Education For All--Including the President

The International Reading Association's President, Dr. Pamela Edwards of Georgia (US), and first African American female president, charged us with looking at the Education For All (EFA)Goals for improving international education for all students.

Six internationally agreed education goals aim to meet the learning needs of all children, youth and adults by 2015.

Goal 1 - Expand early childhood care and education

Goal 2 - Provide free and compulsory primary education for all

Goal 3 - Promote learning, life skills for young people and adults

Goal 4 - Increase adult literacy by 50 per cent

Goal 5 - Achieve gender parity by 2005, gender equality by 2015

Goal 6 - Improve the quality of education

Link: http://www.unesco.org/en/efareport/

Now, we had a chance to travel with Dr. Pamela Edwards to Zanzibar, wonderful island outside of Dar es Salaam. We thought it would such an honor to spend time with a professional woman from the south who was just selected as President-Elect of such a prominent organization in education. However, her attitude and demeanor toward the people of Africa was less than digestible to say the least.

My mother told me that if I did not have anything nice to say..do not say anything at all. So, I am going to stop here.

However, I would love to meet with her again, in the future to share how her overall presence depicted a very poor outlook on the African American community and educational profession as a whole. For once, I can say I was truly embarrassed to be part of the African American community.