Jennifer Boyle co-chairs Varkey Foundation’s Global Citizenship Education Alliance

13 April 2017

Our Executive Director, Jennifer Boyle, and Senior Program Director, Deborah Cunningham, recently traveled to Dubai for the Varkey Foundation’s Global Education and Skills Forum. Jennifer was selected, along with co-chair Nafisa Shekhova (Aga Khan Foundation), by the Varkey Foundation to lead the Global Citizenship Education Alliance. Established at the Forum, the Global Citizenship Education Alliance will address a shift in the role and purpose of education from literacy and numeracy alone to that of forging more just, peaceful, tolerant and inclusive societies.

The co-chairs commented, “There is urgency in increasing attention towards Global Citizenship Education to counter the rising trends of nationalism and xenophobia.  Education is vital for countering these trends and cultivating the knowledge skills, and values that prepare all children to be active, productive, and informed citizens of their respective countries and our global world."

Vikas Pota, Chief Executive of the Varkey Foundation, stated, "I think the big question within the theme of global citizenship education is how do we make real global citizens? There is so much talk about global citizenship in the world, but very few real-life examples of how this is actually being done. I hope this alliance will be able to shed light on these very real challenges around defining the concept of global citizenship."

The alliance is a multi-stakeholder collaboration, which includes the following individuals: Fernando Reimers (Harvard Graduate School of Education), Elisa Guerra-Cruz (Colegio Valle de Filadelfia, Mexico), Jordan Shapiro (Forbes), Anthony Jackson (Asia Society), Sveinn Ostveit (UNESCO), Yi Wang (United World Colleges), Angela Salt (Tony Blair Faith Foundation), Luis Enrique García de Brigard (Former deputy secretary of education in Colombia), Tony Little (GEMS Schools), Shabria Saifi (Student, GEMS Westminster Academy) and Angelo Riccaboni (Rector of the University of Siena).

The Global Education and Skills Forum Alliances are a network of invitation-only groups that convene and collaborate around key education-related subjects with the central purpose of stimulating new dialogue, shaping agendas and driving new initiatives.