2020 CONCORDIA ANNUAL SUMMIT

Lightning Interview: The State of Global Education

Main Stage

• • Teach for All is a network of independent locally-led organizations, present in 56 countries, that share the purpose of developing collective leadership to ensure children fulfill their potential. According to Wendy Kopp, each organization contributes to this collective leadership by asking aspiring local leaders to commit two years to teaching in vulnerable communities and then supporting these leaders in their pursuits thereafter. 

• “When schools are shut down, we talk so much about a digital divide, but what we’ve seen is really a leadership divide. Either kids had access to teachers, school leaders, and parents who are ready to do whatever it took to keep them learning irrespective of whether they had access to technology…or they didn’t,” Wendy Kopp 

  • Patrick Awuah Jr. articulated Ashesi University’s mission: to invest in the development of leaders in Africa who are civic-minded problem-solvers and compassionate listeners. 
  • Kopp and Awuah revealed the innovative ways in which their respective institutions have been maintaining connectivity and delivering reimagined classroom instruction during COVID-19. Ashesi University’s Education Collaborative is offering online workshops that convene some 150 universities on the African continent to brainstorm solutions to teaching challenges. Teach for All’s instructors have been conducting classes via Whatsapp, the TV, and the radio as well as online.