IB University Presidents’ Symposium

Dear Friends:

Thank you for the opportunity to be with you this evening. Thanks to Tim for the kind invitation. The education of future generations is an issue of great importance to the United Nations and to me personally so I very much appreciate being here to discuss this challenge with such a distinguished group of educators.

It is a particular pleasure to be with you as there is a special relationship between the IB and the United Nations in Geneva. As you know, the IB was developed by teachers at the International School of Geneva - a school that was initially established by the community around the League of Nations - the precursor to our United Nations today. The values of dialogue, tolerance and understanding across cultures and countries, which underpinned the League and which are now the foundation of the United Nations, have been embedded in the IB through this historical link. The IB is all about education for a better world, and here the principles and activities of the United Nations and the IB programme intersect.

With this in mind, the focus of my remarks this evening will exactly be on values. An issue that we often shy away from at the international level because it is complex and we prefer to stay in our comfort zone of technical assistance and processes. But I believe that our world is such that we need to leave that comfort zone and have a more honest discussion of what binds us together as a human family and where we are headed.

I would like to share with you a few reflections on the importance of the work of the United Nations today and in the years ahead, the implications that I see for our needs in education - in the IB as well as at university level – and why we need to place values at the heart of this work.

Discussion about education - about who we educate and how we educate them - is very much on the global agenda. When I was at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos at the beginning of the year, one of the main themes was the disconnect that many businesses experience between the skills-base that they need in a rapidly-evolving market place and the tools that new graduates bring with them. The contradictory situation of a shortage of certain skills and high levels of unemployed graduates was discussed, as it has been in many other contexts. How we strike an appropriate balance between equity and excellence in education, by enabling access to decent education at a reasonable cost for as many as possible while maintaining a high level of learning and research output, is a recurring debate – and one which you are only too familiar with, I am sure.

All of this is critical, but I think we need to have a deeper reflection on the foundation on which our education is based and how that is linked to broader challenges.

Let me therefore start with a few words about the need for the United Nations today and in the years ahead, which explains why I think this is necessary:

If you only read the mainstream media, it is easy to form the impression that the United Nations and indeed other international organizations are not effective and have limited impact.

But that is a narrow, unbalanced and - often - uninformed view of what the United Nations is and what it does. There is not one person who is not touched by what the United Nations does in any one 24-hour period. Most of us just don’t know it - if we do know, we are not recognizing the profound impact.

The United Nations system sets norms and policies that make our world function, it provides technical assistance, it addresses humanitarian emergencies and promotes human rights for all - and everything in between and beyond. The United Nations shapes all of our lives.

But more importantly, the United Nations provides a table where all countries come together and discuss the challenges ahead, regardless of their size and political weight. It is also a table where they will need to face the priorities and concerns of others, even if they do not agree. It is a forum where it is possible to air and resolve differences in a peaceful manner, and to find solutions to complex challenges in a spirit of partnership.

If we look at the key trends in our world today, I believe that the need for such a table at the global level will only grow. It is a world of ever greater fragmentation where many decisions are increasingly taken by smaller entities and at different levels. We experience the fundamental altering of the role of the State in terms of its importance relative to other stakeholders and in the way that it delivers. It is also a world where individuals are more connected than ever through technology, and where technology determines our expectations.

It is a world where the challenges we face are more interlinked than ever and cannot be neatly separated. Climate change – as the overriding existential challenge – is an environmental challenge, for example, but with deep and lasting development and security implications. It cannot be addressed simply through a one-sided environmental or an economic approach, or by only some groups in isolation. It calls for a combination of tools - different policy incentives, better and different use of technology, action at individual level - and above all, a much deeper reflection on the paradigm of consumption-led growth that is the foundation of most of our economic models.

It is a world of contradictions: a world where we have never been this connected but where an expanding number of people feel disenfranchised, and where some choose to react in a violent manner to this sentiment. It is a world of great opportunities, but where access to these opportunities is unevenly shared.

This adds up to a world of divisions and distrust on a number of levels. The worrying and growing trust deficit is caused by a combination of unfulfilled expectations and a sense that the rules of the game can be discarded with impunity and growing feelings of injustice. We see this at the geopolitical level, with growing distrust among some countries. And we see this on a daily basis, with individuals losing trust in institutions and leaders.

How does this then connect with the education we provide?

The trust deficit is, in my view, one of the most pressing challenges we face - and one which cuts across all other challenges. Trust is what binds our world together. Like respect, trust is very hard to regain once lost, and it is complex to teach how to build trust and how to have trust in others. It is as nebulous as it is important.

We have trust when we believe that there is a level playing field, when the rules that we have agreed on together are respected by all, and where the breaking of the rules is sanctioned, no matter the power and wealth of the transgressor.
There has been much focus on defining and refining curricula that connect with global agendas such as human rights education, sustainable development education and others. It not only teaches concrete approaches, but also helps to connect individual action with broader global challenges and reinforces the notion that we all have a responsibility for the impact of our actions. This is welcome and must be reinforced.

I believe that we need to sharpen our focus on the underlying values that we teach. Values such as empathy, solidarity, equity and justice need to be placed at the centre. This does not take away from the challenge of ensuring that education corresponds to the skills that are needed in the work force and in a knowledge society where the requirements often shift more rapidly than education can adapt. But they provide the essential foundation for these skills.

In a world of complex and cross-cutting challenges, we need leaders who recognize the connections across issues and have the capacity to consider different dimensions, perspectives and angles of challenges. In a world of ever-greater interaction, we need leaders who can understand and process multiple levels of identities, and realize that the national interest is served through multilateral solutions that are not a zero-sum game.

This is not to say, of course, that such value-based education does not exist. I do believe, however, that we need to enhance that focus and be more explicit about it so that it is clear what the broader context is and how we fit into it as individuals.

We will soon live in a world of some 8 billion people. Most of them will be connected to our global community through the Internet and social media. We need to make sure that they use this increasing empowerment constructively. This goes far beyond technical skills. We need to be conscious of the global context in which these skills will be used. Engineers, physicists and chemists need to be aware of where their science is being used and how they can use their knowledge to further the common good, just as much as the social scientists need to.

Against this background, then what are our opportunities now?

I believe that we are at a crucial point in global governance, with far-reaching ramifications for how we educate and what we teach. This year, key policy frameworks on development and its financing, on disaster risk reduction and on climate change are being put in place by our Member States - all of them supported by extensive consultation processes to take into account the views of other stakeholder groups. Not faultless processes, but certainly much more inclusive and sensitive to different groups than any previous policy exercises at the global level. These will determine our actions for decades to come. And we will not have another chance to get them right for a long time.

The real test of their value will come in implementation. If they are to truly make a difference, they need to be supported and reinforced at all levels - not least by individual action. And here educators will be essential.

Education was not only one of the key objectives of the Millennium Development Goals, agreed in the year 2000, but will also be so in the Sustainable Development Goals – the SDGs – that are expected to be adopted later this year.

There are currently 17 draft goals, which are widely expected to remain unchanged until adoption in September. SDG number 4 promises to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”.
The realization of this goal is to be measured through a set of targets. There are now 10 of these targets with respect to education. Some of them refer to provision of primary education and early childhood development. But one of them is of particular interest in our discussion today, namely the target that sets out the ambition to “ensure all learners acquire knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including among others through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship, and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development”. This is to be achieved by 2030.

Both the overall goal and the specific target that I just highlighted are interesting in that they go far beyond the traditional quantitative focus on enrolment numbers at various levels, and they connect values and global action. This really is an ambition of education for a better world - at all stages of the learning cycle. This is a much more profound change in our global frameworks on education than I think many are aware of.

Education has the power to transform not only individuals, but entire societies. To unlock this potential, we need a more holistic and a more comprehensive approach to learning for all, across life. We have the possibility to do that now more than ever if we work together to place the right values at the heart of education - from primary school through university and through life-long learning.

We look to you for a close partnership to achieve this objective together.

Thank you very much.