How will the global pandemic shape the future of education?

On June 30th at 2:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time (GMT-4), the Forum for World Education (FWE) will return to the global audience with the launch of its first webinar series in 2020. The initial offering, titled, “Education Disrupted, Education Rebuilt – How does the pandemic shape the future of education,” was designed by Andreas Schleicher, OECD Director of Education and Skills, to address some of the key critical challenges and opportunities facing every country and community around the globe in the coming months. Schleicher will also present an overview of COVID-19 responses from different education systems from the OECD. New York Times Foreign Affairs columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, Thomas Friedman will host and moderate this initial webinar, which will feature in-depth discussions about the development and innovation of education for the future with ministers of education from different countries, policy makers, scholars and extraordinary young leaders. John Palfrey, president of the MacArthur Foundation, and a noted scholar on how young people learn in the digital era, will introduce the webinar, which is open to the public. Those interested in the topic and the webinar series can visit the official website of the Forum for World Education (www.fweforum.org), register and watch it via livestream.

Starting from early 2020, the sudden hit of the COVID-19 pandemic threatened the economic development, social security, and public health systems of every country. It also made us realize how fragile our current education systems are when dealing with a global lockdown. How can we adapt our future education to respond to the unpredictable crisis and challenges? What measures can we take to prevent the worsening situation of education inequality? How can we cultivate global citizens that respect lives, put people first, and work together for a better future ahead? In response to these many questions, FWE developed this webinar series ”Where Do We Go From Here? –Meet the Challenges Posed by COVID-19 Pandemic to the Future of Our Worldwide Education Infrastructure” which will be held from June to September in three sessions. It will be open to the global audience via livestream.

To provide a global perspective on the impact of COVID-19 on education, FWE has assembled an international panel of speakers, including: Dr. Cheng Davis, Founder and President of the Forum for World Education; Dr. Siva Kumari, Director-General of the International Baccalaureate Organization (IB); Rod Paige, the former Secretary of Education of the United States; Alejandro Tiana Ferrer, former Spanish Minister of Education; Olli-Pekka Heinonen, former Finnish Minister of Education; Franco Mosso, CEO of Teach For Peru; Earl Martin Phalen, founder and CEO of Phalen Leadership Academy; Orly Friedman, the founder of Red Bridge, and others to be announced. Among these experts are a cadre of dynamic young leaders who also will share their stories of how they engaged in providing educational and technological support to governments, families, and schools during the pandemic in their respective countries.

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The non-profit organization Forum for World Education (FWE) was established in 2019 in Cambridge, Massachusetts and with operations in major cities throughout the world. It is the first organization that is dedicated to providing an inclusive setting for global business leaders, former and current education decision makers and world-renowned scholars to engage in critical conversations about the future of education and the workforce for all students. It seeks to transform education systems to better equip the new generation with the knowledge, skills and mindset for a challenging and rapidly changing world.

On December 3rd, 2019 the Forum for World Education (FWE) held its first annual conference at the OECD headquarters in Paris. The forum adopts an invitation system. The guest speakers included Jack Ma, the founding chairman of Alibaba; Princess Laurentian of the Netherlands; Dhanin Chearavanont, senior chairman of Thailand CP Group; Andreas Schleicher, Director of Education and Skills of OECD; Dr. Cheng Davis, founder and president of Forum for World Education, etc. More than 300 leaders and policy makers, experts and scholars from the United States, China, Singapore, Finland, Britain, Switzerland, New Zealand, Brazil and other countries joined together to explore and debate the future development of education. For more information about “Education Disrupted, Education Rebuilt – How does the pandemic shape the future of education,” and FWE, please contact Grace Na at [email protected]