Preliminary Rapporteur Notes (DRAFT)
PANEL VI: INNOVATION IN EDUCATION
HYATT Regency Ballroom VI, Port of Spain
Friday 10th October 2014
4:35 p.m. – 5:45 p.m.
Key Speaker: Gabriel Zinny – Founder and President, Kuepa, USA; Moderator: InderaSagewan-Alli,
Executive Director, Caribbean Centre; for Competitiveness, University of the West Indies, St.
Augustine Campus, Trinidad and Tobago
Panellists: Dr.Fred Mednick, Founder, Teachers Without Borders, USA; Dr.Michael Penfold, Director of
Public Policy and Competitiveness CAF; Dr.Roger Pulwarty - Director, Senior Advisor for Climate
Research, and Director, National Integrated Drought Information, System National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, USA; Chris Young, Executive, Director, CIFAL Atlanta
Gabriel Sanchez Zinny, Founder and President, Kuepa, USA
More money is spent on the education sector than ever before but with little results. There is no
correlation between test results and expenditure. Latin America ranks at the bottom of the Programme
for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings. There is an immense disconnect between
schooling and labour market skills. For example, 25% of companies in Mexico have difficulty finding
people with the needed competencies. Therefore, innovation needs to trickle down and the region
must be able to facilitate that ‘school’ to ‘work’ transition.
Technology is driving change in Education; there is increased access by low income sectors and more
interactive and collaborative content. Innovation in skills is vital for closing the gap, that is, more soft
skills are needed. Companies need to develop their own training strategies especially since research
shows people change jobs fifteen to twenty times in their careers. There is also a need for
entrepreneurs. Over 70% of K12 (primary school aged) students attend public schools and so innovation
by the public sector is critical. There needs to be a balance between public and private sector roles. The
government should focus on quality assurance and creating an ecosystem where more innovative
players emerge.
The private sector, in Latin America and the Caribbean, does not invest much in training, it can move
faster by developing teaching and learning tools based on IT. Reform and changes will come from the
bottom up.
Dr. Fred Mednick, Founder, Teachers without Borders, USA
Nations need a booster shot in science and technology.
STEM
Using an example of earthquakes in China:
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A perspective on STEM:
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Dense populations
Shallow earthquakes
Unreinforced schools
Little science and safety
50% of children who die in earthquakes die in the schools since there is little science and safety used.
Using STEM now teachers and students know how to identify a shallow and a deep earthquake and
prepare adequately. There are also positive ripple effects because parents and communities know about
the effects of earthquakes and are no longer any suspicious of earthquakes. Now parents want to send
their children to safe schools.
At Teachers Without Borders, teachers are using technology to go beyond borders by changing outdated
textbooks to become the doctors of technology. These teachers are technologically innovative. A poorly
implemented STEM programme can be negative for schools if not properly implemented.
The LAC region needs to consider the following two important things for ICT development: ‘Scale
intimacy’ and ‘Incentivisation of Sharing’.
To cultivate a creative learning environment four philosophies must be put into practice:
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2.
3.
4.
Collaboration trumps traditional competition - cohesion and identity is better than competition.
Tradition trumps the traditional. It’s all about the nature of culture.
Individual leaders build leading institutions – What’s not traditional is teacher leadership.
Classrooms and schools are human enterprises
Great companies mirror great classrooms and vice versa and long lasting companies nurture talent from
within. Therefore, great companies create classrooms or environments for learning. Being Competitive is
about striving and ICT is about striving for capacity.
Dr. Michael Penfold, Director of Public Policy and Competitiveness CAF
The world’s most talented people do not create new business but want to be employed in a company.
Those that don’t get employed will be obligated to become entrepreneurs and create new companies.
There are three things all companies demand: Access to finance; Improved and reduced formalities and;
skills. In reality there is disconnection in the market (supply and demand gaps), a lack of external
evaluation and little ability to generate new information.
If companies have to be competitive, the quality of education has great potential to be the carrier.
Education is important but more importantly the region needs to examine it in terms of its impact on
productivity and competitiveness.
Some problems facing Latin America and Caribbean:
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Region has improved access to education but the quality of education is the problem
Move from situation where the skills is determined by the supply and not the demand
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Need to change the way firms behave. Firms invest little in training. Need to scale up need to
create more Private partnership with support from the public sector.
The education sector needs to prepare adults for jobs by nurturing skills that are market relevant and
overcome institutions’ weaknesses in order to narrow the gap between the supply and demand. This
requires higher quality education. Put enterprises and firms into training to promote change. We need
to move from low investment in training to high investment by training firms. This requires public policy.
This agenda is ambitious but if countries are moving in this direction, the region as a whole will be well
off.
Chris Young, Executive Director, CIFAL Atlanta
15 years was too short a time period to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Not achieving goals
doesn’t necessarily mean that progress was not made. It just means that this is a big problem.
Thus came the SDG with targets for 2030. Goals are aspirations but we need to remember metrics will
keep us in check since natural disasters happen and life happens. The SDG developed apply to every
nation. No matter the issues, every nation can do something better for their people. e.g. Childhood
health would be different focus for each country and therefore we can learn from each other. When
poeple have hope they are less likely to fall into the negative things of life.
Education is the key to our problem. Sometimes we have a skills gap but people can’t fill the gaps
because they don’t have the skills.
So how do we bridge the gap? – National government changes but teachers in the classroom do not
change as well as cooperation’s that are doing the innovation don’t change. As such CIFAL believe that
working with local actors or organisations who have to invest, together wth CBO’s they can teach best
practices and STEM education to these educators.
Dr. Roger Pulwarty, Director, Senior Advisor for Climate Research, and Director, National
Integrated Drought Information System National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
USA
Crafting Science and Innovation
Dr. Pulwarty posed a number of questions and thoughts for discussion to the audience.
His questions focused on what persons are really being trained to do. Where are we going? What are we
doing? Are we making better decisions and how do we know we are doing it correctly? What are the
risks – most are indirect effects. The systems are changing faster than expected. What constitutes the
solution space? What is the role of education?
How does learning take place? The quality of our actions. If it is so easy why it is so hard? The approach
has to be inter- disciplinary and has come to represent all things progressive.
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5 things to do:
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We have to build more
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The push for demand for education is never linear or cost free. We have to develop usable
research. Need policy entrepreneurs.
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Need to prepare students … return of students
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Boundaries of innovation – innovation can only do so much.
How can education mobilise these issues. We haven’t gotten there.
Geography is not destiny and history is not fate.
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