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EDUCATION JUST GOOD BUSINESS
As the world emerges from the shadow of an economic collapse that will push an estimated 90 million more people into poverty this year alone, education will be in the spotlight. As nations struggle to regain their economic footing, the advantage will go to those with skilled and productive workers.
“To make a difference, we have to do things that actually work,” Gordon Berlin, president of MDRC, told New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. MDRC is research organization that was among the first to evaluate poverty-fighting strategies using random trials. “In the last 15 to 20 years, we’ve begun to build a compelling body of evidence that policymakers and program operators can act on.”
Things that are likely to make a difference include high-quality early childhood programs; career academies that engage high school students by teaching around occupational themes and partnering with potential employers to provide hands-on work experience; and jobs programs.
Kristof concludes that the two most important forms of intervention to fight poverty seem to be education and jobs.
The importance of a good education cannot be overstated. That’s why AmCham’s Education Committee produced a guide to help parents make the best school choice for their children and a directory of schools in Egypt that offer the American diploma. It’s also why this issue of Business Monthly is devoted to the subject.
In the cover story, Tamer Hafez looks at current trends in public-private partnerships and considers the appropriate roles of such arrangements. Rashad Mahmood talks to several human resources professionals about what they look for when interviewing university graduates and asks some recent hires to grade their schooling in light of work experiences. In a separate story, he also examines the reasons why educators and executives alike frequently cite English language competency as the single most important job skill. And Sarah Marquer reports on exchange programs available to Egyptian students and whether or not they are effective.
Whew. That may seem like a lot to learn about the relationship between education and employment in Egypt, but it really amounts to a freshman-level survey course. This nation is blessed with a proactive private sector that is involved in a great number of programs and initiatives to improve the prospects of young Egyptians. While it simply is not practical to identify all the players in a single Business Monthly, they all deserve acknowledgement.
Bertil G. Peterson
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