Education is one of the most important ways in which countries have succeeded in broadening social participation in a growing national economy.
Agenda:
1) What specific improvements can be made in the Education for All architecture and the global push to provide quality basic education for all children, youth and adults?
2) How can the international community help countries extend the reach and capacity of their higher education systems?
Key Points
• There is good news and bad news in the lead up to the 2015 deadline for the Millennium Development Goals on education. Primary school enrolment rates in most developing countries are rising faster than ever before, but 72 million children remain out of primary school.
• A major transformation of the global education architecture is needed. The solution is a networked organizational approach – a complex adaptive system supported by sustainable funding and delivered by integrated cooperation among stakeholders.
• The finance gap and the people gap must be bridged – US$ 16 billion is needed to meet the Education for All targets and in the next five years 10 million teachers are needed to replace retirees.
• New financing mechanisms such as social investments are needed to provide seed capital for educational innovation.
• Skills portfolios developed through tertiary education and vocational training must respond to the needs of the job market if today’s young people are to become leaders and socially responsible individuals.
Synopsis
The numbers tell the story. Most developing countries have made significant progress: primary school enrolment rates there are rising faster than ever before and the countries with the lowest enrolment rates are those that are increasing the fastest. Niger has doubled enrolment and Rwanda is almost at 100%. These achievements should be celebrated.
However, 72 million children remain out of primary school, 759 million adults are lacking basic literacy skills and just one-fifth of teenagers attend secondary school. Several developing countries report that the quality of learning outcomes is declining, which could result in a social crisis. Delaying a rethink of today’s global architecture in education will mean a critical shortage of leaders and socially responsible individuals capable of addressing the increasingly complex challenges of the 21st century.
The Global Redesign Initiative and process seek to achieve quality education for all because “education is everybody’s business”. The proposals are “ambitious but achievable” in that they do not call for new institutions. A networked, organizational approach is needed. Networks comprised of diverse coalitions are the way forward, based on successful models such as the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
The first step would be to conduct a multistakeholder review – that includes young people – of the governance and supporting institutional architecture of the Education for All effort, currently being led by UNESCO with the ambitious goal to meet the learning needs of children, youth and adults by 2015. This “hard hitting” review, conducted by an International Education Architecture Committee, should develop a blueprint by the end of 2011 and enlist the G20 leaders to endorse concrete proposals during a ministerial meeting in 2012.
It is time to focus on the “how to” rather than the “must do” and to rethink the incentive structure. Why should young people pursue education? The perceptions of the returns of education are not high enough. Education is about creating human capital, which is the springboard for a wide range of other capitals, such as social capital, civic capital and political capital, to name a few.
Innovative financing mechanisms, such as social investments, cannot replace reliable funding from local government and donors. However, new approaches to raising and delivering finance at the local and global levels could lead to significant improvements in the sector in terms of quality and access. The sector should emulate the health and other sectors that have promoted a results-driven culture of social entrepreneurship and secured private sector support. The private sector has a key role to play not only as a funder, but also as a partner in creating innovative models that can be scaled up. Venture capital models need to be deployed to absorb risk, which is inherent in innovation.
Tertiary education and vocational training must respond to the needs of today and tomorrow’s job market. Students need to be equipped with portable, flexible skills portfolios, particularly in the context of lifelong learning. In Australia, for example, trade unions representing teachers worked together in partnership with business to map out what skills will be needed. Several companies have undertaken teacher training initiatives as well as invested in research to determine the skill set needed to meet this century’s challenges.
Teacher professional development needs ongoing support as the pace of change in the field is accelerating and teachers must apply the art of teaching to enable every child to achieve her or his potential as a person and as a member of society. Pedagogical methods must evolve. For example, interactive learning and online collaborative models are needed instead of using teachers as mere data transmitters. Several participants pointed out that attempts to foster an entrepreneurial spirit and a culture of innovation are being thwarted by an educational system that discourages critical thinking. When redesigning education systems, it is critical to include student/learner centred models.
Harnessing the potential of new technologies is not only about providing online learning. IT can unleash the power to change today’s model of pedagogy, which is teacher focused and based on a one-size-fits-all curriculum. Interactive learning, where teachers organize experiences, is a much richer experience.
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