ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes how government planning in Sweden, Finland, and Norway perceives the challenges caused by rapid technological and societal change, and its recommendations for how the educational system should adapt to these challenges. Long-term forecasts and plans for economic and social development will be investigated to determine whether they predict a future in which technological advancement will continue at the current pace, or whether they foresee an imminent dramatic increase in the pace of innovation and technological advancement. Wolfgang Streeck bases his prediction that the current interregnum will continue indefinitely on the absence of a practically possible vision of a progressive future. A common explanation for the rise of income inequalities since the 1970s is skill-biased technological change. The most visible advocate of the idea that people are approaching a fourth industrial revolution is Klaus Schwab, executive chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF).
