Young leaders call for EU commitment on education 

The young leaders' project, supported by the British Council in Brussels, calls for a new international consensus behind education, a repositioning of the Education For All Fast Track Initiative  (FTI) to inspire and engage people from all over the world, by linking the financial contributions of governments, the private sector and individuals, "to real outcomes, for real people, and in certain named countries".

Two headline targets were also cited for 2008:

• That all 60 eligible countries should be allowed into the FTI and their needs funded, which will require at least €4.1bn annually, and; 
• to demonstrate that education quality is improving – however slowly – in every country the FTI funds.

In terms of engaging the private sector, the group called for a commitment to set a timetable for:

• Starting conversations with significant philanthropists to make education their legacy, and;
• providing a credible mechanism for corporations to fund education through the FTI.

The Brussels meeting was somewhat overshadowed by questions about Wolfowitz's future, the embattled president of the World Bank who was forced to dodge questions about an intensifying ethics scandal. This was brought into focus by a statement Tuesday from a former head of the bank's ethics panel that Wolfowitz had manipulated information in the controversy over his handling of a pay increase and a promotion for his companion, Shaha Ali Riza. 

At a news conference where former African child labourers discussed the importance of going to school, Wolfowitz's response was frequently interrupted by questions about the allegations.

At the meeting, one of the 'Davos six' young leaders, Cairo university graduate Yossra Mohamed Taha, called for a new international consensus on the need to provide quality education for all children: "If I had $10 million to give today, could you tell me exactly what my money would deliver? How many kids would it get into school? How many teachers would be trained? And who are the countries that are going to benefit from all that?". Taha added: "This meeting cannot provide all the answers, but it could be the start of something truly significant."

Group leader Simon Moss, VIC director of education development-organisation the Oaktree Foundation , told EurActiv: "Global financier and philanthropist George Soros 's commitment of $5m for Liberia's education plan, along with the World Economic Forum's announcement of a Partnership for Education, are welcome contributions from the private sector towards education. In an event that offered very little in the way of new funding from the donor countries, it's a hopeful sign that the private sector is being engaged in order to take the Education for All agenda forward. We're currently exploring opportunities involving working with the FTI secretariat and Global Campaign for Education in the coming months to raise the profile of the FTI. We will also look towards events such as the Clinton Global Initiative as opportunities for further engaging the private sector in ensuring that all children have access to quality education."
Development and Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Louis Michel said: "We all agree that there is no other alternative to education if we want to offer a better life and a more promising future to the children of the world. This is why our slogan ''Keeping our Promises on Education' is also a moral and ethical requirement for our respective organisations...77 million children still lack education - the majority of them are poor and live in countries torn by conflicts. To rectify this situation, we need annual external aid of approximately €7 billion."

"Concretely, the international community must triple the assistance which it grants to basic teaching if it wants to make it possible for all the children to complete their primary education...Unless there are immediate measures to register children in the school system by at the latest 2009, they will be unable to complete their primary education teaching by 2015 and thus we will fail in our Millennium Development Goal of achieving primary education for all."

UK Chancellor Gordon Brown said: "We can be the first generation in history to send every child to school. We will work with every country, charities and international organisations to achieve this goal."

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz said: "Children who grow up without an education are stunted for the rest of their lives and even when they manage to overcome it...We need to ensure that inside every classroom, they have trained teachers and the resources to learn new skills so they can move past primary school to the next level of education and training. So what this requires is four things: more, better, faster, and longer-term aid for education."