24 May 2006
Education Cited as Basis for Development, Economic Growth
U.S. education secretary addresses meeting of education ministers in Egypt
Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt -- Education is the basis for social development and economic growth, according to U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, and every country has a duty to provide its children with the tools they need to succeed in the global-knowledge economy.
"Education is the foundation of all our children's success," she told delegates to the Group of Eight (G8) and Broader Middle East and North Africa (BMENA) Education Ministerial meeting in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt May 24. "It advances opportunity, understanding, and freedom. It strengthens economies, curbs the spread of diseases, and improves the quality of life for entire populations. It gives us hope for a brighter future. It teaches us to see beyond ignorance and bigotry, and to respect and appreciate cultures that are not our own."
The BMENA initiative is a wide-ranging partnership between the G8 countries -- Canada, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States -- and the countries of the Middle East and North Africa. It seeks to coordinate government, business and civil society entities in support of economic, social and political reform efforts.
The G8 and BMENA education ministers met for two days in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh to discuss ways they can cooperate in advancing literacy training initiatives and educational reforms aimed at fueling economic growth.
Spellings told her fellow ministers at the close of the meeting that illiteracy is a problem that confronts all countries, not just the broader Middle East and North Africa, where an estimated 120 million adults cannot read or write. In the United States, she said, more than 11 million adults cannot read English.
"All of us share the challenge of overcoming illiteracy," she said. "We cannot afford to lose any potential innovators, especially in regions facing high rates of unemployment. The more students we train to be entrepreneurs and creative problem solvers, the more jobs they'll create and the greater ability they'll have to improve the quality of life for others."
She said literacy training is only a first step, however, and that countries must teach their children the math, science and language skills that will prepare them to participate in the economy. She said math skills teach students to think analytically, while science skills prepare them to confront medical, social and technical challenges, and language skills open their horizons to other cultures. She said she has found her own studies of Arabic particularly enriching.
"Math, science, and foreign language skills are the common currency in today's economy," she said.
She said this link between education and the economy is particularly important and that it is useful to engage the business community in establishing the goals for a national education system to ensure that schools are meeting the demands of the workplace.
"The United States certainly does not have all the answers. But my country has benefited tremendously from the business community's insight into how to reform our education system," she said. "We've learned some valuable lessons, such as how to align our goals with employers' needs, measure student progress toward those goals, and hold ourselves accountable for reaching them."
For additional information, see BMENA.
