Welcome Remarks at the Education for Development: Towards 2030 Forum

Speaker: Cate Rogers, Assistant Secretary, Development Policy and Education Branch

I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land where we meet and pay my respects to their elders past and present.

And I would like to welcome you all to the “Education for Development: towards 2030” Forum. Thank you to those who travelled to be here and to everyone for taking the time to be involved in this important forum.

The theme of this forum is education for development – towards 2030.

  • Now is an opportune time for us as development practitioners to convene on this topic.
  • It is now two years since the sustainable development goals were set.
  • There has been time for the dust to settle, for the scale of the challenges to be understood and for nations to ask themselves what the SDGs mean for them at the national and the local level.

This forum is an opportunity to continue the discussion to further define Australia’s role and approach to the implementation of SDG 4 – quality education.

Before we do that though, I’d like to take us to lift our gaze.

I’d would like for us to consider some of the broad trends that are shaping societies, economies, cultures and peoples of the world and consider the role that education might play in responding to these trends.

Global context

In 2017 the world is facing a range of trends that impact on all aspects of society and of economies.

How governments, institutions and individuals respond to the challenges and opportunities presented by these trends will define future generations.

Today I want to focus on three trends affecting us and our developing partners:

  1. the changing centre of gravity in the global economy to our region – and the rise of the middle class
  2. technology and jobs
  3. the increasing complexity and inter-relatedness of shocks.

Changing centre of gravity of the global economy

By 2030 developing countries will contribute two thirds of global growth and half of global output.

  • In 2030 it is expected that China and the US will continue to dominate the global economy. Third place will be either the EU or India.
  • Emerging large economies are likely to be Mexico, Indonesia, Turkey, Nigeria and Vietnam.
  • However – the success of these countries will depend on policy choices they make, and their ability to follow through and implement these policies.
  • Demographic profiles and the level and quality of education these countries provide for their citizens will be critical factors in their growth.
  • We still have 161 million people living in extreme poverty in the Indo-Pacific.
  • For these people to transition out of poverty, we need strong sustained growth, stable government, peace and good policies.
  • In the past – as people have moved into middle class – their expectations of access to quality health and education services grows.
  • Governments must be able to respond to these demands.
  • The strong growth we have had in the region hasbeen accompanied by increasing inequality in some countries in South East Asia.
  • We know that education is a critical pathway for addressing inequality.
  • One additional year of schooling increases an individual’s earnings by 10%.
  • Yet in developing countries generally – the gap in primary school completion rates between the richest and poorest children is more than 30 percentage points (GPE data).
  • So more children in school, more children staying in school and quality education are key to addressing rising inequality.

Technology and jobs

If population projections hold, it is estimated that between 2010 and 2030 – there will need to be 734 million additional jobs created.

  • At the same time there is also research that forecasts that half of total employment will be at high risk of becoming automated over the next two decades.

We have had catastrophic projections of the impact of technology on work before, for example during the industrial revolution. So perhaps it’s fair to say that the future of work is not settled.

However, we know that education outcomes and skills acquisition will need to change.

We are already experiencing a gap between education outcomes and the capabilities that employers want their workers to have.

Up to 50 per cent of private firms in East Asia and the Pacific are concerned about inadequate worker education and skills.

We know that rapid change in technology and the nature of work will place a premium on soft skills, including the ability to learn how to learn and to adapt, and to know where to go for information and how to make sense of it.

Our education and training systems need to respond to these market signals.

Increasing complexity of shocks

The final trend I wanted to touch on is the increasing complexity and interrelatedness of shocks.

Since 2009 – the world has experienced repercussions of the global financial crisis, the first declared pandemic in over 40 years, the Arab Spring, the Syrian crisis, Ebola and the Fukishima nuclear reactor meltdown – to nominate but a few.

  • The interconnections between shocks amplifies the scale and reach of their economic, social and humanitarian impact.
  • Social media and globalised communications also play a part in this.
  • Global health shocks, climatic related and conflict shocks will continue to challenge the capability of global institutions and governments to respond in a timely and coordinated way.

Policy makers will need to be able to digest and respond to large tracts of data quickly, making and implementing policy decisions faster than in the past.

This is where the link between education quality and broader government and institutional capacity is vital.

Yet in our region, there are several countries where measured institutional capability is declining.

Education has a role in addressing this decline. Strong - quality education systems from early childhood through to university are essential to developing a pipeline of policy makers that can respond to the challenges of complex interrelated shocks.

The Development Paradigm

Bringing all of this back to development practice – I hope that by highlighting some major trends, we can see that we have an important role to play in working with our partner countries to adapt to these trends at the same time as responding to their development needs.

Development assistance providers need to adapt their strategies, delivery mechanisms and organisational capabilities.

A recent OECD paper on the future of development cooperation by Robin Davies and Jonathan Pickering found that demand for development cooperation will remain strong given the economic and environmental challenges that lay ahead.

  • However, countries they surveyed expect that donors will shift to a more enabling role in coming years.
  • This means providing catalytic financial support for government led sector programmes, delivering more and better technical and policy support and leveraging more private finance.

Given our geographic, economic and strategic place in the world – Australia is well placed to play a leading role in responding to the trends I have highlighted, the SDG agenda – and in meeting the expectations of partner countries around development cooperation.

We have a reputation for high quality technical and policy support that we can build on.

Finally, on this forum - we all come here with a different frame of reference for tackling the challenges of improving education outcomes in our partner countries.

There is a diverse range of experience to draw on in this room – across government, NGOs, international organisations, the private sector and academia.

In development terms 2030 is not a long way away. And if we unpick SDG 4 – there is a lot to do. For example, if we think about the goal of providing equal access to education for all - including the vulnerable, persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations- we have a long way to go. In the case of people living with a disability – we are not even able to quantify access to education now.

So – there is I think some urgency to the task. I therefore encourage you to make the most of this opportunity to engage in discussion and debate. I hope you leave the Forum with some new ideas, perspectives and connections to draw on in working in this important area.