How to tackle the education funding crisis

08 Dec 2010

 The second day of the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) in Qatar focused on the problems of funding education at a time of global austerity.

I chaired the second plenary session of the day, which looked at how local, national and global education projects might find new sources of funding in the current economic climate, in which governments are cutting back on spending and donors are less willing to dip into their pockets.

The suggestions included: an airline tax (similar to the idea used for raising money for tackling HIV/AIDS), a tax on financial transactions, and an educational equivalent of carbon credits.  

The speakers highlighted the funding challenge in different areas: the challenge to bring education to the 69 million children in the world still without primary schools; the restoration of the New Orleans school system destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, and the need to challenge extremism  by providing education to poor children in Pakistan.

The speakers included:

• Irina Bokova, Director General, UNESCO
• Steen Jorgensen, The World Bank
• Mushtaq Chhapra, The Citizens Foundation, Pakistan
• Dr Scott Cowen, President, Tulane University, New Orleans.

You can watch the debate here: web.dbee.com/wise/20101207_am/en/index2.php

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