Education the right of every child, stresses Sheikha Moza

QNA Doha HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Education Above All Foundation, participated in a discussion session organised by the Foundation title...

QNADohaHH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Education Above All Foundation, participated in a discussion session organised by the Foundation titled ‘Educate A Child - Zero Out of School Children’, as part of the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) 2021 on Thursday.Audrey Azoulay, director-general of UNESCO, and Vice President of the Republic of the Gambia, Dr. Isatou Touray, attended the session. During the session, President of the Republic of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, also spoke on the occasion.Her Highness touched on the Education Above All Foundation’s “zero” strategy, which aims to reduce the percentage of out-of-school children in several countries, in her speech, emphasising the importance of all sectors working together to achieve the goal of universal primary education.Her Highness stated during the discussion that education is an acquired right for every child, a key to resolving current social and economic issues, a means of instilling culture and identity, and a social and economic enabler. She noted that, despite the fact that education is one of the most important pillars for achieving sustainable development goals, some countries have yet to achieve universal primary education, especially given that, according to the most recent statistics, more than 59 million children of primary school age are not enrolled in schools worldwide.The strategy of Education Above All provides a practical solution for addressing multiple countries through multi-sectoral partnerships in order to reach every child who is out of school.Her Highness concluded her speech by stating that the pandemic has increased the burden on marginalized and deprived children. Just as the international community banded together to combat COVID-19, we should work together to make education a vaccine against social pandemics, the most prominent of which are intolerance, inequality, and poverty, because education alone can achieve a lot.The Education Above All Foundation is currently working to secure and implement on-the-ground partnerships to increase efforts in Gambia, Rwanda, Zanzibar, and Djibouti to reduce the percentage of out-of-school children. Through this initiative, the Foundation collaborates with a number of countries to identify and register marginalized children, as well as the hard-to-reach category of uneducated children at the primary level.