In response to the wide digital gap in education, highlighted by the global coronavirus crisis this year, Dubai Cares has committed $2.5 million to support Giga, an initiative to connect every school in the world to the internet.
The initiative, which is led by UNICEF and the International Telecommunication Union, comes after widespread disruption in the education sector caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, which revealed a wide breach in access to online education between developed and developing countries.
Over 1.6 billion children were unable to physically attend school at the peak of the pandemic, said Dr Tariq Al Gurg, CEO of Dubai Cares. While many countries, the UAE included, switched to online education, developing countries were largely left behind, he added.
“Thank God for Covid because it has created an opportunity for education. It showed us the digital divide between us: we realised that the poor countries are not getting an education because of their lack of technology and connectivity,” said Al Gurg.
“Over one night, with the snap of a finger, we switched from physical schooling to virtual. Only the countries which had a good education system already in place, good connectivity and good technology to go with it, were able to make that switch to distance learning,” he continued.
HE Dr Tariq Al Gurg, CEO of Dubai Cares
Dubai Cares’ support for Giga falls under its recently announced partnership with UNICEF, through the latter’s flagship global youth initiative Generation Unlimited, to accelerate efforts to provide access to digital connectivity for every young person.
Digital learning and connectivity were on Dubai Cares’ radar even prior to the pandemic, however, said Al Gurg. In fact, the UAE-based philanthropic organisation is behind the efforts for the Global Declaration on Connectivity, which will be launched next year during Expo 2020 Dubai, to promote access to connectivity for learning and livelihoods as a right of every young person around the world.
Dubai Cares had been working on this declaration for three years in an effort to bring connectivity to refugees, but upgraded it to a global focus after the pandemic highlighted the obvious need, explained Al Gurg.
“We don’t know what the future of education will look like but I know for a fact that it will be based on technology and connectivity,” he continued.
Dubai Cares also recently co-hosted a global virtual conference on education ‘RewirEdX’, along with Expo 2020 Dubai and in close coordination with the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
— Dubai Cares (@DubaiCares) December 16, 2020
Al Gurg hopes ‘RewirEdX’ will lead to an annual global summit on education which would gather all stakeholders in the industry to Dubai to discuss key issues on skills and future jobs, innovation and financing.
Al Gurg stressed on the last point, explaining that global educational initiatives are generally underfunded despite the importance of quality education.
“If education funding stays the same as it is today, you will have 800 million youth by 2030 who are not educated enough to have skills for the jobs of the future,” said Al Gurg.
“Education is the most neglected sector getting only two to three percent of the global humanitarian funds. In emergency situations, that figure goes down even lower. This is why we want to get the private sector involved in funding education,” he continued.
Another reason to involve the private sector in education is that it is the source for most jobs around the world and so, in a sense, it will dictate the jobs of the future, said Al Gurg.
“The private sector knows what skillsets need to be worked on today for better job performance down the line,” he added.
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