17th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers

Prime Ministers, Ministers of Education, Excellencies, distinguished guests, members of the Commonwealth education family ...

On behalf of all the members of the Commonwealth family – and especially on behalf of its children and young people, both of today and of tomorrow – I greet you as we open the 17th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers here in Kuala Lumpur.

Let us be resolved never to lose sight of those people of whom I speak, and on whose behalf we meet.

They are the ones who will inherit this 21st Century and this Commonwealth family of nations; the young people in whom our hope and future rests, and in whom we must invest heavily of our time and wisdom and resources, if they are to rise above the many obstacles that hold them back, and release their full potential in their own, their communities’, and their nations’ lives.

Because it is my and our belief that education is the key that can unlock our future.

It is the key to peace and democratic stability, to jobs and economic growth, to good health, to respect and harmony.

It is not just a development goal – it is the foundation of society, and a fundamental human right.

If it is a right for one, it is a right for all.

I quote from the communiqué of that very first Commonwealth Education Ministers meeting, held in Oxford, exactly 50 years ago.

‘There are no frontiers to human knowledge: knowledge is not the exclusive prerogative of any nation or group of nations …. Our task is to share our resources to ever greater advantage.’

So this CCEM, like all those before it, is about sharing to ever greater advantage.

I begin with expressions of gratitude, above all to our Malaysian hosts.

Celebrating 50 years of nationhood last year, Malaysia speaks to the world of progress and dynamism.

Like the rest of the Commonwealth, it journeys continually along the paths of the two pillars of the modern Commonwealth: democracy and development.

We recall that it hosted a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 1989.

That Meeting was notable, among other things, for its pioneering Langkawi Declaration on the Environment, anticipating so much of the climate change debate of today.

Malaysia hosted the Commonwealth Games in 1998.

It is a major contributor to the Commonwealth’s technical assistance programme.

And it has trained hundreds of Commonwealth nationals in its internationally renowned institutes of public administration.

So we, the Commonwealth community, thank Malaysia, and recognise the contribution it has made to our association.

And, in June 2009, we express our particular gratitude for the extraordinary amounts of hard work – allied with visionary thinking – which have gone into the preparation and now the unfolding of this week-long event.

17 CCEM is six meetings, but in fact it is only one.

There is unity of purpose among Ministers, senior officials, teachers, young people, business and civil society groups, and - this year - university vice-chancellors, as we gather here to address the same goals.

I would also like to pay tribute to so many of you in the Commonwealth education community.

I thank my colleagues in the Secretariat, as another three-year work programme comes to an end, with much to celebrate.

I point in particular to:

· our work in the areas of our Teacher Recruitment Protocol,

· in making schools more gender-responsive,

· in addressing the education needs of different groups such as children with disabilities or nomadic children,

· in strengthening teachers’ capacity for multi-grade teaching,

· in improving the delivery of HIV & AIDS education,

· and in supporting countries develop national strategies and plans to meet international goals.

I thank my colleagues in the intergovernmental Commonwealth of Learning, world leaders in distance learning, and in the combination of education and vocational skills training.

I thank my colleagues in the intergovernmental Commonwealth Foundation, as they galvanise civil society to assume its growing role in educating our young people.

I thank the Commonwealth Consortium for Education and its 23 pan-Commonwealth members – civil society organisations advancing their different areas of expertise and concern.

I thank the Commonwealth Education Trust, establishing itself as a source of crucial support in areas like educational leadership and school improvement.

And I thank so many others of you – in Ministries or organisations which may not bear the actual name of Commonwealth, but who work so closely with us – for all of your dedication and achievement.

We are partners, and can only be effective by being so.

Let me now offer the briefest of thoughts on our 17 CCEM theme; and then alert you to several of our Commonwealth education issues which I think merit special attention.

First, our 17 CCEM theme: ‘Education in the Commonwealth: towards and beyond global goals and targets’.

The key words here are, of course, ‘Towards’ and ‘Beyond’.

I alight first on the word ‘Towards’, because these Goals represent both our current highest aims and our lowest common denominator.

The two out of the eight Millennium Development Goals to which we refer – that we achieve universal primary education by 2015, and that we achieve equal numbers of boys and girls in primary and secondary school by 2015 – are the globally agreed yardsticks by which we measure our success.

They are uniquely important, in that they are embraced by developed and developing countries alike.

They are supplemented by the Goals of the ‘EFA’, Education For All, that go beyond the MDGs in addressing issues of quality.

As we shall hear, we have much to applaud, with huge advances made in some countries.

There is a caveat here, because - to the global community’s great discomfiture - it can only provide figures for two-thirds of our member countries, and even then only to 2006.

But we do know that one third of our 53 Commonwealth countries have yet to achieve universal primary education, and about the same number have yet to achieve gender parity, with equal boys and girls in primary school.

We have six years left in which to realise these targets: and we need to concentrate our political will and our resources – financial and technical – to the countries, groups and regional pockets where the risk of not meeting them is the highest.

It is also vital that we help those who have made gains, to consolidate them.

I then alight on the word ‘Beyond’, because – great though these Goals are – they are not everything.

Some even say that the MDGs can divert us from other equally valid goals.

But there should be no contradiction, because the immediate and the wider goals are inherently linked.

We should see education holistically, and in the round.

I reiterate, it is ‘the key to our future’.

For this reason, this Conference can look beyond the Goals in three ways.

First, look beyond Primary Education to Secondary and Tertiary – a continuum, and indeed a circle.

We see this, for instance, in the way that tertiary education plays a role in improving primary education, not least by equipping teachers and developing best practice.

The role of tertiary education was at the heart of our last CCEM in Cape Town, when our keynote speaker stated the case that, I quote: ‘tertiary education is the strategic heart of education’.

Second, look beyond ‘education’ to skills.

We fully recognise the value of vocational skills, which are as fundamental for a society’s development as the reading, writing and arithmetic that form the basis of education.

Skills, too, are a passport to life, and to growth, investment and job creation.

Skills development will be a special focus of the Commonwealth Business Forum, which will convene alongside the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, or CHOGM, in Port of Spain later this year.

And third, look at the role of education in transforming society – in establishing not just the principle but the practice of some of the values that we hold dearest in the Commonwealth.

That boys and girls, men and women, are equal, and deserve equal opportunity.

That people of every faith, ethnicity, language, of every ability, every level of health, every sexuality, every advantage and disadvantage, are all equal and worthy of the same prospect of fulfilment.

So let us welcome this 17 CCEM debate as we look beyond our globally agreed Targets and Goals.

It is my strong belief that in looking beyond them, we will move faster towards them.

Let me now point quickly to four Commonwealth issues.

First, anniversaries.

While the Commonwealth education community is 50 this year, the modern Commonwealth itself is 60.

And some of its non-governmental bodies are over 100 years old.

I simply ask us to pause and reflect on what this great association means.

I offer four thoughts.

Reflect on the Commonwealth as an organisation of values.

Reflect on the organisation which has been and must be responsive enough to move creatively with its times.

Reflect on the organisation that works in partnership, and that can offer its wisdom to the wider world.

And finally, reflect on the organisation whose prime constituency is its vulnerable – poor people, women, young people, small states.

The second issue is linked to the first, as it challenges us to reflect on what this organisation means for those that belong to it.

At 17 CCEM, our prime topic is education in the Commonwealth.

A related topic is education about the Commonwealth.

At 15 CCEM, Education Ministers publicly asked us to help them tell their schoolchildren about the Commonwealth.

And one important new development at this meeting is the Commonwealth Top Trumps playing cards – which I am told you will all soon receive.

Here is a fun and informative way for children to learn about the Commonwealth and its Member States.

Its creators will be happy to take bulk orders.

The third issue is CHOGM, where, let us admit, we shall meet under dark clouds, and amidst a confluence of crises – economic downturn, fluctuations in the availability and price of food and energy sources, and not least climate change, the most ‘existential’ of them all, in that it threatens to alter our very existence.

So I call upon 17 CCEM to speak loud and clear to CHOGM, about the important role of education, in times of crisis and always, and about the imperative of mainstreaming and empowering our youth – our most priceless asset – giving them self-belief and seeing them as the driving agents of social transformation and the builders of their nations.

I am pleased to hear that our Youth Forum was in dialogue with Ministers yesterday.

And I am pleased to confirm that the communiqué which Kuala Lumpur sends to Port of Spain will be read and responded to.

The final issue is born of the current combination of – or competition between – crises and challenges, immediate problems and longer-term potential.

Its backdrop is a severe economic downturn which may bring short-term pain to the developed world, but which may also bring severe longer-term reversals to a developing world which has little of the necessary resilience or cushions to deal with it.

That downturn has its inevitable effects on the social sector, including education.

We are indeed in straitened times, and we are seeing the knock-on ill effects on education.

I see this when I read that countries which face the biggest challenges in Commonwealth education if they are even to move ‘towards’ the MDGs, let alone ‘beyond’ them, are having to slash their education and health budgets – and radically..

But we cannot sacrifice education to expediency, nor our future to our present.

Education remains the best investment we can possibly make.

Which is why I wish to end by drawing your attention to the Commonwealth Scholarships and Fellowships Programme which – 50 glorious years and 25,000 alumni later – is launching an Endowment Fund this year, indeed at this very meeting.

The fundraising unfolds under the banner line ‘Once in a lifetime’.

It is indeed a once in a lifetime opportunity to change not just a young person’s life, but the life of a community to which that person returns.

It is also a once in a lifetime opportunity for all Commonwealth governments, rich and poor, to launch a new stream of scholarships and fellowships, in which the student exchange goes not only from South to North, but from South to South, and North to South.

This represents the wisest investment in our future, in our values, and in our networks.

We applaud those countries that have already taken a decisive lead in this venture: the Fund is already worth some £1.5 million.

And I thank those of your governments which have been in contact with me or my colleagues, indicating your intention to contribute to the Fund.

I strongly urge you to do so.

It would indeed be a practical act of commitment and faith, and true to the theme of this Meeting: it would be an act of looking ‘towards’ and especially ‘beyond’ our education goals.

It would be the surest investment in our unseen guests at this Kuala Lumpur table ... those with whom I began these remarks ... the millions of young children who will inherit and shape the 21^st Century.

I thank you, and wish us all a resoundingly successful 17th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers.

ENDS

In the event, at the last minute Mr Sharma was unable to deliver the speech. Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General Ransford Smith stood in for him.