Every Spring, our foundation welcomes a new group of girls to become Rukmini Scholars. Our mentors, program officer, selection committee members and other volunteers visit villages surrounding the Pharping area (Pharping is roughly 20 KM South of Kathmandu, Nepal) to identify girls whose families may be facing hardships in trying to continue their schooling.
Capitalism became a global force centuries ago. But for most of its history, there was a struggle through which the inequalities and excesses that came along with it were tempered, at least partially, by government interventions. That led, in many countries, to about 50 years of the welfare state, from the 1930s to the 1970s, in which government was seen as playing a major and legitimate role in reigning in capitalism. All that changed in the 1980s with the election of Thatcher in the U.K., Reagan in the U.S., and Kohl in Germany. Since then, neoliberalism has dominated, within which government is maligned and seen as illegitimate, and business and the market reign supreme. This has had enormous and harmful consequences for public policy, in general, and for education, in particular. Business, embedded in a market system, has been the driving force for education throughout the past 30+ years of the neoliberal era around the world. The global emphasis on business and the market system has distorted education in myriad ways, including:
On June 26, more than 800 delegates including heads of state, education ministers, representatives from multilateral organizations, civil society, business and youth leaders from 91 countries gathered in Brussels for the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) 2014 Replenishment Conference.
If you are anything like me, you hate the phone. I would much rather someone text me or email me—hey even tweeting me is better than a phone call. But sometimes a good old fashioned phone call is what is going to get the job done and on June 16, we are asking you to dust off the landlines or fire up the cell to place a call for an important cause—the millions of children around the world that are out of school.
Today, we look a bit more closely into Reason #1 of the eight reasons from our joint RESULTS brief: Greater Impact through Partnership: 8 reasons to invest in the Global Partnership for Education now more than ever. The reason; ‘We cannot end poverty without investing in education’, is really one on which there is little or no disagreement. Indeed, it is often stated that investing in education is the single most effective way of reducing poverty.
2015 could be a momentous year in human history. It could be the year when governments around the world put a hard deadline on their longstanding commitment to end extreme poverty, agreeing on a new time-sensitive global development framework to ensure that no child dies unnecessarily and every child is protected from violence. This framework should also prioritize realizing the one right that most empowers nations to achieve inclusive prosperity and vibrant democracy: The right of every child to quality, free, compulsory education that enables real learning.
It is spring in D.C. which means sunny days and cherry blossoms. It also means GCE-US Youth Training Advocacy season which always gets me super excited about the power of youth and the great things they are doing around the nation and the world. Our advocates just spent Monday on the Hill talking about education for all with their Members of Congress and we will be sharing their experiences over the next few months.
57 million children around the world denied an education despite the world's promise to put every child in school by 2015. Tens of millions of children drop out of school before learning how to read and write - forced into early marriages, participating in dangerous work just to feed their families, or pushed out because of school fees they can’t afford. Access to education is one of the best ways to decrease poverty.
The crisis in education is enormous, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Unfortunately, just when more support is needed, the international community has reduced its aid to education. UNESCO indicates there is a $26 billion financing gap for basic education. This financing is needed for capital investment in school infrastructure and to support recurrent expenditures, principally for teacher training and salaries. With the 2015 Millennium Development Goals' deadline looming, the time has come for the business community to step aggressively up to the plate and help hit a home run for global education.
In the process of identifying what has to happen in the 1,000 days before the end of the 2015 education Millennium Development Goal, there has been little discussion of how to finance education initiatives worldwide.
