Partnerships for Education

The Global Education Initiative (GEI) began with on-the-ground, in-country initiatives in Jordan, Rajasthan and Egypt. As a natural extension of the work on the ground, the GEI focus turned to achieving results on a greater scale – the global scale.

In 2007, the World Economic Forum GEI and UNESCO launched a new programme “Partnerships for Education" (PfE). The objective of the PfE is to create a global coalition to advance multistakeholder partnerships in education (MSPEs) that advance progress towards the objectives of UNESCO’s Education for All (EFA). Pursuit of the EFA goals also contributes to the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). As a global movement to provide quality basic education for everyone, EFA encompasses six key education goals:

Ø Goal 1
Expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children

Ø Goal 2
Ensuring that by 2015 all children, particularly girls, children in difficult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities, have access to, and complete, free and compulsory primary education of good quality

Ø Goal 3
Ensuring that the learning needs of all young people and adults are met through equitable access to appropriate learning and life-skills programmes

Ø Goal 4
Achieving a 50% improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015, especially for women, and equitable access to basic and continuing education for all adults

Ø Goal 5
Eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, and achieving gender equality in education by 2015, with a focus on ensuring girls’ full and equal access to and achievement in basic education of good quality

Ø Goal 6
Improving all aspects of the quality of education and ensuring excellence of all so that recognized and measurable learning outcomes are achieved by all, especially in literacy, numeracy and essential life skills

UNESCO, the United Nations’ specialized agency for education, has been working to improve education worldwide since 1945, and has close links with education ministries and other partners in 191 countries. Given the World Economic Forum’s experience with multistakeholder partnerships and close links to the private sector, this Forum-UNESCO alliance is designed to create a powerful platform to catalyse the MSPE globally.

To accomplish this, the PfE will focus on three main phases of work:

Tools and Frameworks
Tools, methodologies, frameworks and best practices will be captured, synthesized and codified in this phase of work. Examples of deliverables from this phase include:
- Multistakeholder topology models and diagnostics (to allow potential education partners a framework to assess how to best engage in a MSPE)
- Monitoring and evaluation frameworks
- Sample “engagement frameworks” for each stakeholder in a MSPE
- Typical governance structures for a country MSPE
- Job descriptions for a MSPE programme manager

The objective will be to provide all education stakeholders with a library of existing models, processes and case studies to improve efficiency in the development and deployment of the MSPEs. The focus here is on reducing transaction time so that stakeholders involved in education reform programmes can focus on developing and implementing sustainable results.

Advocacy and Awareness
The 2005 World Economic Forum Financing for Development initiative highlights the urgent need for all stakeholders engaged in multistakeholder partnerships to better understand the roles, capabilities and limitations of each partner. A key finding in particular is that the role of the private sector is often misunderstood. In this phase of work, the PfE will focus on articulating the value proposition of the MSPEs to governments.

The case of education reform itself is often unclear within a country where there is a scarcity of resources. A second objective of this phase of work in the PfE will be to raise awareness and increase knowledge within developing countries of the importance of multistakeholder partnerships to accelerate education reform. How can technology best be implemented in an education system, and at what cost? How does education reform improve a nation’s long-term competitiveness? These are some of the questions that will be addressed.

Finally, the engagement of the private sector in education reform has often been limited to a select few industries and companies who typically have the capability to embrace a long-term approach in their education programmes. However, from a total education value chain perspective, there are many other industries, given their specific core competence, which could and should be more actively engaged in the MSPEs. The PfE will develop engagement models for the private sector in this phase of work.

Capacity Building/Implementation
To achieve global scale and impact, the PfE will develop a programme of activities that allows the concepts developed to be socialized and implemented at the country, regional and global level. This will be accomplished in a variety of ways, including training of education MSPE “brokers” and development of an electronic platform to facilitate the sharing of ideas, needs and wants.

To accomplish all of the above PfE objectives, the unparalleled platforms of both the World Economic Forum and UNESCO will be leveraged to engage thought leaders, practitioners, donors, governments and experts in a collaborative and information sharing network. 2007 promises to be an exciting year in the PfE and GEI, and we would welcome your engagement.