DOHA THEEmir His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani and Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Qatar Foundation attended the opening session of the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) at the Qatar National Convention Centre on Tuesday.
Addressing the delegates at the opening ceremony, HH Sheikha Moza called for comprehensive international efforts to provide primary education for all children by 2015. To underline her point, HH Sheikha Moza said, “This requires a comprehensive international effort, whose results would drive us in the future to move from addressing this issue to confronting other challenges.
Education is one of the fundamental rights of all human beings as it creates the environment in which the future, the development and common dreams take shape.” She underlined that collaboration was the key to success and that “exceptional problems require exceptional solutions.” HH Sheikha Moza noted that despite the international efforts in the field of education, there are still serious deficiencies that require serious cooperation to accomplish change.
She explained, “If the problems of education strengthen the fact that it is everyone’s right, then we may eliminate many social, economic, political and security problems that are the results of the failure to realise this human right. And here we meet annually under the umbrella of WISE to promote a culture of innovation in education, and renewal of innovation, while we are all aware that education is a field that encompasses all issues.” Sheikha Moza asserted that education made the difference between prosperity and poverty of a country. She pointed out, “It is through education that the collective mind of the community is formed. It is with education that we draw the features of the future, a future that should always be new and innovative. With education, we choose either progress or backwardness. She stressed the need for innovation to meet the challenges of education. Sheikha Moza also noted that WISE currently was heading towards a new social contract through a number of programmes.
“However, for the change to come in education, everyone is required to put themselves under a moral obligation to contribute to these efforts that will not succeed if you do not believe in real and effective partnership,” she added.
WISE Chairman Dr Abdualla Ali al Thani said that it was a moment to reflect on the tasks that “lie before us and to work on them during the next three days.” He said, “Standing still is not an option when we know progress is possible. In its short history, WISE has identified many islands of excellence. All over the world, individuals and organisations are doing wonderful work, often in difficult circumstances.
We must learn from them; we must discover how to expand, replicate, adopt and adapt to these winning practices while respecting the rich diversity of cultures as seen in our auditorium today.
And there is no time to lose; we must not delay our response.” He added that the fastest way to make progress was through collaboration “as innovation often comes from sharing ideas and experience.” During a panel discussion at the inaugural session, experts discussed various ways of collaboration to make education for all a reality, and deliberated on the challenges facing education as well as the ways to overcome them.
Director-General of UNESCO Irina Bokova, assistant to the president of the Russian Federation Andrey Fursenko and Senior Vice-President of ExxonMobil Corporation Andrew P Swiger took part in the discussion. They opined that “education makes all development goals sustainable as education is part of the global political agenda.”
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