We want a world in which each girl and boy can fulfil their potential to be the person they want to be. We are helping 27 children to acquire a solid education; we feel extremely privileged to play a role in the adventure of their lives.
As we mature as a Trust, we intend to help create a better education for all children, to improve education in Africa and elsewhere where it is clearly inadequate. This problem is acknowledged by huge international efforts to place education at the top of the development agenda, not least the Education for All movement spearheaded by UNESCO.
However, getting children to school is only the start of the challenge. For statistics about the failure of school systems are alarming. According to the latest Global Monitoring Report, 250 million children are unable to read, write, or do basic mathematics. The tragedy is that, although 130 million of these children are in school, they are still not learning the basics.
Thanks to TED talks by education innovators such as Sugata Mitra, Shukla Bose, and Salman Khan, and networks such as the Centre for Education Innovations, we know about the growing movement of people engaged in developing new education models. These new approaches are firmly rooted in the 21st century; they make full use of the latest technology, while still costing no more, and often less, than conventional models. This movement also promotes a novel philosophy of education. Children are placed at the centre of their learning process and self-directed learning and peer-to-peer teaching are encouraged.
At the Zoe Sarojini Education Trust, we are seeking to identify and partner with a shining example of innovative education for the poor. This could be an education methodology or a school. We want to support its growth and development and, above all, its efforts to spread its learning. We thus want to help create quality education for all.
