Education

Solving The World’s EDUCATION Problem, Creative Approaches – Zuriel Oduwole

I was truly excited, and now so very honored to share my ideas and little insights at the #wisesummit that just ended in #dohaqatar World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE). So now, I have a simple question, about this global education crisis that’s ‘megaphoned’ every year in every global United Nations UNICEF USAID UN Women, UNDP, African Union and many other regional reports. We read clearly about the hundreds of millions of children, and then mostly, tens of millions of girls who are out of school. These numbers are frightening – really.

19 years old Zuriel Oduwole

And then some solutions are shared, but the numbers dont seem to really fall. Perhaps it’s time to [change the metrics] we use to measure the successes or definition of the problems, so the solutions are more dynamic to create. It starts with clearly defining ‘schooling’ vs ‘education’ in real and practical terms, globally.

As a young film maker, a simple idea I had when I was 13, was to teach unemployed young women and aged out of school older teens a basic film class, starting quietly in Namibia in 2016. Many said it made no sense and that I was not even qualified to teach film making, until 9 months after that class, a student from my workshop had made her full-length film, using a borrowed camera, and was shopping it to local TV networks. The taste really, is in the pudding, as some would say.

The program has now been done for 482 youths in Ethiopia, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Mexico and Nigeria, because of that one successful Pilot in Namibia. Sometimes, just try things quietly, and see what happens.

If the aim of sending we children [I’m still 19] to school is to equip us with skills and knowledge that allows us to become productive in our societies, why don’t we simply teach skills today directly to those who are far from traditional classrooms, or dont like the setting, or have aged out? Perhaps those scary numbers in all those reports, would finally start falling – maybe permanently. Just a simple teenagers thought, I guess!

Let’s keep creating – change can truly happen. #LetGirlsLearn

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