World Economic Forum - Global Education Initiative

World Economic Forum - Global Education Initiative

Global Education Initiative

In its six years of existence, the Global Education Initiative has impacted over 1.8 million students and teachers and mobilized over US$ 100 million in resource support in Jordan, Rajasthan (India), Egypt, the Palestinian Territories and Rwanda. Today, the GEI engages over 40 private sector partners, 14 governments, seven international organizations and 20 NGOs with a Steering Board of nine Industry and Strategic Partners (Cisco, Deloitte, Edelman, EMC, Heidrick & Struggles, HCL, Intel, Microsoft, SAS Institute).

The primary objective of the GEI is to raise awareness and support the implementation of relevant, sustainable and scalable national education sector plans on a global level through the increased engagement of the private sector. Through its unprecedented partnerships with UNESCO and Education For All Fast Track Initiative, and the continuous commitment and support of the partners and members of the World Economic Forum, the GEI aims to scale education partnerships globally.

During the past year, the Initiative continued supporting the country level work in Rajasthan, and Egypt, restarted the multistakeholder collaboration efforts in the Palestinian Territories and launched the Global Education Alliance model with a pilot in Rwanda. Under the leadership of the Ministry of Education of Rwanda and the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, and with the support of the Jordan Education Initiative Office, the GEI helped Rwanda develop their ICT policy in education and design the coordination unit that will carry out the implementation of the policy.

The GEI is now embarking on a process aimed at addressing the relevance of education for economic growth, innovation and entrepreneurship at the global agenda. Last year, the GEI launched a workstream with the objective of advancingEntrepreneurship Education as one of the key drivers of sustained social development and economic recovery. The Initiative commissioned the development of a report Educating the Next Wave of Entrepreneurs to consolidate existing knowledge and global good practices in entrepreneurship education across three focus areas, which cover the lifelong learning process of an individual: youth, higher education, and social inclusion. The report also outlines specific approaches that are needed for each one of these areas, as well as opportunities, challenges and practical recommendations for key stakeholders.

2009 GEI Focus Areas at a Glance

Continue support of Palestine and Rwanda efforts, handover of the Rajasthan and Egyptian country initiatives, and support launch of multistakeholder education partnership models in up to three new countries

Rollout of concepts and recommendations from Entrepreneurship Education report on a regional and country basis

Full launch of Partnerships for Education portal (www.pfore.org) under UNESCO to promote understanding and sharing of multistakeholder partnership models and practices

Continue shaping the global education development agenda through partnerships with UNESCO and the Fast Track Initiative, and as a member of UNESCO’s International Advisory Panel.