Global Education Leaders’ Partnership

Global Education Leaders’ Partnership (sometimes referred to as Global Education Leaders Program), or GELP is a group of education reformers operating in and across countries, with a particular focus on pushing the digitisation of learning.

GELP was initiated in 2009, and then funded and, until 2011 managed by, the technology giant Cisco. It should be seen as part of a much wider effort by Cisco (and other technology interests) to reform education systems around the world through technology (see Cisco profile for more of its lobbying for education reform).

Since 2011, GELP has been run by the UK-based Innovation Unit.

It says it is ‘dedicated to reimagining the future of education at a global scale’.

A Cisco project

GELP began life as a series of ‘white papers’ for technology multinational Cisco.

According to Cisco, it 'launched the Global Education Leaders Program (GELP) in September 2009 to challenge and support education leaders ready to implement the vision outlined in the white paper Equipping Every Learner for the 21st Century.

The publication, published the previous year, was described by Cisco as 'only one contribution to the flood of new thinking that is coursing through education systems in every part of the world.' Following this, Cisco brought together 'opinion leaders, educators, and politicians from developed and developing nations' to discuss its education reform ideas. 'Our aim is collectively to refine a vision for 21st century learning, and to gather the best and most powerful insights into how that vision can be realized,' it said in 2008. Cisco's thinking was subsequently published at: www.transformglobaleducation.org (no longer live; accessible via Wayback).

According to Cisco, the core ideas of Equipping Every Learner for the 21st Century were initiated by the company's internal education strategists, but it also worked with, among others, Michael Barber and Tony Mackay. It also consulted with CoSN (the Consortium for School Networking), P21 (Partnership for 21st Learning), and ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) in the US.

In July 2011, Cisco transitioned ownership and management of GELP to the the Innovation Unit.

Lobbying for education reform

GELP describes itself as a ‘community of key education system leaders, policy-makers, thought-leaders and world-class consultants collaborating to transform education at local, national and international levels.'

Main objectives

GELP lists its aims as:

• 'accelerate and sustain transformation' in the education systems in which it works;
• develop 'transformational capacity' in education 'system leaders' in these countries;
• define and lobby for its vision of '21st century' education; and
• manage the network of education leaders and 'change agents' pushing reform around the world.

Where it works

To date, GELP has worked with policy makers in the following jurisdictions

• Finland
• Brazil
• India
• South Korea
• Chaoyang District, Beijing, China

• England
• Victoria, Australia
• British Columbia, Canada
• Ontario, Canada
• New Zealand

USA

• New York City
• Colorado
• Kentucky
• Council of Chief State School Officers Innovation Lab Network of US states.

According to GELP, every six months GELP teams from countries around the world gather to share ideas and compare notes. It says that the first three years of the programme were spent building this community of reformers and refining their 'vision for the future of education'. More recently the focus for GELP and individual country teams has been on 'dealing with practical challenges as they move from ideation to implementation and transform their education systems for real'.

Strategies for reform

While it's absolutely essential that thought leaders debate what learning should look like, how schools should operate and even what education is for in this century, we should at the same time and with the same degree of seriousness discuss how we get there; how we effect transformation from the education systems we have to the education systems we want and need.

GELP has developed strategies for transforming education systems, which are used by the network around the world. These are outlined in a 2013 publication, Redesigning Education, which, GELP hopes, will be used by countries as yet untouched by GELP, to reform their education systems.

Building a 'social movement'

German ornithologists and animal behaviorists use the word zugunruhe to describe the restlessness to move of flocks of birds and herds of animals before migration. Throughout the world, individuals and organisations are displaying this zugunruhe with regard to educational transformation.

Funding

GELP says it is, or has been, supported by the following companies and foundations: *Innovation Unit

• Ellen Koshland Family Fund
• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• Cisco
• Promethean

GELP also says it ‘draws on specialist contributions from a wide range of partners, including to date [2013]:

• Hay Group
• Harvard Graduate School of Education
• McKinsey & Company
• Bridge
• Asia Education Foundation

People

GELP refers to its people as a 'faculty'.

• David Albury
• Valerie Hannon: Co-Founder of the Innovation Unit UK and founding member and Co-Chair of GELP; senior consultant to the OECD Innovative Learning Environments program; regular contributor to the World Summit on Innovation in Education (WISE).
• Tony Mackay
• David Istance
• Kathe Kirby
• Albert Bertani
• Keren Caple
• Lynn van der Elst

Steering group

• Lynn Olson, advisor on Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation US ‘college ready’ programme.