By Fazeena Saleem
DOHA: With a fresh call to the world community to determine in assuring education for the deprived children, the sixth World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE 2014) concluded yesterday in the presence of H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser.
The three-day summit held under the theme ‘Imagine-Create-learn: Creativity at the Heart of Education’ focused at new methods which could help in delivering education, especially in reaching out to the marginalised children.
“For over six years WISE has facilitated collaboration in increasing access, quality and relevance at all levels of education around the world. This year’s summit highlighted the role of creativity in finding and implementing solutions,” said Dr Sheikh Abdulla bin Ali Al Thani, Chairman of WISE.
“With renewed determination to find fresh ways to tackle the problem of access to quality education at all levels and all localities,” he further said.
Ann Cotton the 2014 WISE Prize for Education Laureate shared her experience in helping African girls in reaching out to secondary education. She said that the WISE prize would help her in expanding the work to more countries.
Since 1991, Cotton has led efforts to improve opportunities for girls and young women at the margins of education and has already benefitted more than three million children in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ghana, Tanzania, and Malawi.
“We are committing this (the cash prize of WISE worth $500,000) to million girls that we will support through secondary education over the next five years…… We will be continuing our work and expanding our work to other places,” she said.
Calling more than 1500 delegates at the summit to act fast on supporting marliginalised children in education Cootton said, “Join now, there is no time to lose.”
Engineer Saad Al Muhannadi, President of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, said the Summit yet again reinforced the objectives of Qatar Foundation ensuring the importance of education for all.
“Education is where our work at Qatar Foundation began and today is still the starting point of all our initiatives. It is fundamental to Qatar’s development as a modern knowledge-based economy and is one of the most important investments a country can make in its people and its future. Qatar Foundation’s mandate is to be Qatar’s leading platform for exchanging knowledge and opinions and developing its key pillar of education that benefits our country, the surrounding region, and the wider world. Our initiatives such as WISE serve as a global reference in education that addresses many of the educational challenges faced around the world.”
A closing plenary session with Dr Jack Lang, former French Minister of Culture and Education and President of Arab World Institute in Paris, Sarah M Kamal Al Emadi, WISE Learner from Qatar and Charles Leadbeater, Chairman, Apps for Good highlighted the theme of the summit.
WISE 2014 saw several important events including the launch of a four-year education pilot project in the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, ranking of the best universities in the region by US News and World Report, awarding six projects from around the world for their innovative contribution for education and discussed about what to be done in post 2015, once UN’s Millennium Goals, including universal primary education, which is supposed to complete next year.
The Summit also saw the launched the application period for the 2015 WISE Awards, which identify and promote education excellence by recognizing projects that are addressing key education challenges, and are having strong positive impact on individuals and in communities globally. Applications are invited from yesterday until January 15, 2015.
WISE 2015 will be held between November 3 and November 5, 2015The Peninsula
