In conjunction with OneWorld's Perspectives e-zine on Learning the Future, we are pleased to welcome Patrick Fine, Senior Vice President and Director of the Global Education Center at Academy for Educational Development to this afternoon's live chat discussion. Patrick will be talking about educational challenges for the 21st century.
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Patrick C. Fine
Senior Vice President and Director of the Global Education Center Academy for Educational Development
Patrick leads the Global Education Center (GEC) at AED, which is responsible for AED's core business of assisting developing countries to increase access and improve the quality of their education systems.
Currently, GEC is one of the world's leading providers of technical assistance and education management services with programs in early childhood education, basic primary education, support to expand access to secondary and vocational education, and higher education. GEC is also active in helping youth make the school-to-work transition and in consulting with client governments on issues of education management and policy.
Patrick recently returned from Afghanistan, Ghana and Liberia. In Afghanistan he looked at the conditions affecting schooling and at progress in higher education, in Ghana he visited schools where teachers are using active learning approaches and in Liberia he discussed efforts to rebuild the education system.
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Here are some educational challenges he identified.
1.Consolidating gains in basic education in poor countries by ensuring access for all to post primary education.
2. Providing educational opportunities to children and youth living in societies in conflict.
3. Incorporating technology into all schools even those in poor, remote communities (recognizing technology is now a "basic skill" and also seeing schools as a span to bridge the digital divide.)
4. Recognizing the role of higher education in producing the talent needed to drive innovation and manage institutions. (Increasingly, the value a society can reap from basic education will be unlocked by post-primary education.)
5. Continued emphasis on girls education to ensure equity and to support the demographic transition (especially reduced number of children per family) that appears critical to poverty alleviation.
6. New attention to "civics education" in the curriculum as a way of promoting tolerance and understanding of others and developing skills needed to negotiate/reduce conflict (i.e.: including compromise in the repertoir of skills people develop).
7. More attention to youth development that includes vocational skills for livelihoods, and also emphasizes good citizenship through community service, volunteerism, etc.
8. More accountability for educational results. Trends in US education around testing and accounting for teachers' and administrators use of time are likely to influence things around the world.
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Comments: 26
thanks to everyone who posted questions before the chat. This is my first chat and from the questions already posted I can see how interesting this is going to be.
I will try to answer as many questions as possible during the chat.
I hope that people interested in education issues or with further
questions will visit our website for more information: www.aed.org.
From your recent visits, what do you see as the priority areas for improving teacher quality in poor rural classrooms often with 50 or more children per classroom?
Could you speak about the role , if any , media literacy and the promotion of critical thinking skills has in global education in the 21st century. Thank you.
Through the U.S. Peace Corps, I taught high school and middle school in a small town in Madagascar for two years. So many of the other teachers in the region were tremendously unmotivated -- largely because teacher salaries were often not paid, but also because the schools were bare cement buildings, there were no materials to speak of, and most students had little to no hope of moving beyond high school no matter how intelligent and motivated they were.
Of course devoting more government resources to education would begin to change all this, but a country like Madagascar doesn't have any more resources to devote. Is there anything else that can be done? Perhaps by NGOs or by local community members?
Could you define what you mean by the incorporation of technology? What do you consider to be the most basic, necessary technology needs of educational institutions in developing nations? And what do you think of the One Laptop Per Child idea?
Can you talk a bit about the role that armed conflict (ongoing in Afghanistan and recently concluded in Liberia) plays in education?
http://www.aed.org/Projects/cerca.cfm
Civic Engagement for Education Reform in Central America
Civic Engagement for Education Reform in Central America (CERCA)
Location: El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Dominican Republic
Funder: USAID
Duration: 2002-2006
Link: CERCA
The Civic Engagement for Education Reform in Central America (CERCA) Project builds support for better education in five countries: the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. The project identifies conditions and develops tools that promote the active engagement of parents in supporting schools and in holding schools and policy-makers accountable for education quality. It involves researchers, education sector leaders, and civil society representatives in examining how the operational tools of education policy and management (laws, policies, availability of information, incentives, financial responsibilities, organizations, and structures that express "client voice") can best be used to engage the school community in improving the quality of education. Through studies of successful cases of community participation leading to improved quality, field-testing of a school report card, and a collaborative regional workshop, the project helps create a shared knowledge base for policy-makers and education constituencies at all levels to use in developing policies and practices that support the sustained involvement of parents and other local stakeholders.
Contact: Veronica Velez-Paschke vvelez@aed.org
In these cases full spectrum efforts from school construction to teacher training and curriculum development are necessary. Accelerated Learning Programs have been important to reaching children who were unable to go to school because of conflict. These programs offer basic education on a speeded-up basis so that kids who are in their teens can do a 6 year curriculum in 2-3 years and then move into formal school at an age-appropriate level. Programs that address the educational needs of youth are critical. The use of technology, such as interactive radio learning is often useful both for classroom based instruction and for supporting teachers' professional development.
In Africa, for instance, what can be the role of the public education -normally run by the governments in free of charge- vs a privately run schools where quality may be secured and be accountable but few people can access these schools for the relatively high costs? In other words for the the overall society, is it preferable to give access as many individuals as possible to (a less qualified) education system; or we have to promote privately owned schools where some kind of quality is secured?
Innovations in Education
I'd like to know about Patrick's direct experiences with students in the countries he's visited with regard to their desire for education. Also, is there enough openness to the education of girls and young women?
We face a lot of challenges here in DC in terms of the educational system. Are there some lessons we can learn from societies around the world for improving the schools in DC?
One lesson that we learn from each other is the importance of parents and communities in children's learning. There are great examples of community participation in the US and from other countries. For example, in Latin America the School Report Card has proved a powerful tool for getting parents involved in issues of school quality and accountability. There are also approaches to peer-to-peer support among teachers and the use of low cost materials/technology.
Here in Mexico where I live part of year I have observed severe needs and education deficiencies. Children and adolescents, forced by need, quit studying and never return to school. The opportunities for education are proportional to one's level of wealth.
What can you share that might serve as orientation to generate a nonprofit program of support to learning. Organizations, web sites, resources, etc., Thanks for your work...!
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