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The
Global Issues Network has as its mission: to help students realise
they can make a difference by empowering them to work internationally
with their peers to develop solutions for global issues. Begun
by teachers and students from six international schools in
Europe, the programme is based upon
High
Noon: Twenty Global Problems, Twenty Years to Solve Them
by Jean-François Rischard, former World Bank Vice-President
for Europe. Rischard describes imminent issues that can only
be solved through global cooperation. Among these are water
shortages, global warming, environmental degradation, infectious
diseases, poverty, illiteracy, depletion of fisheries, peacekeeping,
and the loss of ecosystems. Rischard notes that the existing
institutions charged with addressing such issues, namely nation-states,
government departments and international organisations, are
self-serving, cumbersome and inadequate for the task. He calls
for an alternative model of global governance based upon independent
global networks that are flexible and super-responsive.
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International
schools already represent a network of independent organisations
that co-ordinate their worldwide efforts toward a common
purpose, and are therefore an excellent platform to apply
Mr Rischard’s concepts. Students can be encouraged
to think systemically about real issues while also taking
action to improve the human condition. This approach involves
collaboration rather than competition, where students
assume leadership of their own programme. Their network
should promote both face-to-face conferences and on-going
communication via the latest technologies. |
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We must develop new instincts and politics
across the planet, whereby each of us is first a global citizen,
second a national citizen, and third a local citizen. Right
now, we have it the other way around.
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It’s
for these two reasons – the need for new, out-of-the-box
methodologies and for a new mindset – that I am excited
about the experiment started by some distinguished international
schools. I can think of few educational projects as worthy
of support.
J.-F.
Rischard, former Vice-President of the World Bank
and author of
High
Noon: Twenty Global Issues, Twenty Years to Solve Them. |
For more information
on the Global Issues Network programme, please contact the
Global Issues Network coordinator:
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Valerie Isbecque |
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International School of
Luxembourg |
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36, bvd. Pierre Dupong |
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L-1430 Luxembourg |
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Tel: (+352) 26 04 40 |
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