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When third grade students in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda were asked recently to read a sentence such as “The name of the dog is Puppy” in English or Kiswahili, three-quarters did not understand what it said. In rural India, nearly three-quarters of students in third grade could not solve a two-digit subtraction such as “46 – 17 = ?” In Brazil, although the skills of 15-year-old students have improved, at their current rate of improvement they will not reach the rich-country average score in math for 75 years. These statistics do not account for 260 million children who are not enrolled in primary or secondary school. “This learning crisis is a moral and economic crisis,” Jim Yong Kim, President, World Bank Group Casa Luker, a Colombian food company, founded the Luker Foundation in 1994. Luker Foundation’s mission is to foster social and economic development through collaborative and high impact projects in education and entrepreneurship. It focuses on developing and promoting high quality public education system by partnering with public, private and academic partners. To contribute to the development of city of Manizales, the foundation works to strengthen the entrepreneurial eco-system of the city, by supporting high potential ventures and startups. |
On the same continent, The Inspirare Institute in Brazil is dedicated to innovate in public policy to improve quality of education in Brazil. Inspirare’s work is focused on mapping, producing, sharing and disseminating information on innovations in education. Inspirare’s programs are guided by “Innovative Holistic Education”, an approach that aims at developing students in all facets of life and answering demands of todays labor market. The institute en- gages with education departments at all levels - national, state and municipality. KEY CONCLUSIONS “We have a 19th century school model, run by 20th century teachers for 21st century pupils.” To sum up challenges in education, there is a lack of quality, equity, relevance Youth should be active stakeholders in transformational educational processes Education and employment are interlinked and successive processes Partnerships with governments are crucial to scale up and impact education policy Existing business infrastructure are pathways to scale Holistic educational policies are needed Local solutions for local barriers (transport/lunch/tech barriers) |