Working towards global education equity

Jessica Ball (child and youth care) is one of 15 world experts asked to join the Brookings Institute research task force to create a research agenda in support of the Global Compact on Learning (GLC). The GLC is a multi-donor initiative focused on closing the gap in education equity for over 75 million children of primary school age who are not enrolled in school, including 88 per cent of children in Africa and Asia, and children whose learning is disrupted by political conflict or emergencies.Ball’s international reputation in the areas of mother-tongue based, multilingual education and parent-child interactions that stimulate cognitive and social development earned her a place on the task force. Driven by the global Education for All (EFA) movement and the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), some progress has been made, but knowledge gaps are one of the barriers to innovative policies and practices that could contribute to reaching out-of-school children with formal and non-formal education that is economically, culturally and geographically accessible and safe. The group met in mid-March at UNESCO in Paris and will convene again at the Comparative and International Education Society conference in Puerto Rico in mid-April.