Last month, I joined a group of former education ministers and experts for a consultation on the key challenges facing ministries of education and how to formulate an appropriate curriculum.
The idea for this 12-year documentary project, Time for School, came after Pamela Hogan (our producer) read an op-ed in which economist Amartya Sen argued that investing in education was key to promoting a country’s economic and social growth.
Happy UN Day for South –South Cooperation!
Investment in skills is vital to economic growth and competitiveness and poverty reduction. I believe that there is no better way to do that than to educate young graduates with expertise in high-demand areas to help grow African economies, create jobs, and support research.
While Hillary Clinton is cracking the glass ceiling, if not yet shattering it entirely, in the United States by becoming the first female presidential nominee of a major political party, recent analysis on U.S. women in the workforce presents a more sobering finding.
Ed's note: This guest blog is by Betsy Brown Ruzzi of the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE).
Developing teachers with a deep understanding of the content they teach underpins the success of primary schools in top-performing education systems. This is one of the key findings in a new report recently released by the National Center on Education and the Economy’s Center on International Education Benchmarking, Not So Elementary: Primary School Teacher Quality in Top-Performing Systems.
There is plenty to celebrate about being a young person. Since 1999, the United Nations commemorates the ideas and initiatives of young people everywhere with International Youth Day. To me, it’s particularly significant this year because it’s the first International Youth Day since the Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, were adopted (last September 2015).
The SDGs aim to address “the root causes of poverty and the universal need for development that works for all people” by 2030. Fourteen years from now may seem like a distant dream but it’s really not that far ahead. Today’s 16 year old will be 30 by then and whatever foundations are laid down today will inevitably impact his/her world forever.
One of the biggest economic benefits of schooling are labor market earnings. For many people, education and experience are their only assets. This is why I believe that it’s very important to know the economic benefits of investments in schooling.
I asked Martha, a Form Four (Grade 12) student at a secondary school in southern Malawi, if she considered herself a role model. Completing her education hasn’t been easy for Martha – being sent home for weeks at a time when her family struggled with school fees, trying to avoid the distractions of boys, and staying on top of challenging coursework are among the challenges she deals with.
Education and training play an important role in ensuring that youth develop the skills they need to live independent and prosperous lives. The research is clear: youth are more affected by unemployment than any other age group. Around the globe we have seen the political, economic and social consequences of young people not having jobs. Governments and international development organizations have turned to education and training initiatives as one tool to enable youth to find jobs or launch their own businesses.
For Tanzania, a predominantly rural economy striving to achieve middle-income status by 2025, a major challenge is to create employment for 800,000 youth entering the labor market each year.
