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STORY: UN / EDUCATION LAUNCH
TRT: 2.55
SOURCE: UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 26 SEPTEMBER 2012, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – 2011, NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations headquarters
26 SEPTEMBER 2012, NEW YORK
2. Wide shot, meeting
3. Wide shot, Ban Ki-moon addressing meeting
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary-General:
“I have decided to launch this global ‘Education First’ today because we need to do much, much more. Education is hope and dignity. Education is growth and empowerment. Education is a basic building block of every society and a pathway out of poverty.”
5. Zoom in, Aung San Suu Kyi (rising from her seat to applause) next to Ban’s wife Yoo Soon-taek and Sarah Brown
6. Wide shot, Afghan President Hamid Karzai among audience
7. Wide shot, Gordon Brown addressing meeting
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education:
“We must do everything we can to get children to school. For all of the centuries of the world’s history we have developed only some of the talents of some of our young people. Surely it is time that we decided we are going to develop all of the talents of all of our people.”
5. Med shot, Yoo Soon-tek, Sarah Brown and Aung San Suu Kyi
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Chenor Bah, Youth Advocacy Group:
“It’s not an uncommon experience to live through the agony of war. But the product, the outcome of my story is what is uncommon. And that is not right. It is not right that today in this world, 61 million young people, a whopping 61 million, are out of school. It’s not right that the people I grew up with, that I was raised with, that I have met in the work that I do around the world, are craving for the dream of education. And for many of them, it will just remain a dream. It is even more wrong that if I were a girl, my chances of standing here today would be even slimmer.”
7. Wide shot, audience
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa:
“Lack of education virtually means that they have to face the challenges of life with both hands tied behind their backs. It is therefore important that we as leaders and representatives of the international community commit to this important new initiative.”
9. Wide shot, Julia Gillard approaching the podium
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Julia Gillard, Prime Minister of Australia:
“As a woman leader – and there aren’t that many of us, there aren’t as many as there should be – as a woman leader, we must recognize that we will never see full equality between adult men and women if we do not see full equality between the education of boys and girls.”
11. Wide shot, applause
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today (26 September) announced that he has secured 1.5 billion US dollars in commitments for a new initiative to increase access to, and the quality of, education for children worldwide.
Launching the ‘Education First’ initiative on the margins of the 67th session of the General Assembly in New York, Ban said education was “a basic building block of every society and a pathway out of poverty”.
Countries, private companies and foundations mobilized resources for the initiative, which will focus on three priorities over the next five years: Putting every child in school, improving the quality of learning and fostering global citizenship through education.
Today’s launch event was attended by heads of state and government, UN officials, chief executive officers of major corporations, representatives from civil society, as well as Nobel laureate and pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from Myanmar.
Ban’s Special Envoy for Global Education, Gordon Brown told the meeting that with 61 million kids out of school worldwide, “we must do everything we can to get children to school”. He said it was “time that we decided we are going to develop all of the talents of all of our people”, after centuries of excluding children who instead end up as child brides, in work, or trapped in conflict.
A former child soldier who has since earned a Masters degree and leads an advocacy group, Chenor Bah said his experience as a victim of the civil war in Sierra Leone was not uncommon, but the positive turn his life has taken certainly was. He said it was “not right” that for many of the people he grew up with and whom he had met around the world, education remained a dream. “It is even more wrong”, he added, “that if I were a girl, my chances of standing here today would be even slimmer”.
Among the countries that pledged to intensify their support for Education First are Australia, Bangladesh, South Africa, Timor-Leste and Denmark.
South African President Jacob Zuma said half the young people out of school worldwide were African, and that illiteracy was a big problem for adults. He said “lack of education virtually means that they have to face the challenges of life with both hands tied behind their backs”. He urged other leaders to commit to “this important new initiative”.
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said that, as a woman leader – of which there “aren’t as many as there should be” – she wished to underline that “we will never see full equality between adult men and women if we do not see full equality between the education of boys and girls”.
The number of primary age children out of school has fallen from 108 million at the end of the 1990s, according to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) global monitoring report. But while there has been significant progress, the UN says much remains to be done to achieve universal primary education – one of the anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – before the target date of 2015.
