GLOBAL EDUCATION CONFERENCE OPENS

The fourth Global Education & Skills Forum (GESF), has opened with a call to world leaders to to recognise the power of education especially the welfare ofteachers to address the challenges of today’s two-track world. The Conference which is being held UAE,Dubai  is organised by the Varkey Foundation and  under the patronage of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. It has brought more than 1600 delegates together to discuss issues confronting education in the world and also to honour the best teachers in the world.  Over 20 education Ministers including Ghana’s Minister of education ,Prof Naana Jane Opoku Agyemang will also be giving compelling insights as to why Education should be made a everybody’s business. The Global Education Skills Forum was initiated 4 years ago to find ways of bridging the gap og education inequalities between the rich and the poor. Its basis is on the fact that more than half a billion children are in schools that have failed as more than 250 million children globally cannot read or write. The theme for this year’s conference asks how to make education everybody’s business in order to bridge the gap between private and public schools in the world.  Delivering the opening keynote address, a CNN Global Public Square(GPS) host and Washington post columnist Fareed Zakaria said today’s world is increasingly polarising to two tracks. This he said is caused by globalisation and fast growing technology which is not being incorporated properly in the various educational systems.  Mr Zakaria said to address this challenge in the two-track world, there is only one powerful weapon, Education, stressing on the need for teachers to be given the right respect and environment to impart knowledge into students. The Director of Education and Skills at the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development, Andreas Schleicher  said the forum is necessary and will help deal with the identified inequalities in education. In a special address, Founder of the Varkey Foundation,organisers of the conference, Sunny Varkey said the world is faced with a global education crisis which must be dealt with immediately before it degenerates. He explained that fifteen years after the Millennium Development Goals were created, 58 million children around the world still do not attend primary schools adding that at the current rate of progress, it will take until 2072 to end youth illiteracy.  This will mean that several more generations will miss out on the chance of a decent life for themselves and their families. He asked world leaders to act now to save the situation. The two day conference will see an award of one million dollars to the best teacher in the world.