Dubai, UAE, 13 March 2016
Three new international groups comprising experts from leading private businesses, academia, government and the third sector have been launched and met for the first time at the Global Education and Skills Forum 2016 (GESF) in Dubai as they began work on drawing up recommendations on how to address education's most pressing issues.
The three Varkey Foundation Alliances - the Alliance on Girls' Education, the Alliance on Teachers and the Alliance on Innovation - held their inaugural meetings at the Forum. The three topics were chosen because of their significance in terms of improving education and global growth.
Each group will comprise of 10-15 luminaries with an interest in their respective issue. After their first meetings at the GESF, each alliance will hold a series of further meetings over the next year to produce actionable recommendations related to their focus area. The recommendations will be contained in a White Paper to be published at GESF 2017 next March. Each alliance will be funded by the Varkey Foundation.
The alliances include prominent individuals from organisations such as UNESCO, Harvard University, Amazon, LEGO Education as well as various government ministers and their representatives. They include Dr. David Edwards, Deputy General Secretary, Education International; Brett Wigdortz, Chief Executive Officer, Teach First, UK; Esteban Bullrich, Minister of Education, Argentina; and Christina Lowery, Managing Director, Girls Rising, USA.
On girls' education, for example, Unicef estimates that 31 million girls of primary school age and 32 million girls of lower secondary school age were out of school in 2013. This needs to change because educated girls who have been to school have much more power to break the cycle of poverty. Gender equality in education generates a virtuous cycle that benefits future generations.
Vikas Pota, Chief Executive of the Varkey Foundation, said: "The alliances have been created to find real and actionable pathways to solving public education's longest standing problems. Issues like ensuring girls worldwide have equal access to education, raising the quality of teaching and respect for the teaching profession, and how to best use innovation in education represent three of the biggest educational challenges facing the world today.
"I am delighted that the Varkey Foundation will sponsor these groups that include some of the most distinguished individuals and thought leaders in their fields, whose expertise and blue-sky thinking will, I am sure, lead to a raft of innovative recommendations on how to address these crucial issues".
-Ends-
1. The Varkey Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation established to improve the standards of education for underprivileged children throughout the world. Our vision is that every child, regardless of circumstance, has a good teacher. More information is available at: https://www.varkeyfoundation.org/
2. For further information about the Global Education and Skills Forum please visit: https://educationandskillsforum.org
3. The three alliances and their members are:
Alliance on Teachers
Professor Fernando Reimers - Chair of Alliance, Ford Foundation Professor of Practice in International Education, Harvard University, USA
Dr. David Edwards, Deputy General Secretary, Education International, Belgium
Dr. Jari Lavonen, Director, Department of Teacher Education, University of Helsinki, Finland
Professor Oon Seng Tan, Director, National Institute of Education, Singapore
Brett Wigdortz, Chief Executive Officer, Teach First, UK
Jacqueline Kahura, Teacher, BOFA Primary School, Kenya
Linda Rush, Managing Director, Teacher Learning and Leadership for All (TELLAL), UAE
Beatriz Cardoso, Executive Director, Laboratório de Educação
Oley Dibba-Wadda, Executive Director, The Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA), Côte d'Ivoire
Esteban Bullrich, Minister of Education, Argentina
Stefania Giannini, Minister of Education, Universities and Research, Italy
Vandana Goyal, CEO, Akanksha Foundation, India
Ramya Venkatraman, Founder & CEO, Centre for Teacher Accreditation (CENTA), India
Vikas Pota, Chief Executive, Varkey Foundation, UK
Why an Alliance on Teachers?
In November 2013, the Varkey Foundation published the Global Teacher Status Index, the first attempt to compare attitudes towards teachers in 21 countries. The index found that there were significant differences between the status of teachers worldwide. The survey also found that in many countries, between a third and half of parents would "probably" or "definitely not" encourage their children to enter the teaching profession.
Yet a good teacher is vital for a child's development and growth. Raising respect for the profession means more talented individuals will be attracted into teaching - crucial not only for children's development but ultimately for countries' economic success. The Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize is part of the foundation's long-standing commitment to improve the status of teachers.
Alliance on Girls' Education
Kennedy Odede - Chair of Alliance, Founder & CEO, Shining Hope for Communities, Kenya
Tamela Noboa, Managing Director, Discovery Learning Alliance, USA
Hendrina Doroba, Executive Director, Forum of African Women Educationalists, Kenya
Tsitsi Masiyiwa, Executive Chairperson, Higher Life Foundation, South Africa
Heekyung Jo Min, EVP Global CSV, CJ Corporation, Korea
Haifa Dia Al-Attia, CEO, Queen Rania Foundation, Jordan
Aziz Royesh, Marefat Girls School, Afghanistan
Christina Lowery, CEO, Girls Rising, USA
Silvia Montoya, Director, UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Canada
Adam Still, Director of Programmes, Varkey Foundation, UK
Janell N. Catlin, Director, STEM Initiative, Teach for All, USA
Rebecca Winthrop, Brookings
Why an Alliance on Girls' Education?
Unicef estimates that 31 million girls of primary school age and 32 million girls of lower secondary school age were out of school in 2013. This needs to change because educated girls who have been to school have so much more power to break the cycle of poverty. Gender equality in education generates a virtuous cycle that benefits future generations.
Educated women generally marry later in life and are less likely to be married against their will. They are less vulnerable to disease including HIV and AIDS, and acquire information and skills that lead to increased earning power. They are less likely to die in childbirth and their babies are likely to be healthier. Educated mothers are much more likely to then send their own daughters to school, renewing and reinforcing the benefit.
The alliance will share learning on what is working and not working currently in the landscape of girls' education and gather respective work that can apply to all education for girls, and identify specific barriers to achieving gender parity in global education. It will then make recommendations that can be used to break down these barriers and move education forward for girls, engaging not only the teachers but government, NGOs, philanthropy and the private sector to create secure spaces for girls to learn and prosper.
Alliance on Innovation
Erik Childerhouse - Chair of Alliance, Principal Consultant, Avanti plc, UK
Joe Y. Battikh - Head of Sustainability, Corporate Responsibility and Government & Industry Relations Region Middle-East & East Africa, Ericsson
Esben Stærk Jørgensen, President, LEGO Education, Denmark
Illah Nourbakhsh, Professor of Robotics, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Dr. Michaela Meier, CEO / Geschäftsführung, Papagei.com, Germany
Felix Manoharan, Manager EMEA, Amazon Web Services Educate, UK
Allison Bailey, Senior Partner & Managing Director, Boston Consulting Group, USA
Michel Dothey, Business Development Director, SatADSL
Shannon May, Bridge Academies, Kenya
Leonora Dowley, Country Director, Varkey Foundation, Ghana
Why an Alliance on Innovation?
The alliance will examine how innovative and creative new approaches can be used with technology to help tackle some of the issues in global education. Education is often criticized for being slow to innovate, with classroom practice largely unchanged from previous decades. Many organisations invited to participate are ones that are at the forefront of innovation (for example major satellite and communications providers, and creative companies like LEGO) if not directly involved in delivering traditional education, and the aim is to tap into their expertise to see how their innovative techniques and potential partnerships with education providers can be used in an educational setting.
© Press Release 2016
