Date Submitted
2014-05-28 11:40:04
First Name
Jessica
Middle Name
Carter
Last Name
Kimmel
Country
USA
Organization/Institution
World Council for Curriculum and Instruction
Primary E-mail
Occupation
Professor
Please choose the theme
4 Education
Please briefly describe your organisation
The World Council for Curriculum and Instruction (WCCI) is a transnational educational organization committed to advancing the achievement of a just and peaceful world community through collaboration in curriculum and instruction projects: dialogs on educational and social issues of a global nature--the exchange of ideas, concerns and solutions to problems, and person-to-person contacts and professional relationships. We are an NGO of the UN in consultative status with the ECOSOC.
Statement Title
Integrating Education for Global Awareness and Peace
Statement (600 words limit)
The Preamble to the Constitution of WCCI states, "As individual educators from all over the world, we join together in this person-to-person, non-governmental, nonprofit, global organization committed to active participation in efforts to achieve the purposes of WCCI. As educators in the world community, we have the responsibility to ensure that education contributes to the promotion of equity, peace, and the universal realization of human rights." This is where we begin: by working in collaboration with other educators to learn what the needs of the population we serve are, what strategies and methods work, and how change can happen when required.

We support education at all levels, from birth to life-long education; we work to produce enlightened teachers, administrators, and students. We share our knowledge and our experiences to solve the problems we are directly in contact with, and those that are over the horizon. In that vein, we truly support the goals for the safety, security, and education of women and girls all over the world.

In particular, we support the eight concerns under the heading Education, which will be the focus of this UN Post-2015 Development Agenda:
1. The importance of girl's education and its benefit to societies - we are working with our members from countries that have problems with education for girls and women to help where we can. We learn much from these members with this as a major concern. We want to solve this problem while allowing each country/area to independently decide what is best for them.

2. Increase to access and complete pre-primary education - we know the importance of this often over-looked developmental stage of education and plan for more effort in this level of schooling.

3. Ensure every child, regardless of circumstances, completes primary education - this is a challenge that needs input and discussion; there are many cultures for whom pre-primary education is not a sustaining value. We must respect that.

4. Ensure every child access to middle school education- a clear and important goal, once the commitment of primary education is met for every child.

5. Increase technical and vocational education - this will require the collaboration and cooperation of the business and technical communities in every country where this goal is working. Again, the key is a collaborative relationship between education and the community.

6. Quality education and employment- again, this requires the cooperation of both education and business, along with community agencies that research and define the needs of employers, the community, and the governmental requirements.

7. Lifelong education – more attention needs to be paid to the adult education needs of the population: job-training for re-classification, continuing learning for a changing populations, and community learning resources that encourage life-long learning rather than seeing it as remedial, unnecessary, or of little value. Twenty-first century citizens are capable of, interested in, and can learn new models, methods, and worldviews.

8. Gender equality in education – The UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) has worked toward this goal and continues to do so with annual meetings in New York City. WCCI had three representatives attending this meeting and we support this goal and invite others to work vigilantly to its success. Again, we need to learn from one another what works, what the specific needs of the entity are, and how we can work as a global community to meet this goal.

WCCI will support others in any way we can with the development of curriculum, the sharing of instructional models, and the learned wisdom of our elders to meet these goals. Only a cooperative attitude from the global partners in education will end our current challenges in education.