Dubai: The concept of global citizenship and how education plays a key role in creating global citizens was one of the main topics discussed on the final day of the Global Education and Skills Forum on Sunday.
Global citizenship is the idea that all humans are citizens of the world who can coexist with one another despite different nationalities, race, culture or religion. The idea of global citizenship was derived from the UN General Assembly Adopted Resolution which is known as The Universal Declaration of Human Rights that suggests that humans are free and equal despite race, age and religion.
Given the fact that the UAE is a diverse country with different nationalities, races and religions the topic of global citizenship and how it can develop further through education was met with a lot of enthusiasm from the attendees.
Assistant Director of Unesco Hans d’Orville spoke about the importance of global citizenship and how education is key in preparing citizens to become global citizens.
“Global citizenship is necessary for interlinking the economy and global cooperation because how can they work unless you have people in the board room who understand each other. Migration is another key aspect, people who migrate have to settle in different environments and cultures and they must have certain skills to perform in these cultures. If we want to maintain peace we have to have pupils and citizens who are respectful of diversity, and have mutual understanding of each other’s culture and religion,” said d’Orville.
Shashi Tharoor, Minister of Human Resources and Development in India, spoke about some of the solutions that schools can adopt to help students become global citizens: education providers should encourage curiosity through their curriculums, schools should also offer different languages because intolerance is instilled within them as they grow up so it’s important to shape them in school.
The Deputy Minister of Mozambique Chilundo Arlindo on the other hand spoke about a set of values that need to be adopted in order to achieve global citizenship. “Firstly, people should learn to be accepting of race, religion and sexuality. They should respect the environment and there should not be such thing as a superior culture.”
Regional insights on education and skills were also shared at the final day of the Global Education and Skills Forum. Other topics such as curriculum reforms and industry needs, entrepreneurship education and school reforms were also tackled during the round table discussions.
On behalf of the UAE Minister of Education Humaid Al Qutami, Marwan Al Sawaleh, Assistant Secretary for Support Services at the ministry, gave the concluding speech at the final plenary session where he stressed the ministries’ role in Public Private Partnerships (PPP). “Partnership with the private sector is a must for us as we are reformers of education in both the private and public sector. We are already working with the private sector and regulating them as our committees are aligned towards one goal which is providing the best for our students.”
Noor Nazzal is a trainee at Gulf News
