What’s wrong with "Personalized Learning" and the "Skills Economy"? Part 1

Part 1 of a series

In 2021, the World Bank did an online workshop series called “Blockchain for Education:  Skills Economy”, hosted by their EdTech team in partnership with the Learning Economy Foundation(LEF).  These videos are no longer accessible, but I will share what I learned from watching them in this series of articles.

In essence, there are many organizations involved in developing a unified system of education that is global, what they refer to as a “digital learning ecosystem". In the field of education, it’s called “personalized learning”.  As complex as this topic may be, it is absolutely vital that we as parents, teachers, and taxpayers understand how it works and who is involved so to eliminate their influence and power over our local school systems. They are building the infrastructure for our children’s educational and economic future without our input or consent. It starts at the global level and continues all the way down to the local level. We must prevent this digital system of economic control to dominate the future lives of our children and grandchildren.

In their words:

Participating organizations include Asian Development Bank, Arizona State University, Coinbase, Colombia Ministry of National Education, Colorado Department of Higher Ed, ConsenSys, DCC - MIT Media Lab, Digetary, Education University of Hong Kong, e-Estonia, EU, Gates Foundation, Inter-American Development Bank, IEEE, Learning Economy Foundation, JFF, Norad, OECD, Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, Qüidlab, SAIC, SAP, Stanford University - Graduate School of Education, Sungkyunkwan University, T3, Telefónica, Turkey Ministry of National Education,, UNICEF, UNESCO, Université de Lille, University of Malta, University of Nicosia, University of Timisoara - Center for Open Education & Blockchain, USAID, U.S. Department of Education, WEF, World Bank, and World Vision.

A key player in this plan is the International Council on Badges and Credentials(ICoBC).  They are a global network of education, business, association and government organizations with the common goal of “developing and promoting best practices for open badges and digital credentials”.  These are NGO’s and IGO’s(intergovernmental organizations) working together to create one system that is centralized among all countries where people will earn access to opportunities by showing their digital records.

This is a screenshot from the presentation:

Rolf Reinhardt is a member of the executive committee of the ICoBC. This is his bio:

Their solution is to use blockchain as a transport medium and platform for connecting Learning Record Stores which are a digital transcripts that house all of the student’s credentials and badges. Blockchain offers a “universal way of trusting what we are exchanging”.

A badge is a digital record that contains information about skills and achievements.  They plan to use these badges as a form of currency. It is an alternative form of payment with its own exchange rate.  A learner digital wallet will house the badges that are earned.  Learner Records Stores span across the “lifelong learning” journey.  So the LRS will follow the student throughout their life.  It is one place where all records are kept.

Here is an example of a digital wallet called the LearnCard, developed by the LEF:

What’s so bad about personalized learning and education pathways?

They want to replace a traditional Western education with a government prescribed skills-centered pathway that they will fit your child into.  They will use online assessments that pigeon hole them into a specific career path, and that’s the only education that they will get. It will replace the freedom to choose their own path to one that is narrowly focused with limited options and a predetermined outcome.  All opportunities will be accessible only through this unified pathway.

The result of personalized learning is that they will be competing on a global scale for lower pay due to an increase in competition for these jobs that accept skills badges rather than qualifications.   They want you on a “lifelong learning” journey because it keeps you in the pipeline of having to re-skill and up-skill throughout your career at the financial benefit of the creators of this technology.  To put it simply, they will own and maintain all of your educational data and in order for you to gain employment or opportunity, you will have to use this uniform system.

The state and corporations will own all children’s future prospects as well as digital data. This plan is not one in isolation from all other technocratic takeovers happening in the world right now. Watch Alex Newman’s interview here as he explains that this plan encompasses all systems of life including health care(vaccine passport), banking(digital credit system), government(digital ID), and much more.

Why is the World Bank facilitating this?

They want to move us into a a global digital currency system and they are attempting to do it through education technology and blockchain.  Also, the digital service providers and “stakeholders” are making money from this system of data collection and tracking of “human capital” (i.e. children) from an early age through their entire life.

There is never any mention of the risk involved, or any input from teachers or parents about this digital educational ecosystem that they are building.  I believe that their motive is to make money off of our children’s education and to implement a one world government where everyone will be a slave to the digital system of control over all of our freedoms.  This is an anti-American system where our life choices are dependent upon whether we have completed tasks to earn badges and where we are competing against people from around the world for jobs in order to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals #4 and #8.

In Part 2 of this series, I explain why 21st Century Skills are used as a framework in public education today to push this agenda forward.

Part 3 will explore the role that 1EdTech, the Learning Economy Foundation, and the LEGO foundation is playing in the development of this digital education infrastructure.

Part 4 will explore how personalized learning is happening all over the country at the local level.