QNA/Doha
HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, the Chairperson of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, has underlined that education is a right of all human beings as it represents, indisputably, the environment in which the future, the development and common dreams are formulated.
HH the Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser attending the opening of the 4th Wise Summit. Also attending the summit as guests of Sheikha Moza are (left to right) Irina Bokova, Unesco Director General, Amina Erdogan, First Lady of Turkey and Tatjana Josipovic, First Lady of Croatia. PICTURE: AR Al-Baker
Addressing the opening ceremony of the fourth edition of the World Innovation Summit for Education (Wise) at the Qatar National Convention Centre here yesterday, Sheikha Moza said: “If we strengthen the fact that education is everyone’s right, then we will eliminate many social, economic, political and security problems that are the results of the failure to realise this human right”.
HH Sheikha Moza noted that despite the international efforts in the field of education, there are still serious deficiencies that require serious co-operation to accomplish change.
In mid-September, Sheikha Moza said, the world leaders in the United Nations, renewed their pledge to give all the children of the world primary education by year 2015. “This requires a comprehensive international effort, whose result would move us in the future from addressing this issue to confronting other challenges”.
“And here we annually meet under the umbrella of Wise to set a culture of innovation in education, and renewal in innovation, while we’re all aware that education is a field that combines all issues. Education can lead countries to prosperity or to ruin... 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... Civilisation or lagging behind...
“With education, we establish either the values of peace or the values of war. And the historic value of your annual conference stems from all the above,” Sheikha Moza said.
She noted that it is not an emergency occasion for meeting, but rather an annual gathering that becomes busy, throughout the year, with the projects and topics of innovation in education that the participants have agreed upon.
Sheikha Moza stressed that “the need for innovation in how to meet the challenges of education and stimulate the spirit of innovation requires a qualitative work that can meet our need for quality education, just as sustainable development requires sustainable education and exceptional problems require exceptional solutions”.
She said that perhaps one of Wise’s pioneering features lies in the support and generalisation of innovative and scalable projects applicable to various environments within an innovation network based on co-operation and continuous co-ordination.
HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser meeting Amina Erdogan, First Lady of Turkey, at the 2012 Wise Summit in Doha. PICTURE: Aisha al-Musallam
Sheikha Moza underlined that the project of “Brac” institution” in Bangladesh, whose founder Fadel Hasan Obeid has won the Wise Prize in 2011, is considered as a good example of the support of innovative solutions in order to meet such conditions.
“There marshy areas impeded the possibility of establishing schools until the Brac institution provided an innovative solution that might be called the “floating schools” through gathering students in classrooms on boats that were prepared for the purposes of education and transportation.
“Last month when I visited one of these schools, to have a close look on the project, I was astonished by the unlimited human capacity to challenge difficulties and tame nature conditions,” Sheikha Moza said.
“That’s the role of Wise, which we look forward to expand in creating a relationship of communication and knowledge between the tough issues and those who are capable of innovating effective solutions,” she underlined.
Sheikha Moza noted that Wise currently heads towards a new social contract through a number of programmes; “however, the completion of the change in education dictates a moral and practical obligation on everyone to contribute to these efforts that will not succeed if you do not believe in real and effective partnership.
“Each one of us, starting from his own country or institution, can proceed with this change in the context of his quest to instill a culture of innovation in education; however, the act of knowledge in general and the creation of the innovation culture in particular require a collective action of co-operation and co-ordination in order to achieve the common goals,” she said.
Sheikha Moza invited the participants to attend today the launch of a new initiative that would contribute in putting practical solutions to send students who are deprived of education back to school.