Invited Guest Lecture Series- Jeff Sachs

 

IES and IEDP hosted a joint guest lecture today by Jeffery Sachs. Jeffrey D. Sachs is a world-renowned professor of economics, leader in sustainable development, senior UN advisor, bestselling author, and syndicated columnist whose monthly newspaper columns appear in more than 100 countries.

Professor Sachs serves as the Director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University. He has authored three New York Times bestsellers in the past seven years: The End of Poverty (2005), Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet (2008), and The Price of Civilization (2011). His most recent book is To Move the World: JFK's Quest for Peace (2013).

Professor Sachs is widely considered to be one of the world's leading experts on economic development and the fight against poverty. His work on ending poverty, promoting economic growth, fighting hunger and disease, and promoting sustainable environmental practices, has taken him to more than 125 countries with more than 90 percent of the world's population. For more than a quarter century he has advised dozens of heads of state and governments on economic strategy, in the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

His talk was entitled 'Education and Sustainable Development'. Sachs has been deeply involved in the talks around the new sustainable development goals, which will set the international development agenda for 2016-2030. He sees education as having a prominent place in these goals. Sachs defines sustainable development as meaning a holistic approach to development. One that encompasses economic, social and environmental objectives. A fundamental strategy for sustainable development would include investment in five areas:
    Human capital
    Business capital
    Infrastructure capital
    Social capital
    Natural capital

Each one of these depends on the others and therefore you cannot bring development without addressing all five areas. Several times during his talk Sachs brought up the connection of education and fertility rates. In many places around the world, especially Sub-Saharan Africa there is extremely high fertility rates. The population is now increasing at such a profound rate that the region cannot absorb the resulting increase in demand for food, medicine, education etc. "This is not sustainable", Jeff says. There is immediate need to get children, especially girls, into school because we have seen that education does have an influence on lowering fertility rates.

Sachs stressed the importance of setting clear goals and then getting people to see them. He recently wrote a book about JFK entitled JFK's Quest for Peace. JFK was an inspiration to Sachs early in his life and showed him the importance of goal setting.
   

Understanding Culture by Katelyn Knapp

One of the most pertinent topics of coursework this semester focused around culture and acceptance. As we are about to embark on our internships, I find myself reflecting on many of the ways foreign culture has been integrated throughout my classes, and how much this will benefit me while on internship.

1.     Cultural Shares

At the beginning of the school year, our fearless leader, Dr. Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher, gave us an assignment: to present an aspect of our culture in 2 minutes or less. Classmates from across the world presented on Chinese tea ceremonies, Japanese kimonos, and, my personal favorite, how to tie a Nigerian gele. While these presentations won’t directly impact my internship, knowing as much as possible about other cultures and your peers can only be helpful in this field.

2.     Potlucks

As the graduate assistant in charge of social events for IEDP, we planned several international potlucks this school year. Anyone in the program interested in attending could bring a dish from his/her home country, or just anything fun to prepare. We were able to taste foods like samosas from India, chicken and rice from China, and wine from Italy. [The wine was semi-cheating, but it was wine so we enthusiastically accepted it.]

3.     Kiswahili

Probably the most valuable intercultural experience I have had at Penn has been the two semesters I have spent learning Kiswahili. I recently learned that my internship will take place at UNESCO in Nairobi, Kenya. Although Swahili is not required for the internship, I feel that it will be invaluable in daily life. This past week, as I spoke with a member of last year’s class who worked with Aga Khan Mombasa, it hit me how much culture I have been exposed to through this class. I have learned about the importance of greetings to the Swahili people, and the respect that they have for elders in their culture. According to Josh, who worked in Mombasa, Kenya, learning to greet his boss every day and interact with his peers in a way that was comfortable to them helped him make friends and adapt to the new environment. I definitely feel like I’m one step ahead for learning about the culture and customs before traveling, and it makes me that much more excited to visit Kenya for the first time.

Kwa herini, na tutaonana!

The Dreaded Job Search

I've been trying to ignore and postpone the dreaded job search for some time now but as graduation in just a few weeks away it is time to at least begin searching for potential jobs. For IEDP our program does not end with the completion of our coursework, we will all have internships this summer. Yet, those will finish in only a few months time. I don't plan on actively job-seeking until I am on internship but for now I'm trying to get a feel for what is available. One great thing about going to Penn is that you have access to career services for your lifetime. They have great resources and can help you searching for internships or even connecting with alumni in your field of interest. They even have a webpage for individuals seeking international job opportunities.

I've also been checking the career pages of some of the organizations Penn IEDP partners with in sending people for internship. These include:

World Vision
UNESCO
UNICEF
Room to Read
RTI
Save the Children
Care
Agah Khan Foundation

Each of these organizations posts available vacancies, which have helped me to better understand positions that are out there that I might qualify for. In many career fields, especially international development, is it often who you know more than what you know. So I have been looking at some of the resources career services has for learning to network. Networking while on internship will be a vital place to start.

Complimenting GSE by Tokunbo Fashoyin

As the school year draws to a close, it’s hard not to reflect on how much my courses and experiences outside of GSE have influenced my overall experience at Penn. Last fall, I took a course in the Social Policy department, which explored the dynamics of cross sector partnerships as they related to global social impact. Not only was my professor fantastic!, the unique structure and content of the course helped me appreciate the varied opportunities and challenges of working with different actors when trying to facilitate change. I think it goes without saying that we at GSE are enthusiastic about education. That being said, I think that stepping outside the “education-box” to engage in projects with students from other fields helps you notice blind spots, especially because so many other fields ultimately influence education development. I found the course and discussions with students from all across Penn’s campus stimulating and I even notice myself incorporating the many takeaways around humility, working with resistance and the importance of good leadership into everything that I do. This spring, I am taking a class in the Non-Profit Leadership Department on entrepreneurship. Through the course assignments, which form different parts of a business plan, I was given the opportunity to turn my innovative program idea into a viable business model. Truth be told, the process has been very humbling in that it has enabled me to discover the limitations in what I thought was a perfect idea. Having a passion to improve education access and quality is definitely important but I cherish the opportunity that I am getting to be able to flesh-out my ideas in order to build a model that is effective, relevant and sustainable. In addition, being able to pitch this program model and respond to questions from my peers (who come with diverse lenses) has helped me refine and develop something that not only impacts lives, but has a good probability of being funded. My passion for education development remains very strong and I feel fortunate to have had stimulating occasions to enhance my understanding of educational issues through varied interactions with students from different backgrounds. I believe that my experiences outside PennGSE have been an invaluable compliment to my education program and I am looking forward to opportunities that will enable me to put into practice the new insights I have gained.

Stay tuned for guest writers...

I've tried to tell you about as many things I can think of relating to IEDP, Penn and Philly this year but for the last few weeks of the year I have arranged for some others from IEDP to write a guest post!! It will be good for you to get someone else's perspective. Our cohort is very diverse... about half are from the U.S. and half are internationals. We have students from China, Japan, Nigeria, Italy, Liberia, India, Morocco and Chile. I'm missing a few I know. Some have been teachers in the past while others were working in non-profits or even the business sector. Others studies international communication or international relations in undergrad. It is always interesting having classes with people from such diverse backgrounds and experiences. It makes for very rich discussion! So, stayed tuned for the first guest writer next week.

Must Do's in Philly

I can hardly believe the year is almost over! It seems like we were just sitting in the big conference room at the Inn at Penn having orientation....well, sorta. Most GSE Master's programs are a year long and I'll tell you it sure goes quickly. Since I was taking the maximum number of courses each semester I have found that most of my time is spent doing homework. Even Friday and Saturday nights are spent working on papers or reading articles. However, looking back I somehow wish I had taken advantage of all that Philly and Penn has to offer more. With only 4 weekends left before graduation I have decided to make a "Must Do'' list of things that I want to do before I leave Philly. I've gotten my cohort involved and we have a few items so far.

Must Do's in Philly (so far):
1. Reading terminal market   
2. Phillie's baseball game     
3. Italian market
4. Barnes foundation museum 
5. Rocky steps at the art museum
6. Love statue at love park       

It's finally starting to get warmer!! Today, if you walked around campus, you would see most people in shorts and tank tops. It is so nice being able to sit outside on the tables and do work. Penn has a lot of little spots available where there are tables and wifi. The lawn area near Van Pelt library also has wireless internet. This weekend we have the extra addition (I think it's positive) of live music. It is Spring Fling for the undergrads, which means a round the clock live concert on the quad. As a grad student I think I will just admire from afar but if you dare... tickets are $70 I heard.

MOOCS conference at Penn

Tomorrow and Friday there will be a conference here at Penn about massive online courses and their connection with international development. The conference is titled MOOCS4D. The conference will address these questions:

•    ​What obstacles prevent access and use of MOOCs among disadvantaged populations at the 'bottom of the pyramid,' especially in developing countries?
•    What resources outside of MOOCs need to be mobilized to enable access to education for all?
•    What opportunities can be provided by MOOCs to address the persistent inequities found worldwide?
•    How may MOOCs be used to promote improved economic, health and social outcomes?
•    Simply put: How can MOOCs be harnessed as a tool for development (MOOCs4D)?

Our very own Dr. Dan Wagner (Director of International Educational Development Program) is helping to spear head the conference. You can register online. 

Internship

So everyone in our program has been waiting in anticipation for our summer internship placement. Most of the partner organizations do not know what they are are going to be doing in the summer until about this time of year. I am excited to report though.... that I have officially been accepted at UNICEF Nigeria!! I will be interning with them from mid-June through the end of September. Very excited. Each internship is different obviously. Some are more research focused, others program evaluation, others teacher training. My internship will involve creating curriculum for the early childhood centers UNICEF is starting, as well as teacher training of pre-primary teachers and monitoring current early childhood centers run in a few locations around Nigeria.

Policy Brief Update

UPDATE:   Policy brief now totals 3,198 words!  Just a bit more to go. 5,000 words for other assignments doesn't usually seem that long but the policy brief also requires formatting (you know... everything that makes it look pretty) I have been trying to find case studies to put in the brief but that is proving difficult. So many articles talk about the importance of teachers and teacher salaries and incentives but there is little research to prove that those things actually result in teachers staying in the profession. Wish me luck