Putting Global Education First: Creating a World at School

On Thursday I attended my second conference titled "Creating a World at School." This presentation was interesting to me because I teach a geography class that focuses heavily on globalization and inequality. In this course I have such a hard time imparting on my students the issues associated with access to education world wide and answering their questions about why school in developing countries aren't just better! It is such a complex, intangable idea, and I really appreciated hearing about the global education crisis from an expert. This talk was hosted by Justin van Fleet, Ph.D. who currently serves as the Chief of Staff for the UN Special Envoy for Education. He was SO knowledgable and personable, even given the format of the presentation- webbased.

He started the conference by asking "raise your hand if you've ever had to worry about going to school." I couple people "raised their hands" using the chat room tool, but for the most part, people just communicated via the chat box about what a thought proviking question that was. Some people even said things like..."Only when we get huge snow storms!" It was a great way to get us all on the same page. @JustinVanFleet then began his presentation, outlining the role of the UN Special Envoy for Education and the crisis at hand.

It was fascinating to learn how the UN sets goals for education, and in 1990 they promised the world that by 2000 there would be universal access to learning. Well, as you can guess, it didn't turn out that way, and the UN had to set a new goal in 2000 to achieve universl access by 2015. "In 2000 there were 113 million out of school children, and today there are 57 million out of school children. So while we've made tremendous progress, we still have a long way to go...in 2 years!" Justin doesn't see this goal as out of reach, however, and he is calling on the world to make education a priority. He firmly believes that if it were, we could have 100% of kids accessign education by the end of next year.

Justin cites issues like child labor, child brides, conflict like the current civil war in Syria, and decreased funding as huge barriers standing in the way, but he remains optimistic that we can deliver on our promise if enough people are committed.

Justin ended his talk with the following quote: "A right won cannot be easily un-won." By that he means that if enough kids and countries are given even a tase of a quality education they will refuse to let it go. As for now, the best things we can do as global parters are the following: identify solutions for bottlenecks, ban child labor and marriage, ensure an effective delivery model for education, and build broad-band access to and engagement in learning.

You can see my full notes here.

Again, I really loved this format for accessing education for myself! I couldn't stop thinking to myself "how cool is it that I am attending a conference with the Chief of Staff for Education to the UN?!" I certainly would never have had that opportunity if it weren't for 21st Century technologies like the webconferenceing feature of Blackboard. I feel like this conference really taught me to appreciate just how valuable, and truely transformative, web-based technologies can be for all atudents, including me!