OVERCOMING BARRIERS TO AN INNOVATIVE FUTURE FOR EDUCATION

Education and entrepreneurship experts from across the world gathered in Tel Aviv on Monday at the first Global Education Leaders' Partnership (GELP) conference to be held in Israel, tasked with helping drive global education into an innovative future.Entering the venue, the international line-up of presenters and conference-goers were met with Albert Einstein's famous quote: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Attempting to avoid such repetition, industry leaders cited old-fashioned learning techniques, poorly-implemented educational reform and demographic change as some of many stumbling blocks for a sector that is critical to every child, and yet is struggling to embrace the opportunities of the 21st century. The three-day conference was led by educational entrepreneurship incubator Mifras and GELP, in cooperation with the Lautman Fund, Trump Foundation, Daniel Foundation, Tzurim and the Education Ministry."This is the 21st century, we're undergoing a transformation, but when you look at the reality in the classrooms, the picture looks very different," Andreas Schleicher, OECD Director for Education and Skills, told the audience of educators. "When you think about disruptive change, creativity and entrepreneurship, you think about Israel, but memorization is still the most dominant learning pattern here," said Schleicher, who initiated the OECD Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). "What’s it going to take for systemic transformation? Lots of good ideas are available, but the road of educational reform is littered with good ideas that have been poorly implemented."