On Monday, Nov. 6th, 2017, the Graduate School of Education (GSE) hosted a presentation given by UNESCO program specialist Gabriel El-Khili titled “Promoting Global Citizenship” as part of the Civic and Peace Education Initiative.
El-Khili began by explaining UNESCO’s emphasis on education as a means for reform in change in modern day society, pointing out how relevant this is in the Arab region. He was specific in his examples, referring to his home country Tunisia several times as they have been leaders in educational reform ever since their 11th of January revolution in 2011.
Following up from that, El-Khili focused on the changing nature of education in the 21st century and how it has differed from that of the 20th century. He mentioned how technology is now playing a huge part in children's’ everyday lives, both educational and non-educational wise, affecting their development and understanding in ways that are different to that of the previous century. He went on to refer to a UNESCO handbook designed to guide parents towards ways they can control the use of technology in their households to best cater to their child’s development.
“Education should be transformative,” El-Khili enthused, further highlighting the goal of UNESCO’s handbook. To conclude the first part of his presentation, El-Khili quickly discussed the way ministries were eliminating certain topic from curriculums due to them becoming irrelevant in our modern day context, with him being of the opinion that doing this is wrong and that ministries should aim to change in an adaptive way rather than completely eliminate certain topics.
For the second part of the lecture, El-Khili discussed the application of UNESCO’s educational initiatives in post-conflict Tunisia, highlighting the huge positive influence it has had on the young population through a custom-made handbook for Tunisian youth that educates them about democracy and political reform following a revolution. El-Khili emphasised the positive impact of the book, stating that more than 19 youth citizenship clubs have been started across Tunisia as a result.
Talking more about the Tunisian case study, El-Khili engaged with a couple of students with Tunisian backgrounds over the current state of Tunisia and the crucial stage the country is at in terms of development moving forward, highlighting that developments of current events will play a massive part in the future of the country as a whole, with one of the students labelling this the “make or break” point in the country’s recent development cycle.
Credits:
Omar Shiry