WISE On Air

Africa is the birthplace of humanity. The place where Homo Sapiens evolved language, built increasingly complex tools, and took the first tentative steps on a journey that would see our species populate the entire world.

If Africa represents humanity’s distant past, it also, in many respects, represents its future. Most of the world’s growth in population today, and for the foreseeable future, is taking place in Africa.

The UN projects that by 2090, around half of all children under the age of 15 will be in Africa. It does not take a giant leap of the imagination to conclude that the education of those children is of crucial importance, not just for the continent itself, but for the entire world.

To help us understand the state of education in Africa, President and Co-Founder of NewGlobe, Shannon May joins Host and CEO of WISE, Stavros Yiannouka, in conversation.

NewGlobe is the largest supporter of technology-enabled schools across Africa, supporting national and state governments and communities across the continent.

Tune in to hear Shannon discuss the overall state of education in Africa pre-pandemic, education responses to the pandemic, parental engagement, the status and appreciation of teachers, and many more topics, including a special section towards the end featuring Education Editor of the Financial Times, Andrew Jack reflecting on the conversation.

-------------------------------------------------

Relevant links:

NewGlobe: https://newglobe.education/

Follow Shannon May: https://twitter.com/drshannonmay?lang=en

Follow Andrew Jack: https://twitter.com/AJack?s=20

Financial Times Education: https://www.ft.com/education

-------------------------------------------------

Check out more from WISE and send us your thoughts!

If you enjoyed this episode, would you consider leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It really helps out the show and we would greatly appreciate it.

Website: wise-qatar.org

Twitter: twitter.com/WISE_Tweets

Instagram: @wiseqatar

Facebook: facebook.com/wiseqatar/

Linkedin: bit.ly/2JKThYf

Europe is the world's wealthiest continent and the first region in the world to modernize. The scientific and industrial revolutions began in Europe and the first recognizably modern administrative states were established there, with the possible exception of China. Europe's fragmentation into competing empires and nation-states is seen as both a strength and a weakness.

Given the historical context, it is not surprising that Europe's policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic was far from uniform, even in the collective structures of the EU. When it comes to education priorities for the post-pandemic era, can Europe reprise its role as the world's policy innovation laboratory?

To help answer this question, Senior Analyst at the OECD Center for Educational Research & Innovation, Tracey Burns joins us in the latest episode of our special series focusing on post-pandemic priorities for the future of education.

-------------------------------------------------

Relevant links:

Trends shaping education: https://www.oecd.org/education/ceri/trends-shaping-education.htm

21st century children: https://www.oecd.org/education/ceri/21st-century-children.htm

Strenghtening the impact of educational research: https://www.oecd.org/education/ceri/education-research-team.htm

Tracey's recent publications:

https://www.oecd.org/education/back-to-the-future-s-of-education-178ef527-en.htm

https://www.oecd.org/education/education-in-the-digital-age-1209166a-en.htm

https://www.oecd.org/digital/educating-21st-century-children-b7f33425-en.htm

-------------------------------------------------

Check out more from WISE and send us your thoughts!

If you enjoyed this episode, would you consider leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It really helps out the show and we would greatly appreciate it.

Website: wise-qatar.org

Twitter: twitter.com/WISE_Tweets

Instagram: @wiseqatar

Facebook: facebook.com/wiseqatar/

Linkedin: bit.ly/2JKThYf

Claudia Costin is the founder and director of the Center for Excellence and Innovation in Education Policies (FGV CEIPE), a think and do tank within Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV), a leading private University in Brazil, where she is a professor. Claudia was until 2018 a visiting Professor at the Harvard School of Education.

Brazil is the most populous country and the largest economy in Latin America. It is home to over 650 million people, about a third of whom live in just one country. The region is currently where some of the world’s most intractable challenges confronting the world are present in their most acute forms. For example, according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America & the Caribbean, the region is the most unequal part of the world, notwithstanding positive economic growth.

Claudia Costin joins us to help navigate through recent developments in Brazil and the broader Latin American region, and to discuss post-pandemic priorities for the future of education in the region.

-------------------------------------------------

Relevant links:

Follow Claudia: https://bit.ly/2RO0IW5

Learn more about Claudia: https://bit.ly/3vrO2CV

-------------------------------------------------

Check out more from WISE and send us your thoughts!

If you enjoyed this episode, would you consider leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It really helps out the show and we would greatly appreciate it.

Website: wise-qatar.org

Twitter: twitter.com/WISE_Tweets

Instagram: @wiseqatar

Facebook: facebook.com/wiseqatar/

Linkedin: bit.ly/2JKThYf

Berlin Fang is an education columnist and currently serves as the Director of Instructional Design at Abilene Christian University. His major interests are faculty acceptance of educational technology, the diffusion of innovation, managed change, academic integrity, the ethnography of technology use in higher education, and cross-cultural comparisons of education. Prior to this, he was the Associate Director of North Institute at Oklahoma Christian University, Instructional Design Specialist for Marshall University, and program manager for the American Management Association (China). He graduated from Syracuse University with an M.S. in instructional design and Nanjing University with an M.A. in English Language and Literature.

In this episode, we sit down with Berlin to discuss China’s post-pandemic priorities for the future of education.

China is the world’s most populous country and its second-largest economy. Current growth trends suggest that China is poised to overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy within the next 6-7 years. China has a long and rich tradition of formal education that can be traced all the way back to the Han Dynasty. Coming out of the pandemic, will we see a transformation in China’s long-rooted education system? Berlin Fang helps us navigate these emerging trends and paint a picture for what the future holds for China’s role in education.

-------------------------------------------------

Relevant links:

Berlin Fang's website: berlinfangblog.wordpress.com

Ten Common Myths about Educational Innovations: bit.ly/2UT08Vs

-------------------------------------------------

Check out more from WISE and send us your thoughts!

If you enjoyed this episode, would you consider leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It really helps out the show and we would greatly appreciate it.

Website: wise-qatar.org

Twitter: twitter.com/WISE_Tweets

Instagram: @wiseqatar

Facebook: facebook.com/wiseqatar/

Linkedin: bit.ly/2JKThYf

Rukmini Banerji is the CEO of the Pratham Education Foundation, India's and the world's largest education NGO. Rukmini has been with Pratham since 1996 and has extensive field experience in program design implementation in both rural and urban settings. She also led Pratham's research and assessment activities, including the groundbreaking ASER report from 2005 to 2014.

In this episode, we sit down with Rukmini to discuss India’s post-pandemic priorities for the future of education.

India is the world’s second-most populous country and is projected to overtake China in just four years to become the world’s most populous country with 1.45 billion people. India already has the world’s largest school-age population: around 250 million children aged between 5-15. That’s 20% of the world’s total and to put that figure further into perspective, the equivalent figure for China is around 170 million.

How India will cope with the education fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic will have profound implications not just for the lives of a significant population of the world’s young, but for the world as a whole given the important role India plays and will play in the supply of skilled labor.

Read the ASER 2020 Wave 1 report: pratham.org/2020/10/28/aser-2020-wave-1-findings/

Follow Pratham: twitter.com/Pratham_India

Follow Andrew Jack: twitter.com/AJack

Subscribe to the Financial Times: ft.com/education

-------------------------------------------------

Check out more from WISE and send us your thoughts!

If you enjoyed this episode, would you consider leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It really helps out the show and we would greatly appreciate it.

Website: wise-qatar.org

Twitter: twitter.com/WISE_Tweets

Instagram: @wiseqatar

Facebook: facebook.com/wiseqatar/

Linkedin: bit.ly/2JKThYf

Rebecca Winthrop is a senior fellow and co-director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution.

Her research focuses on education globally, with special attention to the skills young people need to thrive in work, life, and as constructive citizens. She advises governments, international institutions, foundations, civil society organizations, and corporations on education issues.

Winthrop has authored numerous articles, reports, books, and book chapters, including most recently Leapfrogging Inequality: Remaking Education to Help Young People Thrive with Adam Barton and Eileen McGivney. Her work has been featured in the BBC, Newsweek, Time Ideas, NPR, Economist, and The Financial Times, among others.

Rebecca joins us to discuss Brooking's new taskforce assembled to guide the next generation of community schools in the US, the scale of the learning loss in the US, building back better, and much more.

Listen to the full episode for a special section featuring Global Education Editor of the Financial Times, Andrew Jack, discuss the key outcomes of the discussion.

Timestamps:

00:00:00: Introduction

00:04:02: What's been keeping Rebecca busy this past year?

00:07:22: Brooking's Next Generation Schools Task Force

00:16:12: What's the scale of the learning loss?

00:17:22: The effects of COVID are felt very differently

00:21:04: Are we really building back better?

00:28:16: Bringing students, parents, and teachers onboard with change

00:35:34: What the Biden-Harris administration can do in 2021

00:38:16: Lightening the bureaucratic load of testing in schools

00:42:28: Why is it so hard to change or replace programs?

00:45:02: The role of parents and family engagement education

00:47:06: What would it take to get us to leapfrog and not revert?

00:49:24: Andrew Jack's initial response

00:52:42: A remote world raising the status of teachers

00:53:58: Are schools going to revert or fundamentally change?

00:58:26: The UK debate on extending the academic year

01:02:34: Reopening schools - where we stand globally

01:05:48: Academic discipline cut to identifying learning loss

01:08:36: What policymakers are thinking

01:11:45: The role of media in supporting education

Read Brooking's Report on the next generation of Community Schools: https://brook.gs/3l7kx4P

Subscribe to the Financial Times: ft.com/education

Follow Rebecca Winthrop: twitter.com/RebeccaWinthrop

Follow Andrew Jack: twitter.com/AJack

-------------------------------------------------

Check out more from WISE and send us your thoughts!

If you enjoyed this episode, would you consider leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It really helps out the show and we would greatly appreciate it.

Website: wise-qatar.org

Twitter: twitter.com/WISE_Tweets

Instagram: @wiseqatar

Facebook: facebook.com/wiseqatar/

Linkedin: bit.ly/2JKThYf

2020 is a year that can be described in infinite ways, but one thing is for sure is that on top of the new obstacles introduced by the ongoing crisis, many of the long-term challenges we have faced in our education systems have been exposed or even exacerbated. In response to this, for the past year, we saw a global community of educators, practitioners, policymakers, and organizations come together on multiple occasions to share their experiences and discuss solutions not only in terms of an emergency response to the pandemic but even addressing longstanding issues that have plagued many educations systems around the world.

In this episode, we take a look back at some of 2020's key takeaways from our 20+ episodes released amid COVID-19 and beyond.

-------------------------------------------------

Check out more from WISE and send us your thoughts!

Website: www.wise-qatar.org

Twitter: twitter.com/WISE_Tweets

Instagram: wiseqatar

Facebook: www.facebook.com/wiseqatar/

Linkedin: bit.ly/2JKThYf

Sherrie Westin serves as President of Social Impact and Philanthropy at education nonprofit Sesame Workshop, the organization behind Sesame Street. 

In her time at Sesame Workshop, she has led countless efforts to serve vulnerable children through mass media and targeted initiatives in the United States and around the world. Westin led Sesame’s efforts to win a historic $100M grant from the MacArthur Foundation to fund the largest early childhood intervention in the history of humanitarian response. With an additional $100M grant from The Lego Foundation, this initiative has expanded to Bangladesh. She was named a “Leading Global Thinker” by Foreign Policy Magazine and one of Fast Company’s “100 Most Creative People in Business”. 

Sherrie joins us to discuss the legacy of Sesame Workshop, how they are adapting to the new normal, and what we can do to continue building greater resilience in children.

Can VR transform education? HTC China President Alvin Wang Graylin has over 20 years of experience in tech business management, including 15 years focusing on industries in greater China. During that time, you could consider him a serial entrepreneur - he’s founded four venture-backed startups in the mobile and internet space covering social media, ad tech, search, big data, and media. Additionally, he has held $100+ million P&L roles at public companies such as Intel and Trend Micro. Alvin received his BS in electrical engineering from the University of Washington, MS in computer science from MIT, and MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. In this episode, Alvin talks about how VR has evolved throughout the years, how we can use it to harness the potential of virtual learning, and how it gives us the ability to restore our human interaction in the virtual space.

-------------------------------------------------

Relevant links:

HTC: https://www.vive.com/eu/

Vive XR Suite: https://www.vive.com/cn/xr-suite-en/

Follow Alvin: https://twitter.com/AGraylin

-------------------------------------------------

Check out more from WISE and send us your thoughts!

Website: www.wise-qatar.org

Twitter: twitter.com/WISE_Tweets

Instagram: wiseqatar

Facebook: www.facebook.com/wiseqatar/

Linkedin: bit.ly/2JKThYf

Meet the 2020 WISE Awards winners: https://bit.ly/3kNrBTq

-------------------------------------------------

Nisha Ligon is the Co-Founder and CEO of 2017 WISE Awards winning education project, Ubongo - the leading kids edutainment company across Africa. Ubongo leverages the reach of mass media, the stickiness of stories, animation and music, and the interactivity of mobile technology to bring millions of kids across Africa fun learning at low cost. Ubongo’s multiplatform edutainment reaches millions of kids aged 3-14 weekly on TV, radio, mobile and web.

-------------------------------------------------

Relevant links:

Ubongo: https://www.ubongo.org

-------------------------------------------------

Check out more from WISE and send us your thoughts!

Website: www.wise-qatar.org

Twitter: twitter.com/WISE_Tweets

Instagram: wiseqatar

Facebook: www.facebook.com/wiseqatar/

Linkedin: bit.ly/2JKThYf