Julia Gillard arrived on campus Monday to speak on funding global education as the newly appointed Board Chair of not-for-profit group the Global Partnership for Education.
The former Prime Minister opened her
address stating it was ‘good to be back in Melbourne’ and affirmed that even now, outside of the political sphere, her passion for education still continues.
The event, made possible by Associate Professor Jose Roberto Guevara from the Department of Global, Urban and Social Studies; the Global Poverty Project; and the Australian Coalition for Educational Development, was invitation only. But invites were available by application prior to the talk.
Applications were vetted to ensure media was excluded from the event.
Guevara advised the event was not advertised at the request of Ms Gillard but for a total 160 seats available, 158 responses were received. Despite the seat allocation being almost fully subscribed, there were a number of empty chairs in Storey Hall where the event was held.
Guevara said the event was “excellent” and that it encouraged young people to get into the
corporate sector and that “was the most important”.
On the
line up alongside Julia Gillard was Susan Hopgood, President of Education International and the Federal Secretary of the Australian Education Union; Hayley McQuire from Youth Advocacy Group for Global Education First; and Dulce de Jesus Soares, Vice President of Basic/Primary Education for Timor-Leste. Dulce De Jesus Soares, however, was unable to attend due to a scheduling conflict.
Ms Gillard spoke of a need to see a revolution in education. She stated that the GPE had allocated $3.7 billion over the past 10 years but that a further $3.5 billion was needed to fund the organization between 2015 and 2018. These additional funds will be used to assist up to 29 million children in 66 countries.
By Mark Barnes
Photo by Andrei Ghoukassian