Educating every child key to countries’ growth: Speakers – The Peninsula

Educating every child key to countries’ growth: Speakers – The Peninsula

Panellists at a Doha Forum session yesterday emphasised that education was a basic human right that should be provided to every child without discrimination. They urged the international community to do more to ensure access to quality education, especially for girls.

The panellist said depriving a child of education had consequences to the development of the community and a country’s economy.

The panel discussion on ‘Audacious Goals: Making Them Work on The Ground’ featured Board Chair, Global Partnership for Education, and former President of Tanzania, H E Jakaya Kikwete; activist and Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai; Director General Qatar Fund for Development H E Khalifa Jassim Al Kuwari; and Executive Director Unicef, H E Catherine Russell. Board Member Educate Girls, India, Safeena Husain, moderated the event.

Kikwete said the biggest challenge in providing education to every child is that too many children are out of school. “Our ambition in Global Partnership for Education (GPE) is to provide quality education to every single child. It sounds simple, but it is not easy because too many children are out of school and girls are in the majority,” said Kikwete.

“GPE is dedicated to bringing quality education for most marginalised children. When we began 20 years ago, we