MY World Global Survey

MY World Global Survey

The first results of the global survey ‘MY World‘ were presented at the Monrovia meeting of the High Level Panel on 30 January, 2013, the Communique of which is now available. My World is a global survey led by the UN, which was piloted offline in Liberia and then launched online for worldwide participation, running until 2015.  The survey asks individuals to identify the top six of a possible sixteen issues that would make a difference in their lives.  The initial results: ‘A Good Education’.

The UN-NGLS summarises:

The online responses to date are dominated by responses from countries that score very high on the human development index (HDI). The survey therefore does not yet reflect a truly global set of priorities. For now, “good education,” “an honest and responsive government,” as well as “better healthcare” seem to be the top three priorities for global participants…

There has been recent outcry for the education development community to make its mark on the Post-2015 processes, including the claim:

that as a community of practitioners we have failed to ignite the campaign for Education for All (EFA) as a popular, broad-based development movement, or to ingrain the importance of education as an international development prerogative in the public mind set.

Could these early-phase My World results serve as necessary fuel to the fire? Others might argue that there is no fire to be fanned, such as Nicholas Burnett in his October Development Progress blog, who claims that our heads are in the sand. Are they still, or have we moved on in these past months?

In September, leading researchers, practitioners and policy makers will converge at the 12th UKFIET International Conference on Education and Development, the theme of which is Education and Development Post 2015: Reflecting, Reviewing, Re-visioning.  Much remains to be done amongst the education and training community between now and September.  Perhaps this news from the MY World Survey – that the youth of the world wants their post-2015 world to feature a good education above all else – will move us to further action.

Over the coming weeks, the UKFIET CoP, will feature Post 2015 proposals from the education sector, some of which have been highlighted in recent posts:

These organisations have specifically asked the UKFIET Community to feedback via the CoP.  Access the existing posts via the web links above and leave your comments. And stay tuned for more.  In the meantime, this is your place to debate these proposals and keep the education and training discussions moving forward, perhaps igniting some new fires.