Opinion | Columnists
Partnerships for Education - a new global alliance
The World Economic Forum's initiatives with Jordan and Egypt played a key role in providing the inspiration for the project.
- By Tim Unwin and Alex Wong
- Published: 00:00 May 25, 2007
Education is universally recognised as a critical priority for all countries in the world to allow their citizens to realise their full potential and be active contributors to the national and global economy.
In 2000, two major pledges to support education development on a global level were declared by the international community: the Education for All (EFA) Dakar commitments, and in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The former committed the signatories to six broad goals, ranging from early childhood care, through equitable access to primary education, to the achievement of 50 per cent improvement in adult literacy by 2015.
The latter included two specific education related goals: achieving universal primary education; and eliminating gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015.
Yet, in 2007, some 77 million children remain out of school across the world, and children in at least 75 countries risk missing their full period of primary schooling by 2015.
Traditional development methods to achieve these objectives have not been successful, and all too often these well-intentioned efforts have failed because of issues related to integration and sustainability.
At a recent high level European Union/World Bank meeting in Brussels on May 2 on the theme of 'Keeping our Promises on Education', Unesco, the lead global agency for Education for All, and the World Economic Forum, through the Global Education Initiative (GEI), announced Partnerships for Education as a new approach to delivering these agendas.
Partnerships for Education (PfE) has been founded explicitly in recognition that only through integrated and collaborative partnerships between governments, private sector, civil society, bilateral and multilateral donors, global organisations, and teachers and pupils themselves, can significant enhancements be made to educational provision within the poorest countries and most marginalised communities across the world.
The World Economic Forum's educational initiatives in particular with Jordan (JEI, as the first country initiative of the GEI) and Egypt (EEI) have played a key role in providing the inspiration behind Partnerships for Education.
As stated by King Abdullah II of Jordan, "By empowering our youth through this education initiative, Jordan and its World Economic Forum partners can create a dynamic and practical model of public-private partnership in the area of ICT that can ignite the engines of growth for future generations in Jordan and the region".
Reality
Partnerships for Education is turning such aspirations into a reality. In the JEI, launched in 2003, no less than 17 global corporations, 17 Jordanian entities, and 11 governmental and non-governmental organizations have contributed to the initiative's success in education curricula, teacher training, classroom technology, lifelong learning, and ICT industry development.
The more recent Egyptian Education Initiative, launched in 2006, has also catalysed a wide-ranging group of public and private partners to develop a four track programme focusing on pre-university, higher education, lifelong learning, and e-learning industry development.
In both initiatives, innovative multistakeholder partnership and program management models have been developed that allow all stakeholders involved in the initiatives to each contribute their core competencies in an integrated and coordinated manner, creating a win-win-win for the organisations involved, the government, and ultimately, the students and citizens in those countries.
One of the core objectives of Partnerships for Education is to facilitate the sharing of good practices learnt through the JEI and EEI in delivering Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships for Education (MSPEs) across the world.
The World Economic Forum's own initiatives have provided a solid grounding of experience in the practical issues involved in such work, including the creation of a widely-shared governance plan and model, the need for high level champions, realistic monitoring and evaluation, a clear and agreed plan for resource provision, integration with national strategies, and an effective programme management office.
Partnerships for Education will also work with other partnership initiatives around the world to ensure that appropriate context specific models of good practice are developed and shared effectively among all stakeholders.
Another core objective will be to promote understanding of the role of each stakeholder in MSPEs. For example, the private sector is often seen by governments and bilateral donors as being merely another source of resources, such as computers, or as a way of gaining additional funding through the Corporate Social Responsibility budgets of global corporations. Such approaches have typically not been sustainable.
The experience gained in initiatives such as JEI and EEI have demonstrated that the private sector has much more to give, particularly in terms of programme design and implementation, management expertise, effecting monitoring and evaluation, and the development of sustainable business solutions.
When these are combined with the effective delivery of national strategies by governments, the contributions of committed civil society organisations, and the resources made available by international donors, it is indeed possible to achieve effective educational interventions.
In 2007, Partnerships for Education will conduct a meta-review of existing knowledge on MSPEs, developing a portal to enable practitioners to share experiences, creating a database of existing MSPEs, and preparing guidance notes on context and sector specific implementation of relevant educational partnerships.
Future outputs will include collaborative activities designed to enhance awareness of the potential of MSPEs, capacity building programmes in MSPE design, and support for the practical implementation of such programmes in countries where new donor funding from partners and support from the Education for All Fast Track Initiative (FTI) is made available.
Partnerships for Education is seeking to build a new consensus on working collaboratively to implement effective delivery of educational changes that will contribute to the overall goals of education for all.
Tim Unwin is Programme Director Partnerships for Education World Economic Forum. Alex Wong is Director, Global Education Initiative and Head, Center for Global Industries (Geneva) World Economic Forum.
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