Looking at Global Education

Live from Doha, Qatar – I’m writing at the intersection of exhaustion and jet lag. It’s not a good place but I can sleep on the plane, right? I’m here attending the first World Innovation Summit on Education (WISE). The event is hosted and underwritten by the Qatar Foundation.

This is a serious meeting of the minds from the education sector – university presidents, national policy makers, NGO leaders, education reformers, multinational funders, community education advocates, open source and techie types, heads of state, corporate executives – more than 1,000 people are in the conversation. The Institute of International Education, one of our sister institutions, is one of the key supporting organizers.

 

The conference has been exploring three major themes: innovation, sustainability, and global education. With breakout sessions looking at inequality, higher education, funding, technology, women's education, e-learning, special needs, global mobility, access, social media, conflict zones, and minority inclusion among other topics.

 

The breadth and depth of the dialogue in and out of sessions has been terrific, but let me start with some facts:

• 115 million children around the world are not attending school
• 776 million adults cannot read or write
• 40% of the population in the Arab world is under 25
• One quarter of the world’s youth lives in the Arab World
• One of every three youth in the Arab World are unemployed
• The E.U. provides .5% (of GDP) budget subvention for education and 40% subvention to agriculture
• The cost of one additional solider stationed in Afghanistan is equal to building 20 new schools in the country
• In developing countries, 90% of working women with an education reinvest their salary in their family, compared to 40% of men who reinvest in their family
• 40% of West Africa and South Africa is illiterate
• Half of all the teachers in Sub-Sahara Africa are untrained or undertrained
• Africa needs 4 million new teachers in the next 5 years to meet demands
• One third of higher education students in South Africa are studying via distance learning
• There are 4 billion active mobile accounts worldwide
• There are 1.5 billion active web accounts worldwide
• 2% of student learning worldwide is happening via mobile technology
• A new study suggests adults will have 10.8 jobs by the age of 42
• Only 2% of U.S. students study abroad

 (Note: Facts are from various sources and speakers throughout the conference.)

 

Since I can't do the conference sessions justice by recasting them in summary, (information and speaker videos are online at the WISE conference website), I'm sharing some of my favorite soundbytes, comments, and opinions:

• Education is a basic human right and there is an education deficit globally.
• Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave. (Arabic saying)
• We need to create knowledge societies.
• It’s no longer a career for life, but a lifetime of careers.
• Nothing is more dangerous than a world view from someone who has had no view of the world.
• We need excellence and equity in education.
• We need to create global competence among our citizens.
• Knowledge transcends time. Knowledge travels.
• We need to change the system. Real reform puts the student front and center not the bus schedule.
• Education is an economic driver.
• Knowledge is the human adventure.
• We have corporate social responsibility, but what we need is intellectual social responsibility.
• An unexamined life is not worth living. (Socrates)
• An educator makes the hard seem easy.
• Technology breaks isolation and brings learning to remote sites.
• Education and innovation will be the currency of the 21st century. (Obama)
• Teachers bring knowledge to life.
• Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire. (Yates)
• Education is the key to building a culture of peace.

My deep appreciation to all of the speakers and participants (quoted and unquoted) who I spoke with for their thoughts, opinions, and passion. My less-than-stellar note-taking doesn't allow me to properly attribute each quote, so I apologize. But clearly, they left an impression on me.

 

All this has me thinking…what else can Sister Cities International and our network of 2,000 communities do to flex our muscles of influence on education globally?