Mancham to lead panel on high-level education forum |06 March 2015

Founding President James R. Mancham has accepted the invitation of Le Club de Madrid secretariat to act as speaker in the panel, “The moral question - Is there a place for ‘private’ in education?” which will be part and parcel of the Global Education and Skills Forum to be held in Dubai on March 16, 2015.
The forum is hosted jointly by Le Club de Madrid and the Carnegie Middle East Centre.

Le Club de Madrid is an association of former presidents and heads of government of democratic nations to which Mr Mancham was elected two years ago.

The Carnegie Middle East Centre is an independent policy research institute based in Beirut, Lebanon, and part of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The centre provides in-depth analysis of the political, socio-economic, and security issues facing the Middle East and North Africa. It draws its scholarship from a pool of top regional experts, working in collaboration with Carnegie’s other research centres in Beijing, Brussels, Moscow and Washington.

Those who will take part on the panel which will involved Mr Mancham as speaker includes - Loulwa Bakr, co-Founder and President of Columbia Alumni Association of Saudi Arabia, who was named Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum in 2011; Jay Kimmelman, co-Founder of Bridge International Academies - the largest chain of private schools in Africa; Fred Van Leeuwen, who became in 1993 General Secretary of Education International, which comprises 348-member organisations representing 29 million teachers and other education workers in 166 countries or territories; and Geoffrey Canada, a children's activist, who is President of the Harlem Children's Zone in New York, which President Barack Obama in 2009 decided to replicate in 20 US cities.

Also taking part in the forum will be Dr Fareed Zakaria, the celebrated television host of CNN, United States.

Mr Mancham said that Seychelles' experience in the field of education would be useful as the panel discuss such key questions as:

(i) How do cultural and moral attitudes towards private sector involvement in education vary across the world?
(ii) How is shareholder value measured in education?
(iii) What is the appropriate role for the private sector in Kindergarden schooling?
(iv) Is competition among providers a good thing for education?
(v) Can profit be trusted as a core motivation for an education institution?
Mr Mancham leaves Seychelles on Friday March 13.