Strong leadership can ensure girl child education, says Wendy Kopp

Wendy Kopp is CEO and Co-founder of Teach For All, a global network of independent organisations that are working to ensure education for marginalised children. Kopp founded Teach For America in 1989. Today, more than 8,000 Teach For America corps members — recent college graduates and professionals from all academic disciplines — are in the midst of two-year teaching commitments in urban and rural areas. She was one of the speakers at the recently held Global Education and Skill Forum in Dubai. On the sidelines of the conference, Wendy spoke to Kanchan Srivastava. Excerpts:

Do you think we can meet the sustainable development goal to ensure inclusive and equitable quality primary and secondary education for all by 2030?

I think we can meet the sustainable development goal by 2030 with all the kids learning. But it is going to take a totally different level of commitment for creation of learning infrastructure globally that enables incredible local leaders to learn from each other, build capacities and innovate on every level of humanity.

What is driving the success of “Teach of all” and “Teach for America”?

I am so inspired by “Teach for India”. They are inspiring all of us with their innovations to educate the marginalised children.

Is it easier to get volunteers now compared to two decades ago?

We have learnt how to recruit recent college graduates and young professionals to tune all their energies in this direction. It is hard. We just can’t put up posters and simply assume them to come. There is always a percentage of people of the enterprising generation who want to give back to their country.

How can we address lower enrolment and higher dropout of girl students?

There is so much discussion around the girls’ education all over the world. However, this problem can be addressed only with strong and vocal leaderships. We are offering fellowship to girls in our network so that they can sustain in the education system. Governments across the world have to devise their strategies.