OP-ED
By Sunny Varkey
he Global Education and Skills Forum 2017 which just concluded in March had its primary focus on one ofthe most pressing questions of the age: How do we teach children to become real global citizens? With the world facing immense and unprecedented challenges from war, terrorism, anincreasing divide between rich and poor and climate change, today’s children will inherit both a burden and a responsibility to tackle problems not of their making. These will be of unrivalled complexity: the problems their parents’ and grandparents’ generations could not solve and left them as a legacy.
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With the world shrinking every day thanks to digital advances that allow us to see what is going on instantly on the other side of the planet, together with a network of ever more tightly knitinterdependencies around the earth’s finite resources, it will simply not be possible to retreat behind old ideas. Today’s young people will be global citizens regardless, as what affects their neighbour cannot help but affect them too. Since we met this time last year, events have shaken many of our
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May 2017