Mansour bin Mohammed attends the closing of the “Rewired” summit… and...

His Highness Sheikh Mansour bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum attended the closing of the Rewired Summit; The agenda of the third and final day of the summit, which was held under the slogan “Financing Education”, included launching a series of major steps, dialogue sessions and programs with the aim of accelerating the process of upgrading educational systems worldwide, and drawing the world’s attention to the current situation of the global education system.
Rewired issues urgent global call for education funding
The summit, which was held at the Expo 2020 Dubai headquarters, was also attended by more than 2,000 participants and about 450 speakers from 60 countries, and the summit included a busy agenda that included dialogue sessions for high-level international officials, seminars and discussions.
Five heads of state and 45 ministers, who participated in the summit from all over the world, stressed the urgent need to adopt new and innovative approaches to provide sound education globally, and praised the UAE for being a role model for other countries in providing sound education; As the UAE quickly initiated, relying on its highly efficient and reliable technological infrastructure, to implement “distance learning” in all public and private schools and higher education institutions across the country as an effective alternative to ensure the continuation of the educational process during the early stages of the “Covid-19” pandemic. Before things get back to normal again.
Emphasizing their collective responsibility in addressing the global learning crisis, Dr. Tariq Mohammed Al Gurg, CEO and Vice Chairman of Dubai Cares, urged world leaders to seize this unique opportunity to fulfill their promise to raise the level of support for the education sector.
“We conclude the summit with great goals we strive to achieve,” he said, adding: “From issues to solutions, from challenges to opportunities, and from the past to the future, the Rewired Summit’s journey expressed our shared commitment to restore a strong and transformative role in education for Empowering the lives of young people, achieving sustainable progress, and advancing humanity.”
The last day of the summit, which was held under the auspices of Etihad Airways and Hettich, kicked off with a high-level inaugural session titled “Education – An Investment for a Sustainable and Prosperous Future for All.” It included Gordon Brown, former British Prime Minister and United Nations envoy for global education; Sri Mulyani Indrawati, Minister of Finance, Indonesia; and Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, who called for immediate collective action to fund education systems around the world, especially in light of the complex conditions imposed by the global health crisis.
Gordon Brown said: “We are at a critical turning point. We know the extent of the damage caused by “Covid-19”; It has wasted valuable time for millions of students, and a third of the world’s countries have cut their education budgets; This caused an unprecedented crisis in this field. All nations must realize that education is indispensable. We should treat education spending as an investment; It is an investment in the future.”
For his part, Filippo Grandi said: “The pandemic heralds the loss of important gains that we have all achieved. It is imperative that we not forget the displaced children who are looking forward to better opportunities. We need about $4.85 billion to ensure that all refugees have access to a proper education. This is a relatively small investment to ensure their access to a fairer world. It is time to double our investment in education; To invest in a prosperous, sustainable and innovative future for all of us.”
In his comment, Amir Abdullah, Deputy Executive Director of the World Food Programme, said: “The education sector should not bear all the costs alone; Rather, everyone must work together. We have to support education and learners, and spread this culture from Dubai to encourage focus on these two important aspects, as well as the need to link all sectors together to ensure that no child goes to school hungry.”
global advertising
The launch of the “Global Declaration on Communication for Education” was one of the most important announcements made during the third day of the summit; The declaration, prepared by UNESCO in cooperation with Dubai Cares, provides a framework to ensure the provision of communication technology services that enhance the right to learn, by drawing on lessons learned during the pandemic. The announcement also reflects the contribution of an advisory group of 22 experts within a global consultative process that includes governments, civil society, youth, educators, researchers, private sector institutions and other stakeholders to establish principles and commitments that will define directions and priorities for the digital transformation process in the education sector.
The declaration also asserts that educational changes accompanying the integration of new technology can be guided by focused policies, procedures, regulations and incentives.
Commenting on the launch of the announcement, Dr. Tariq Al Gurg said: “This announcement will go down in the history of Dubai Cares as a defining moment that will advance our development as an organization that has come a long way from focusing solely on giving grants, into an active and active global participant, and a platform that mobilizes meaningful partnerships and alliances for a better world. ».
Smart Finance
The results of the Rewired Summit will be submitted to the United Nations Summit on Education Transformation to be held in the second half of September 2022.
The Board of Directors of the Global Partnership for Education and the Islamic Development Bank for Product Development and Partnerships revealed the smart financing initiative, which provides half a billion dollars to finance education, in 37 countries belonging to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and which witnesses the absence of 28 million children from their schools.
Developed by the Global Partnership for Education and the Arab Coordination Group, which includes several Arab financial development institutions, the initiative is an innovative financing mechanism that secures $4 per dollar based on the Global Partnership for Education’s innovative Multiplayer financing tool, to raise up to $400 million. The two bodies focus on securing about $500 million to provide education in those countries.
This came during the activities of the closing day of the Rewired Summit, which brought together within the framework of Expo 2020 Dubai, and in coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in the United Arab Emirates, prominent representatives of politicians, multilateral bodies, donors, commercial and civil institutions and other individuals in professional and academic circles, to reshape the features of the world. The education sector in preparation for the future, which consolidates the UAE’s leading position locally and globally during this critical stage facing the sector around the world.
At a time when the global health crisis continues to negatively affect the education sector, as well as the conditions of climate change, ongoing conflicts and other demographic pressures, which have exacerbated the global education crisis and prevented millions of children from going to school, especially girls and disadvantaged children.
Additional financing in education is more important than ever, to ensure that the gains made in educating girls are not lost, keeping millions of children in school and adapting education to the requirements of the twenty-first century.
Education Challenges
Dr. Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Global Partnership for Education and former President of Tanzania, said that the funding provided by this initiative helps governments to solve the education challenges they face, and secure additional funding on better terms, while ensuring that these resources are invested in effective and sustainable education programs . The world is facing a severe crisis in the field of education that affects more than 250 million children deprived of education, as we need to finance education more and better, through innovative mechanisms that enhance levels of domestic financing and the donation of the world.
Amer Bokovic, Director General of the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) for product development and partnerships stressed that education is part of targeted social efforts, and the learning environment plays a key role in its success. flexibility. The Islamic Development Bank and its partners from Arab countries focus on strengthening this commitment through the Smart Education Financing Initiative, in cooperation with the Arab Coordination Group, with the aim of supporting education and development financing in partnership with the global community.
Funding issue
President Kikwete and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta commended the interaction of the signatories to the initiative, which invites heads of state to participate in the issue of financing education, as a commitment to allocate at least 20% of their national budgets to the education sector, and the step comes as a continuation of the pledges made during the World Education Summit 19 state and government leaders endorsed the summit statement, which is a pledge to secure the equivalent of $200 billion in education financing over the next five years.
The Global Partnership for Education seeks to strengthen domestic finance, as the most important and sustainable source of funding, by helping governments increase the size and effectiveness of the local education budget.
round table
The closing day of the summit witnessed the round table meeting organized by the Abdul Latif Jameel Global Education Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in which Dr. Muhammad Ibrahim Al Mualla, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education for Higher Education Affairs, the Abdullah Al Ghurair Foundation for Education (AGFE), and the American University of Beirut (AUB) participated. ), and Community Jameel, as it emphasized that open education is capable of transforming universities across the Arab world into engines of innovation and economic growth, by removing obstacles to education and research. The participants emphasized that the presence of millions of refugees and displaced persons, and the negative effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, created the imperative to urgently shift to more flexible education methods in the Arab region, so that they are easily accessible to meet the unique learning needs of their societies, explaining that open education systems provide many The advantages include new techniques and methods of learning, methods of academic accreditation, and abundant sources of learning, but they are still subject to the dominance of Western educational institutions in return for a modest presence of Arab institutions.
educational opportunities
George Richards, Director of Community Jameel, said: “Community Jameel seeks to advance the open education system in the Arab world with the aim of providing greater educational opportunities for more people, enabling them to learn in new ways and shape their futures. We have seen how the pandemic forced us to quickly switch to the open education system, which hastened the introduction of more flexible developments in the field of education, and we hope that today’s meeting will be able to develop solutions that keep pace with this momentum and contribute to the generalization of the open education model in universities for the benefit of all.”
fast pace
Dr. Sonia Bin Jaafar, CEO of the Abdullah Al Ghurair Foundation for Education, said: “The pandemic revealed to us the limited number of degrees awarded online in the region and put us in a real and clear confrontation that universities and governments were not ready to adopt the online education system.”
Schools 2030 The summit witnessed the participation of representatives of the “Schools 2030” program of the Aga Khan Foundation, the approach adopted by the program to motivate teachers and lead innovations in the field of holistic school-based learning, and the achievement of the fourth goal of the sustainable development goals launched by the United Nations, as Michael Kucher, Director-General sees To the Aga Khan Foundation, the Rewired Summit came at a crucial time for the global development community, when we must re-imagine the future of teaching and learning to determine what can be done. the scientist.
Dr. Bronwyn Magrath, Director of the Global Program “Schools 2030” believes that the initiative focuses on improving learning and teaching through innovation in the field of education, starting with schools. More open curricula.
The roundtable discussions were based on preparatory meetings held on November 15, which included leading higher education institutions from 4 countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, to monitor the actual and unique needs of educational institutions in the Arab world. The participants agreed to develop more open curricula during crises to Corona like.