RSS FeedIs the Commonwealth doing enough on Education?
Posted by ZoeWare - 19/07/09 at 12:07 pmDo you think that the Commonwealth Education Ministers, who met in Malaysia in June 2009, are doing enough to promote education around the Commonwealth? Did their Communique pay enough attention to the stakeholder statements that were presented to them?
There is univeral agreement that access to high quality education is crucial for development. Two of the Millennium Development Goals (Achieve Universal Primary Education and Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women) are focused on Education. Are Commonwealth Governments doing enough to meet these goals?
From 15-18 June 2009, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Education Ministers from Commonwealth countries met at the 17th Conference of Education Ministers. Four other forums took place in parallel to the ministerial meeting: Stakeholders Forum, Youth Forum, Teachers Forum and Vice-Chancellor’s Forum. Each of these forums produced their own statement which they hoped the Ministers would pay attention to in drafting their Final Communique.
Do you think the Minsters listened to the experts? Have a read of the Final Communique below, and the statements from the four forums, and let us know what you think.
17th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers – Final Communique
Vice-Chancellor’s Forum Statement
July 19th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Commonwealth Vice-Chancellor’s were frustrated that their statement wasn’t listened to by Education Ministers – http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20090702193025602
July 25th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Its a great effort, great work as it also supports two Millemmuim development Goals. As the world is faceing financial crisis which has increased the bar of inflation worldwide, the education now become more expensive everywhere & the areas faceing peace problems e.g., Pakistan, there youths have lesser chances to get educated as the funds for education diverting towards restoration of Peace. I would advise every forum to invite that area people specially youth to get know what they want & what are the problems /obstacles they are faceing in getting education.
July 27th, 2009 at 9:26 am
It is very sad to note that the 17th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers paid only passing reference to what the Vice-Chancellors’ Forum had to say on the contribution of education to tackling the global issues.
Don’t their Health Ministers take into account what the doctors have to say?
Do we have the Commonwealth as a pastime for some when the whole planet is at risk?
September 11th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
I think that the significant reduction in the scale and scope of the Commonwealth Scholarship programme in the UK is lamentable. In my experience, nothing did more to deepen my insight into the Commonwealth and promote an understanding of its varied academic and wider cultures. I think it remains an excellent vehicle for achieving these goals, but needs to have a firmer commitment from the various national governments, to whom the Commonwealth now seems a mere after-thought.
September 25th, 2009 at 12:59 am
I second Uzma’s statement… Its a great effort… Education in countries like Pakistan is extremely expensive so everyone cannot afford it… also the education standard set by the local government is deterioriating with every passing day that it leaves a financially able student with no other choice than to switch to the British system i.e. the O’ and A’ levels which later is not accepted in the country at University level. Commonwealth should work out a strategy to work with the Pakistani government to make education
a). affordabe for all,
b). a standard should be set so that everyone follows the same system,
c). there shoukd be no discrimination between local and foreign degrees.
September 25th, 2009 at 10:56 am
Absolutely. Education should be free up to the age of 18, at least. That’s the gold standard in the UK, and while it will take a while to implement in some member states, it’s the most important thing there is for development on this planet.
October 11th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Actually education has always been the bedrock of Commonwealth co-operation through inter-governmental programmes and institutions like the Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan (CSFP), and the Commonwealth of Learning. There is also plentiful activity in the non-government sector, with bodies like the Association of Commonwealth Universities and the Commonwealth Education Trust (formerly Commonwealth Institute) major actual or potential players – but another two dozen named Commonwealth civil society organisations are also involved in the education sector and have formed the Commonwealth Consortium for Education to advance their joint concerns.
Unfortunately, although it is much the largest sector of activity in the Commonwealth (large flows of students, teachers, books and materials, distance education courses, examinations etc), education has been gradually downgraded in Commonwealth Secretariat and Heads of Government concerns. It was one of only three or four Divisions of the Secretariat in 1965 headed by an Assistant Secretary-General, but is now one of three sections in one of about 12 divisions and it is quite a struggle to get Heads even to refer to it in their biennial communiques where they dwell mainly on political and economic issues.
That focus by Heads is all very well, but we all know how closely linked education is to human welfare as well as to socio-economic development and that education has a major role to play if we want to change human behaviours and attitudes towards living peacably together and in harmony with the capacities of our planet to sustain us all. Moreover if we want the Commonwealth itself to survive as a creative association of peoples, the links that are formed through education are a key ingredient of that.
This is the fiftieth anniversary year of Commonwealth education co-operation started at the Commonwealth Education Conference in Oxford in 1959, when the CSFP was also launched. It is therefore disappointing that the 17th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers should have produced one of the feeblest and least imaginative communiques in living memory, and that the forthcoming Commonwealth People’s Forum in Trinidad on the eve of the Heads of Government Meeting has none of its eight ‘Assemblies’ specifically addressing education. It is said to be a ‘cross-cutting’ theme. Another way of saying that by cutting it out, the organisers will make people cross?
What can be done to get education back to the top of the Commonwealth agenda where it belongs?
Leadership from the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Secretary-General is imperative. Education should be put higher up their priority list of concerns and the professional staff team needs immediate beefing up with a strong appointment to replace the outgoing Head of Education (job is currently under advertisement).
Moreover the Secretariat, and Commonwealth Governments behind it, should move quickly beyond their almost exclusive focus on the attainment of the MDGs in education – universal primary school completion and gender equality in education. These are worthy aims but two thirds of Commonwealth countries have already achieved the goals and these are NOT the areas where co-operation, interchange and exchange of experience can be most beneficial in a Commonwealth context: primary schooling takes place locally and in local languages and at a resource level which makes human and professional contact quite difficult. The primary level is certainly not the locus of many of the inequalities – and sometimes overt exploitation – that takes place in international education (teacher poaching, international study rip-offs through overcharging and fake degrees, restrictions on access to knowledge and research through Intellectual Property Rights regimes) and that represent areas where the Commonwealth might be helpfully more active. It is not the level where some of the most interesting recent Commonwealth innovations in education can have their effect – e.g. the Virtual University for the Small States of the Commonwealth and the Commonwealth Teacher Recruitment Protocol. This is why it was so disappointing that Commonwealth Ministers of Education in Kuala Lumpur in June 2009, having taken ‘Towards AND BEYOND global goals and targets in education’ should then have failed to set out an agenda for the ‘beyond’ part of their remit. No wonder the higher education constituency felt let down.
But one cannot put all the onus on the Secretariat to improve matters. In the final resort Member Governments control the Secretariat. It was Ministers’ responsibility to insist in KL on the strong message about education that never went to Heads of Government for their Trinidad CHOGM. And it is no good ‘asking for more’ in respect of popular and appreciated programmes like Commonwealth Scholarships and the Commonwealth of Learning if governments don’t give more. Why should Britain contribute three quarters of the Commonwealth awards under CSFP in an association that has 53 members? Many Commonwealth member states have become affluent enough in the last 50 years to be able to afford to host scholars from neighbouring states – and in a Commonwealth of equals more North-South flows would be a healthy development which the newly created CSFP Endowment Fund is designed to facilitate. So member countries should put their money where their mouth is.
And those of us in civil society should not just wait for others to do something. We can lobby our own governments, encourage schools and colleges, churches and education trade unions in our communities to link up with counterparts elsewhere in the Commonwealth, support (or become) volunteers working in another Commonwealth country, join Commonwealth associations working to improve education, befriend students from other parts of the Commonwealth, contribute to voluntary organisations that are helping needy Commonwealth citizens to gain access to education. The Commonwealth Foundation is the inter-governmental instrument for supporting and encouraging civil society partnerships and we should ask our governments to endow it more generously.
Commonwealth learners deserve something better from their association. Let’s help them get it!
Peter Williams
October 15th, 2009 at 1:53 am
I think Peter Williams makes some excellent points. I too am cross at the Commonwealth for cutting its commitments on education, to borrow Peter’s phrase.
Education should be a ‘no brainer’ for the Commonwealth. Here is an area where it has a track record, which is not subject to the political impasses that face its work in other areas, and where it has a reasonable USP.
That said, I am still struggling to think of the big-new-Commonwealth-idea on education that is going to capture people’s imagination.
October 31st, 2009 at 12:54 pm
The Commonwealth is doing quite much in education and I think it can only continue and look for means of doing more.
Many persons who would otherwise not have the opportunity of continuing school after the first degree or even after their MA do acquire Commonwealth Scholarships to study abroad, especially in the United Kingdom. Resolutions at CHOGMs also help individual Commonwealth member countries when these do get applied. The number of Commonwealth scholars in every Commonwealth member country is a testimony to what the Association is doing, other things kept aside.
The big issue is however the follow up to the training that candidates receive from their awards by the Commonwealth.
Most scholars who receive awards from the Commonwealth do not return to their home countries to make the impact of their education felt in their local society. Those who get patriotic and return home feel no longer at ease to settle. Most dislocate to other more receptive areas like the USA. The very patriotic ones who think that they should keep to their engagement to the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission by staying home do regret in the end and thus serve as a terrible example for younger awardees not to copy.
The Commonwealth could do more by seeing into the ‘Settlement’ of scholars when they do return home at the end of their awards.
In an interesting meeting on Research in African Universities held in Nairobi, Kenya in September 2009, a meeting that was attended among others by the Secretary General of the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission, John Kirkland, representatives of the British Council, representatives of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, representatives of the Association of African Universities, donor agencies, etc. this point was discussed at length. Experiences shared by former award holders in every home university were the same. The expectation has been that the Commonwealth would tap from the resolutions of that meeting (published) in order to do more in education.
It may be too early to judge that but I think that the Commonwealth would do more in education by listening more to her agents in education and following up and (re)settling award holders at the end of their training.
November 16th, 2009 at 11:57 am
I started my professional life as an industrial chemist – and although involved in local politics and other similar community activities, education was not high on my agenda. I then was made redundant and ended up working for the Africa Educational Trust – where I met hundreds if not thousands of young people (and occasionally, quite old people) desperate for education – to improve their knowledge and understanding of the world. I am now the Honorary Secretary of the Council for Education in the Commonwealth. This I do because of the fundamental importance of education – for the young but also for the old.
This world has many profound and urgent problems – some of which are being considered by this conversation. Education is the long term answer to a short term problem. To be more accurate, education gives us the capacity to face up to, understand and then do something about these long term problems. But education is not rapid. I would say that my education as a chemist did not begin really until I ceased to be a student at university and actually began to work in a real factory in which the chemistry was really important. And even that took some years before I could really call myself a chemist. (Sadly, I have also had too many years to forget that knowledge, though I do retain a basic understanding of the natural sciences.)
So too often education is seen as something that is not immediately important because it cannot immediately solve problems. Training (which is different to education) sometimes can. But education allows a much deeper response to these problems – which in the long term is what is needed.
So I believe personally, and the CEC believes as an organisation, in the fundamental importance of education both to the Commonwealth and to the world. This means in simple structural terms that the education department of the Secretariat needs a real boost. Which I hope the Secretary General and the Heads of Government will do something about.
November 23rd, 2009 at 8:06 am
I think that the commonwealth is trying its possible best but nevertheless there are some bad eggs that always hijack these efforts and render them useless, what i mean here is that whenever a scholarships is given out to candidates the governing body responsible for the issurance of these scholarships now hijack these scholarships and award them to their friends and relatives, this has always been the case in nigeria, so its important that the commonwealth should always put an eye on the awarding of these scholarships so that the can reach the eligible candidates. Thank you