United World Colleges International has called for the public and private sectors to partner in education and act to prepare young citizens from all social backgrounds to address global risks.
“We need leadership for a new kind of education that encourages and supports students from an early age to create positive change and appreciate and address global risks,” says Jens Waltermann, executive director of UWC International. “Empowering education across social divides is needed to address the global risks spelled out in the WEF Global Risks Report 2020. The recently published report Schools of the Future by the WEF puts strong emphasis on public-private partnerships and action in education, which are critical to prepare our young citizens for the new realities.
“Only when we have citizens who can work across boundaries to come up with shared solutions to shared problems are we on the path to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals,” he says.
UWC contributed to the white paper published by the World Economic Forum “Schools of the Future: Defining New Models of Education for the Fourth Industrial Revolution”. The report outlines eight characteristics and skills that define high-quality learning: global citizenship skills, innovation and creativity skills, technology skills, interpersonal skills, personalised and self-paced learning, accessible and inclusive learning, problem-based and collaborative learning, and lifelong and student-driven learning.
With increased social and economic polarisation and decreased social mobility it is important that high-quality education is provided across all social divides and not only for the children of the financial elite or from the privileged parts of the world. Children from privileged and less privileged backgrounds need to learn together, the increasing split between private schools for the privileged and public education for all others will drive our societies further apart, Waltermann says.
“We need to make the flexibility and quality of private education accessible to the many through comprehensive scholarship systems. Not for profit-private schools can play an important role,” he says.
“Only 23% of young refugees for example have any access to secondary education. Yet at UWC you see what happens when local students, privileged and less privileged learn together with young refugees. They are often examples of grit and resilience and they can tell their peers about the reality of conflict. That’s how you teach young people to be curious, compassionate and committed,” Waltermann adds.