How Blended Learning Will Change the World by Tom Vander Ark

The World Bank reports that significant progress has been made toward universal primary education, "Access to schooling in developing countries has improved since 1990 -- some 47 out of 163 countries have achieved universal primary education (Millennium Development Goal 2) and an additional 20 countries are estimated to be "on track" to achieve this goal by 2015." By that time, about 90 percent of the world's children will have access to universal primary.

However, about 4 in 10 youth did not or will not have access to secondary education -- that's 1.4 billion youth largely cut off from participation in the global economy.

The global secondary education gap is the most pressing problem in the world. If we solve that problem, we can improve global health, sustainability, security, and prosperity.

Tom Friedman said yesterday, "The Arab world has 100 million young people today between the ages of 15 and 29, many of them males who do not have the education to get a good job, buy an apartment and get married. That is trouble." And now that many undereducated youth have access to social media, "you have a very powerful change engine."

Online learning, cheap access devices, open content, and broadband will soon provide low cost universal access to quality high school learning and building a bridge to post secondary and job opportunities for the next billion youth.

Facebook and Twitter may topple autocratic regimes, but it will be blended learning that empowers hundreds of millions of youth to lead healthy and more productive lives.
Read more...

Source: The Huffington Post