The Future of Compulsory Schooling: Participant developed scenarios from a Modified Delphi Survey

This paper describes results from a modified Delphi process that has been informed by research into anticipatory systems to design an approach that is responsive to a future world which is uncertain and in rapid change. We present five scenarios that describe preferred futures for the design of compulsory schooling and addresses the overall, counterfactual, research question, “What if compulsory schooling was a 21st century invention?” The scenarios have been developed by participants as the last round in the modified Delphi process, utilising a set of statements created in the earlier rounds. This scenario development round describes a novel use of the modified Delphi process in addition to the previous rounds that were used to determine more traditional Delphi results in terms of consensus and dissensus. The attachments provide an annexure with additional information about the Expert panel as well as a complete list of statements from the modified Delphi process.