? Whatever your hopes and fears for the future, a website called Million Futures has been launched to find out. Millionfutures.org.uk, from education innovator Futurelab, has been set up to gather public opinion on how changes in society and technology could impact on children, schools and families beyond 2025. The website is part of Beyond Current Horizons – a long-term joint research programme conducted by Futurelab and the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) to enable education to prepare for and respond to our rapidly evolving world.

The Million Futures website presents six questions about future life and learning in the UK including ‘What do you want your country to be like?’ and ‘What should education be like for our grandchildren?’ Featuring a virtual blue sky, the site enables users to launch virtual paper aeroplanes to which they anonymously attach their hopes, fears and aspirations for the future. In addition to sharing their views by creating their own planes, visitors to Million Futures can explore the virtual aeroplanes already in flight to see how other people have responded.

Everyone, from grandparents to grandchildren, and from actors to dentists is encouraged to take part. To support schools that want to get involved, there is a lesson plan designed to help teachers introduce this fun and creative future-gazing activity into classrooms nationwide.

Dan Sutch, Learning Researcher at Futurelab, commented: “Beyond Current Horizons is unique in gathering opinions from everyone in society – we want to ensure that the programme is shaped not only by scientific evidence, but by the values and aspirations of all of education’s stakeholders. It’s vital that people take this opportunity to have their say.”

The wider research programme behind Million Futures, Beyond Current Horizons, was launched in January 2008 by the Minister of State for Schools and Learners, Jim Knight MP. The programme aims to:

·         Determine which innovations may have the most impact on education and society

·         Consider how social and technological change could impact on the community as well as employability and skills

·         Examine the opportunities for new ways of teaching and learning through the use of digital technologies.

The responses from the Million Futures website – along with the findings from other Beyond Current Horizons public engagement activities – will contribute to a report on views about the future, which will be published on the Beyond Current Horizons website (www.beyondcurrenthorizons.org.uk) in Spring 2009. This report, and other findings from the programme, will be used to inform the Government’s long term scenario planning for children, schools and families.

To have your say on the future, go to www.millionfutures.org.uk. For more information on the Beyond Current Horizons programme please visit www.beyondcurrenthorizons.org.uk. To take part in further discussion visit the new Beyond Current Horizons blog http://blog.beyondcurrenthorizons.org.uk