Education forum to address refugee children issue

Syrian refugee children play at the Al Zaatari refugee camp in Mafraq, Jordan

Convened by the Varkey Foundation and held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, will debate how education can be made everyone's business on March 12-13at Atlantis The Palm, Dubai.
Leading the key plenary sessions are Andreas Schleicher, Director for Education and Skills and Special Advisor on Education Policy at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Irina Bokova, Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and Sir Martin Sorrell, Group CEO of WPP.
One of the main sessions at the forum will address the challenges posed by the displacement of refugee children. As per statistics from the United Nations High Commission for Refugee Children (UNHCR), last year, there were 19.5million refugees worldwide and 51 per cent of these were under 18 years old - the highest figure for child refugees in more than a decade.
Panelists include Aqeela Asifi, Teacher from the Commissionerate for Afghan Refugee and Nansen award winner; George Papandreou, Former Prime Minister of Greece and President Of Soc. International, Member Of The Global Leadership Council Of The Mercy Corps, Greece; and Mohammad Thneibat, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education, Ministry of Education of Jordan.
Other key speakers participating in the two day event include; Elias Abu Saab, Education Minister of Lebanon; Arne Duncan, United States Secretary of Education from 2009 through early 2016 and Tariq Al Gurg, CEO, Dubai Cares.
This year's GESF, whose partners include UNESCO, Harvard Graduate School of Education and Dubai Cares, will witness intense debates on reconciling the relevance, excellence and inclusiveness of both public and private learning environments through the collective responsibility by politicians, business leaders, educationalists and media professionals.
Sunny Varkey, Founder of the Varkey Foundation, said: "Half a billion children are currently in failing schools. This is simply not acceptable in a world where we're now so interconnected.
"This forum intends to tackle this head on by asking the simple question of how we can make education everybody's business. During the forum we will engage in pioneering debates, discuss fresh evidence and launch brand new initiatives that can help make the goal of providing every child on the planet a quality education a real possibility," said Varkey.
 Vikas Pota, CEO of the Varkey Foundation, added: "With a whole generations of displaced children missing out on education, long-term human capacity issues are only compounded for countries already in crisis. This key panel discussion will provide insights into how, collectively, we can ensure that all children receive quality education, whether displaced internally or abroad."
The forum will also see the launch of new alliances made up of private businesses, academia, government and the third sector to begin work on drawing up recommendations on education's most pressing issues - ranging from Girls Education to Education Innovation.
Another Forum highlight is a series of 30 minute EdTalks which will inspire and challenge delegates in ways they can each take responsibility for public education. As part of these sessions, delegates also get to meet education technology providers.
GESF 2016 will culminate on Sunday March 13 with the live announcement of the second annual award of the US $1 million Global Teacher Prize. This year's Forum will also see masterclasses conducted by the Top 10 finalists of the US$1 million Global Teacher Prize (GTP). These 10 teachers, from Australia, Finland, India, Japan, Kenya, Pakistan, Palestine, UK and USA, will share their teaching models that saw them make it to the final 10 from over 8,000 applicants from 148 countries.
dhanusha@khaleejtimes.com

Dhanusha Gokulan

• dhanusha@khaleejtimes.com