Global Education Leaders Program

The Global Education Leaders Program is sponsored and inspired by Cisco. It is designed and delivered by a consortium led by the Innovation Unit, which includes Harvard Graduate School of Education, McKinseys, The Hay Group, Bridge, and the Gates Foundation  

The Innovation Challenge

Education systems need to be transformed, to better meet the needs of businesses and society, and to empower learners to thrive in the 21st Century.

A new approach has been proposed - Education 3.0.

System Leadership is needed to enable the transformation of all of these areas. This means that teacher training and professional development will take new forms; the curriculum will need to balance core subjects, as well as skills for learning; assessment will need to be reshaped to recognise skill development; school leaders will be increasingly held accountable to students, policy makers to citizens; and outcomes need to be more measurable to ensure new approaches are working properly. 

The components of Education 3.0 have been set out in a White Paper published by Cisco - Equipping Every Learner for the 21st Century. These are described in the form of a 'roadmap' which is comprised of:

• 21st Century Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Assessment
• Infrastructure and Technology
• Policies, Procedures and Management
• Leadership, People and Culture.

Above all, this requires a change to the way we learn - a pedagogy for the 21st Century will focus on:

• Putting the learner at the centre and increasing personalisation
• Teachers drawing on an even wider range of strategies and skills
• Introduction and increased us of project work, to develop skills and interdisciplinary working
• Integrating real-life experiences into the classroom, increasing authenticity of the taught material

Underpinning all of this will be the increased use of technology in day-to-day teaching and learning - facilitating skills development and enabling better learning outcomes.

Our Approach

A critical element in developing and implementing Education 3.0 to have a cadre of highly skilled, knowledgeable and enabled system leaders. The Global Education Leaders' Program (GELP) is an opportunity for education system leaders to join a coalition of world-class academics, policy-makers and practitioners who recognise the urgent need for change in current education systems. They are all committed to transforming education systems to best serve their student populations for life and enable economic sustainability in the 21st Century - 'Education 3.0'.

GELP provides a professional learning community for forward-thinking leaders, through a structured, intensive, action-orientated and reflective diaglogue. The program comprises the following elements:

• An induction phase and opening event held in September 2009 which includes an international seminar on 'Global Leadership for 21st Century Education',
• Coaching and consultancy to support change efforts within local and national systems,
• A network to support collaboration and capture learning on educational transformation,
• A mid-program event for problem-solving and problem re-framing,
• Two further events through 2010

The Program objectives are:

• To advocate the vision of Education 3.0 (and beyond)
• To develop leadership capacity to transform education systems
• To accelerate and sustain transformation efforts within GELP members' local and national systems
• To grow a global community of education leaders and innovators
• To create a 'global movement' towards Education 3.0

Participating jurisdictions include: England, New York City Department of Education, Victoria Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (Australia) and Ontario Ministry of Education (Canada).

Outcomes

This program commenced in September 2009; but the 20 global leaders assembled in New York committed themselves to the work of transformation and identified specific projects to which they would apply themselves to in their own jurisdications in the coming year.

Project contacts

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