This symposium will bring together scholars and teachers interested in exploring the relationships between knowledge, education and progress. As John Hopkin succinctly explains, ‘The idea of education is an idea of progress, an investment in the future of our young people and community’ (2011, 116). The suggestion that humanity is lifted through studying a planned curriculum of learning different disciplines dates to Peter Rasmus (1515-1567). Rasmus built a case for learning from a designated series of books (a curriculum), not just individual scholars, thus opening the potential for the democratisation of education. In 21^st century Europe, societies struggle to articulate a positive vision of the future and a vision for education. Ideas of social, economic, moral and political progress are problematised and contested. The idea of progress has been tainted with its past association with colonialism, exploitation and domination and is thus criticized as a genuinely `Western ideal´, a secularized `hollow replica of a Christian conception of history´ or even as a kind of `Prozac for intellectuals´ (Gray, 2004). Some academics now envisage Education After Progress, while others think schools must engage with the meaning of social progress.