How Technology Could (and Could Not) Extend Access
Editor’s note: This article is part of a series on how to combat inequalities in participation in higher education. The scale of the challenges where extending access to higher education is concerned looks overwhelming. In sub-Saharan Africa for example, the current higher education enrolment ratio for is 8% but the goal is to increase participation to […]
How Artificial Intelligence Can Save Schools and Parents Money
Most math education in the United States doesn’t add up. A recent survey by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ranked the country 41st in the world for primary school math. Instead of improving its performance since 2003, America’s students actually delivered poorer marks. As the world becomes more and more dependent on technology, […]
Refugee Education: Teaching a Kid to be a Kid Again
Mahmoud faced the sea again. It was only 3 months after he arrived to the island of Lesvos in Greece, near the border with Turkey. “We were 60 people on a boat, we were on the sea for 4 hours and the engine came to an abrupt halt. We thought that was the end […]
Entrepreneurship and Education: Q&A with Badr Jafar
Badr Jafar on the role of social enterprise in addressing socio-economic challenges, and why education must change. • Briefly describe your journey as a social entrepreneur. Born in Sharjah into a family business, I had a very early education on the general nuances of doing business. The social impact element was something I picked up […]
A Lean Startup Approach to Education Development
Millions of Syrian refugee children today lack access to a quality education, leaving them at risk of becoming a lost generation. Unfortunately this is not where the problem ends, but begins. Due to challenges ranging from inequality to poverty to civil war, there are roughly one billion children around the world who don’t receive a […]
Equality in Education and the Elephant
What do you picture when you hear the phrase ‘equal education for all’? I guess that the vision you embrace is often framed by your context. For some ‘equal education for all’ means gender equality, for others it refers to children affected by conflict or refugee situations. For me, working in South Africa, it means […]
Four Things Educators Need to Do to Make Gamification Successful in the Classroom
Over the last few years, educators have been hearing inspiring stories about how incorporating game design techniques into their learning programs have had positive results. The flip side to this story are the times when the results are disappointing and unintended consequences occur. So the question arises: how best can educators ensure that gamification improves […]
Taking Action as Advocacy of Children with Autism
While people with autism often have the tendency not to make eye contact with you, chances are today, you have either seen or met someone with this neurodevelopmental condition, or at least know about it. This is partly due to the voices and the daily grind of the caregivers, educators and service providers of […]
Fixing Higher Education’s Access Problem: Let’s Start With Better Data
Editor’s note: This article is part of a series on how to combat inequalities in participation in higher education. Systemic barriers to accessing higher education (HE) are restricting who benefits from globalisation while fuelling the rise of populist forces across the globe. UNESCO has recognized the problem. One of its 2015 lifelong learning goals […]
Can Universities Save the Enlightenment?
The main challenge for higher education in 2017 is to discern how to educate citizens in a world in which the political philosophy of liberalism, the cornerstone of modern universities, is increasingly challenged by populist and nationalist movements. Universities are a relatively recent invention in the 200,000 or so years in which humans, in […]