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Mr. President, thank you for the opportunity to address the annual
ministerial review.
We applaud countries that have made progress in increasing enrollments and
committing more resources to the education of their people
but despite this progress it's been difficult to achieve a cultural shift to
prioritize education, particularly for girls and women and to change the
attitudes and structures that generate the absence of girls in school.
More people now recognize that work to create lasting change for girls must
also consider the roles and attitudes of men and boys
and thousands of neighborhoods around the world experience of the Bahá'í
community has yielded concepts refining the quality of its educational processes.
Here are five of these concepts:
One, enduring change depends on coherent efforts to transform both individual and
society.
What's needed is a systematic approach to transforming behavior and institutions
Two, the means of social change must be consistent with its ends.
It's not enough to enroll girls and boys in school and keep them there.
Communities must also create a vision of the society they wish to live in and
then think about individual behavior and educational processes that will generate
that society.
Three, education needs to address the material, social and spiritual dimensions of human
development.
In all these dimensions people are concerned with the meaning and purpose
of their lives.
Education must provide space to explore these fundamental questions
to discover and develop the technical, artistic, social, moral and spiritual
capabilities of all.
Four, service to the greater good needs to be an integral component of education.
Orientation towards service fosters coherence between learning and action.
Five, it's important to think in terms of process,
particularly towards continuous learning by both individuals and institutions.
Impetus for progress often arises within schools, not in prescriptions for any one
approach to education.
A process that builds capacity at the grassroots creates an environment for
meaningful and sustained educational progress.
Thank you Mr. President.