GWI Official Delegate at International Conference on ICT

GWI Executive Director, Danièle Castle, participated at the international conference on information and communications technologies (ICTs) and Post-2015 Education in Qingdao, China on 23-25 May 2015. The two-day event brought together representation from 50 Ministries of Education and other high-level speakers and attendees to discuss how ICTs can be leveraged at scale to support the achievement of post-2015 education goals and targets. GWI was an invited speaker on the session on Empowering Women through ICTs, sharing the panel with the Minsters of Education for Ghana and Nepal. GWI’s position was very much in keeping with its manifesto on non-traditional education, emphasising that new technologies, including access to distance learning online, are an effective way of bringing education to isolated communities, especially to rural and indigenous girls and women. GWI also advocates for contemporary definitions of literacy to take into consideration modern-day skill necessities, which include digital literacy. As part of the delegation’s visit, Danièle had the opportunity to visit the Qingdao Experimental Primary School, where children as young as 4 and 5 years old were showcasing how they were using technology in the classroom. The conference concluded with the adoption of the Qingdao Declaration on ICTs in education, which can be viewed here.