Dec 09, 2010

On the final day of the World Innovation Summit for Education - WISE, over 1,200 international education leaders assessed the innovation opportunities presented for and by education, and explored how best to ensure a positive environment for innovation in all its forms to flourish. They also considered how innovation has impacted on education in recent decades.

In a plenary session on “Exploring Innovative Trends”, Lord David Puttnam, Chairman of Futurelab, said “If we are to be serious about innovation and improvement, then I believe Governments everywhere will have to treat investment in teaching and learning with far more consistent commitment than has tended to be the case in the past. In this incredibly fast-moving environment, that means focusing a lot more time and attention on the continuous professional development of teachers than there has ever been previously.”

Lord Puttnam added that the development of online technologies offers the opportunity to dramatically increase the effectiveness of our educational systems, in both the pace and the quality of learning. “It is time we started to talk about the 'productivity' of education as well as it's 'effectiveness' - as I find it hard to see how we are going to increase the one without the other,” he told the Summit.

James Bernard, Worldwide Director, Partners In Learning, Microsoft, cautioned that innovative teachers are ‘islands’ unless they have the support of school leaders, and innovative schools are ‘islands’ without the support of an innovative education system.

Illustrating innovation in a non-technological context, Martin Burt, Founder and CEO, Fundación Paraguaya and Co-Founder of the WISE 2009 Award-winning ‘Teach A Man To Fish’ initiative, highlighted the necessity for an entrepreneurial ethos in education, pointing to the principle of ‘learning by doing and earning’. He added: “Let’s try to believe that education can also pay for itself and that the solution to problems in education may be in appealing to the dignity of those we are trying to serve.”

Also addressing WISE on the topic of innovation, Dr Se-Yeoung Chun, President of the Korean Education and Research Information Service (KERIS), outlined how South Korea has used information and communication technology to reform its education system since the 1970’s. Through technology, the administrative workload of educators had been reduced substantially and parents now have better access to information about the students’ curricula and achievements. He added that this sustained investment had helped South Korea become the highest ranking country in the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA, published December 7th 2010).

Professor Rita Lewis, President of the International Society for Education Through Art (InSEA), addressing a session on “Creative Arts in Education”, said that “the arts show you that there isn’t one right answer and that imagination transforms understanding.”

As it draws to a conclusion, the WISE 2010 summit has provided a platform for a multi-disciplinary, international education community to generate dialogue, decisions and actions for the benefit of education globally.

About the World Innovation Summit for Education - WISE

WISE is a global collaborative initiative established by the Qatar Foundation under the high patronage of Her Highness Sheikha Moza Bint Nasser. The initiative seeks to contribute to 21st century challenges and their impact on education. With 1,000 major education stakeholders, opinion leaders and decision-makers from diverse disciplines in over 120 countries participating, WISE endeavours to propose visionary thinking on education, offer new ways of addressing current global challenges and untapped opportunities and anticipate future education models. The WISE Forum takes place in Doha, Qatar, from December 7th-9th 2010.

Full details on the WISE website: www.wise-qatar.org