Director General of UNESCO, President of University of Hamburg,
dear colleagues and friends, I should apologize at the beginning
because I have prepared a presentation in French.
And when I came here, I was told that there is no translation.
So I have now to manage this presentation
and to tell it in English.
So sorry about that.
It is with great pleasure that I have come again to Hamburg
for the celebration of the 16th anniversary
of the UNESCO Institute for Life Learning.
They once gave me the opportunity
to acknowledge the effort and sacrifice
made by the staff and the 16th Director of the Institute
to ensure the continuity and the development of their mission
to diversify, enrich, and assign policies and strategies
for education training, literacy, and learning.
I witnessed the difficult condition
under which they performed their task with great courage,
tenacity, and dedication.
Also, they faced major challenges to survive.
They made a professional contribution
of valuable quality to the overall development
of education, particularly in Africa.
So I want to pay tribute to the Institute
as well to the associate member, old and new boards,
with particular reference to women and men
like Justin Ellis, whose farsighted leadership,
both serene and determined, was a valuable asset
in finding solutions to crisis situation.
Ladies and gentlemen, my presentation
is mostly inspired by the so expressed
on the subject by ministers and professionals
of education in Africa, in dialogue
with their partners in bilateral and multilateral
cooperation and various stakeholders
during the triennial organized by the Association
of the Development of Education in Africa, ADEA,
in February 2012 in Wabudu, Burkina Faso.
Why does lifelong learning is a vital necessity for Africa?
The ongoing globalization impedes
the growing hegemony of societies and knowledge
economies in an increasing globalized and interdependent
world, as expressed in a condensed manner
in the concept of global village.
Such a process places Africa at the crossroads.
Is Africa remaining at the standstill
with the risk of disappearing?
Or Africa become part of the 21st century
by starting with a key element, knowledge and innovation
in other world, promote critical skills
for accelerated and sustainable development
as recommended at the triennial of ADEA.
If you have a look to the figures, what we can observe
is, for example, in higher education,
Africa is at the level of 6% of covering population.
While South Asia and West Asia are 10%, Central Asia are 25%,
East Asia at 26%, Arab State at 20%, Latin America at 28%,
Europe, Central and East Europe at 60%,
and North America and West Europe at 70%.
This is a large gap, should be translated in Africa
into digital, cognitive, and technology gaps.
And this explains why, from 1990 to 2010,
Africa is staying at 0.4% for the index of human development.
And other regions are growing, and East Asia
is at 0.6%, South Asia at 0.5%, Latin America at 0.7%,
and the OCDE at 0.9%.
We are here in the pessimistic scenario
in which Africa is not investing enough to address these gaps.
And in this case, it will certainly
remain the lager of human development in the world.
According to some forecasts, the GDP per capita in 2025
will default below one quarter of the world average.
High population growth and climate change
combined with low-value, adequate saving and confidence
in the role of the suppliers of raw materials
will increase poverty, risk of food crisis,
struggle for control of natural resources, conflict,
and political instability in Africa.
There is an alternative to this.
Africa is in a repositioning, and it
can be aimed in a virtuous, spiritual education,
development education, which takes place today
through the implementation and the long-life learning.
Today, more than ever, opportunities
are already there for Africa.
And economic growth, which has been accelerated
since the mid-19s, African economies
have read above 5% in contrast to the years of recession
and stagnation prevailing since 1975.
High attractiveness of investment,
which have increased by 15 billion to 87 billion US
in seven years, between 2000 and 2007.
The rise of the labor force estimate at 1 billion by 2020.
These repositioning of the continent
will be strengthened and speeden up
if skill development substantively
increase the capacity of transformation and innovation
of the people.
In this regard, the major asset and reserve
exceptional development are not lacking.
West natural resources, young population,
while the other part of the world
are dealing with older population,
large female population who is not literate,
language and culture very poorly drawn open.
So all these represent powerful actors
and the factor of development if we can valorize it.
In terms of evaluation, we have to add
that Africa has the biggest margin of economic growth
in the world.
For now, it participates only on 20th of the value
added of products that it export,
because it's not valorizing these products in Africa.
With the development of knowledge and innovation,
Africa could therefore reverse the negative trends
and the drive accelerated development and sustainable
beyond the most optimistic current scenarios.
For example, for ADB, GDP may increase by $1,000,000,000, $1,000,000
to $50,000,000,000, $1,000,000, and GDP capital from $1,600,000
to $5,600,000 between 2010 and 2060.
Most African countries who are now low-income countries
will become middle-income countries,
and we can have a dedication of extreme poverty.
And the middle class in Africa will increase
to $120 million in 2020.
In sum, the main challenge of becoming
the continent of the 21st century, Africa
can made it if Africa achieves the building of African economies
and society based on knowledge and innovation.
But what are the situation now?
The imagery shows that long-life learning is expressed
as a general reference in the operational policies,
but without substance.
The analysis of situation revel among the challenge
to its implementation, limited understanding
of learning, of long-life learning at the level of policymakers,
even among many professional, would
tend to assimilate lifelong learning and adult continuing
education.
The second challenge is the lack of policy framework
and strategy for lifelong learning.
The third challenge is the rigidity
of dominant system of education, training, and learning system.
And this rigidity is incompatible with the diversification,
flexibility, and the responsiveness necessary
to include all at once and meet the demands
of different communities, society, and economy.
The fourth challenge is the sectoral compartmentalization
that failed to develop relation and exchange network
and cross-sector partnership necessary to expand
access for all equity, relevance,
and effectiveness of learning.
The fifth challenge is the hegemony of cultures
and the practices in teaching.
And all these practices are against the inclusion
of autonomy, responsibility, and initiative of the learner.
So what are the response to these challenges?
The first response is about African ownership
and internationalization of the concept of life learning.
It is essential to promote in Africa a deep understanding
of the concept.
This does not mean only adaptation or accommodation
to evolution.
Far from beyond a natural process,
lifelong learning is a deliberate process
and ongoing construction, enrichment,
and development of knowledge, skills, qualification,
and behavior related to a culture, scientific culture,
and intensive use of knowledge required
by the actual environment.
And this environment is characterized
by the centrality acquired by knowledge
as a main force of economic prediction
and social transformation, by the permanence
of scientific and technological revolution
that overturn all sectors of life and renew the knowledge
and the practices at a very speedy space.
The rapid and profound change that after lives
of the global village and force people to change the world.
The demand and the challenge of the ever-changing world of work
in connection with accelerated of innovation,
the rapid transformation of job, the social occupation mobility,
and the migration of job due to the transnationalization
of economies and the race for competitiveness.
This is also what learning means,
lifelong learning means today.
And it's why it's necessary in Africa
to promote this comprehension, this understanding
among the leadership and the professional of education.
In this way, the general characteristic
of the challenge of Africa for lifelong learning
should be linked to education for all,
raising the general level of public education
and the promotion of transformational leadership
in all aspects of the society.
It should be linked also to the acceleration
and the sustainability of development of Africa
as the promotion of critical skill
for raising labor productivity, openness,
and the technological transformation of economies
of substance in terms in high growth economies
to promote asceticianship of sustainable development.
It's linked also to cultural renaissance of Africa
to the promotion of languages, culture,
and history of aric Africa.
Therefore, we need an African identity, proud of itself,
confident it is a local potential
and fully engaged in a renewal with pan-Africanism.
It's linked to the dissemination of scientific culture
in society and interact with indigenous heritage
to promote open and dynamic African cultures.
It's linked to skill development focused
on a high sense of potential of values
and the specific potential of development
with intense in high mass natural resources,
demographic journeys, and women.
All that direct political skill development towards flexibility,
the transition from training to employment,
the elevation, the recalibration,
and the diversification of skill based
on social and economic transformation
and the current boss of this in the present and the future.
Learning, lifelong learning in this perspective
postulates close interaction between research, training,
and production for processing and for the increased efficiency
of system and their method of training and organization.
This means, and this is the response to more system,
educational, and training system, more holistic,
more integrate, and more diversifies.
Achieves this policy of lifelong learning in Africa
requires a promotion of new, more holistic, diversified,
and integrated vision of education and training.
In order to offer to each and every one
the opportunity to learn according to their needs
and their specific situation.
Meeting this need, this diverse and massive needs
is difficult for the capacities and the resources
of African states.
Yet, you will rely more and more on international resources
in terms of trends of declining external assistance.
While the identification, assessment, mobilization,
assembling, and integration of all resources and opportunities
for education, training, and learning
that exist in families, grassroots communities,
economic enterprise, professional organization,
and the religious and all that is required,
learning, lifelong learning can take root in Africa
without the contribution of different sectors
of the economy and the society.
The optimization of the operation of such system
need the partnership and the participatory governance
of systems that integrates all the stakeholders,
including the world of economies, civil society, organization,
and grassroots communities.
It needs also the establishment of national framework
or regional recognition for validation of skills,
whatever their source of accusation,
including to the experience.
They need a standard and quality assurance mechanism
in congregants with performance to promote.
They need guidance, vocational guidance,
counseling to better meet the needs
and the choice of potential success.
Response three, it will subvert the dominant culture
and practices in the field of learning.
The reform at the level of the policies
and the system may be nothing if they
don't change the culture and the practice of the main
stakeholders of education.
This means that lifelong learning
start by a quality of basic education
that ensure control of the basic tools of learning, reading,
writing, and numeration, and the cognitive skill
necessary, knowing how to observe, experiment,
analyze, interpret, synthesize, evaluate,
and develop logical thinking, critical thinking,
and innovation capacity.
The importance of self-motivation
for lifelong learning should engage learning to life.
Lifelong learning implies that from the early stage,
learning is explicitly linked to problem solving,
learning to make decision, learning
to develop his personal life, to promote vision and health,
to participate effectively in society,
to integrate into the world of work.
Ensure we must give a real meaning to learning
in terms of usefulness and use in the life.
Therefore, also, the establishment
of learning through a long-life learning
requires a cultural change and a subversion
of dominant teaching practices among major stakeholders
in education.
This means the renewal of the culture of quality that does
mean that does not mean elitism, net excellence,
but successful learning by all, or at least
by the largest numbers at each level.
New criteria and indicators for evaluating,
assessing the success of learning
that goes beyond the mastery of knowledge
and should be measured in the ability
to use knowledge in order to face
successfully problematic contexts.
Subversion of practices, transmission,
and memorizing knowledge in order
to permit the active construction of skill
by learner dealing with problematic situation
to promote autonomy, self-learning, co-construction,
and learning with peers, learning
through observation, experimentation, and action
in the social, economic, and cultural environment.
Beyond the challenge of education reform,
there is another response.
Africa is confronted with environment challenge
that are of circle to lifelong learning.
Poverty, illiteracies, pandemic and economic
of AIDS and malaria.
In Africa, the simultaneity of revolution
required to achieve a comprehensive and all
encompassing education and training.
This man that elsewhere, a Greek revolution
was linked with universal primary education.
And this revolution was linked with generalization
of secondary education.
And post-industrial revolution was
linked with the expansion of higher education.
In Africa, these revolutions are required at the same time.
In turn, our learning is especially
intended to include all for all stage of life,
says also considered as opportunity
for learning a core health types and level of need.
In sum, lifelong learning represent
a fundamental framework and a perspective in order
to meet the combined needs raised by the simultaneously
of revolution in Africa.
Africa must therefore articulate the reform of education
system, promote implement and develop in communities,
learning communities, learning families,
learning grassroots communities, learning civil society
organization, learning professional association,
and learning in the world of work and the world of leisure.
Beyond universal access to knowledge,
the goal is to involve everyone at any age,
anywhere in continuous process of development and sharing
of knowledge to build society and economies based
on innovation as the basis of collective prosperity
and personal fulfillment in a world in constant change.
It is apt that the assessment in 2015 of AFI goals and MDG
open such prospect and the new life for the Institute
still brings to Africa all the expert guidance that
be required for the successful implementation on long life
learning in the continent.
Thank you.