Bill Clinton in Dubai on how to get $53 from $1

“When it comes to improving education, teachers matter most,” stated former US President and founder of the Clinton Foundation, Bill Clinton, while addressing over 1,100 delegates from across the world at the second annual Global Education and Skills Forum on Sunday.

“We had a study released in the US last year that said that having one good teacher for one year could have a dramatic, positive impact on the learning capacity of the student of a lifetime.”

An honorary chair of the GEMS education foundation, Clinton highlighted that “the most important difference maker (in the education system) is a good teacher”.

Benchmarking Finland for having made substantial breakthrough in imparting high standard education by focusing on the teaching staff, he said, “You cannot become a teacher in Finland unless you graduated in the top 10% of your university class. And, they rigorously emphasis that.”

Even Shanghai has made great improvements in the same subject, wherein, they encourage teachers to train each other. And, this simple exercise lets “Shanghai regularly score at the top in every international comparative test”.

He emphasised that “when it comes to education, it’s the teachers who matter most”.

The forum, he stressed, will enable to “elevate education as a global concern on par with health, poverty and climate change. And, to achieve not just universal enrolment but profound positive changes in the way young people are taught”.

He hoped that the dialogue over the two-day forum will result in better cooperation between the public and private sector, yielding to better growth. “Every $1 invested in education provides $53 in benefits to employees.”

Underlining the importance of education, Clinton said, “There are over 100 million children who never go to school, and at least 200 million more who go to schools without trained teachers or adequate learning material”.

Among the various issues, he focused on the importance of technology in the future.

“Technology does have a role to play in universalising education but we haven’t worked out exactly how to do it yet.

“The one-laptop per child initiative is exciting, but there are too many children who don’t have a laptop, and won’t have one soon. Or they won’t have real connection to the internet, to get all the knowledge you find there.”

Clinton believed that educating girls would positively improve the education system. “When young women have education, they marry later, have fewer children, get better prenatal care and their children have high survival rates. The children themselves are more likely to attend school and study further.”

Before Clinton took to the stage, his wife, Hillary Clinton, addressed the forum through video. “We live in a time of great change and challenge but also of great opportunity.

“I thank you for choosing to believe in a better and brighter future in which education, employment and equality is in reach for every young man and every young woman across the world.”

Clinton also lauded the efforts of GEMS, UNESCO, Dubai Cares and UAE ministry of education for sponsoring the forum.

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