Originally published on 28 April 2015 on www.boldface.com.au:
I had the most amazing work opportunity and experience in the last six months. I was hired by the Global Monitoring Report (GMR) team to be the editor for their 2015 report, Education for All 2000–2015: Achievements and Challenges.
This involved working at UNESCO’s office in Paris for a few months with a dedicated and intelligent group of researchers, and to learn about the status of education around the world.
While education isn’t an area that I’m expert in, I welcomed the opportunity to learn about a new field, and I saw my role as an editor to provide an outside perspective: the report is meant to be as accessible as possible, and to be read by both experts and students, in universities and in communities.
I was shocked by what I learned: still so much illiteracy in the world, children out of school, mostly in conflict-affected areas, and kids being taught by teachers who have no more than primary education. The social justice issues that I’ve been involved seem almost a luxury when so many kids aren’t being taught to read or write.
This editorial, How We Can Make Education For All A Reality, by a Nobel Peace Prize winner, from the Huffington Post is a good overview of successes, failures and lessons.
The report was released and launched in April 2015 and is available online.
Update: While I had a break, I’m back as the structural editor for the GEM Reports, doing my editing from Australia rather than in Paris. I still love working with this team and learning about the latest developments in education. Visit the report here.