Foreign Affairs CommitteeWritten evidence from the Commonwealth Consortium for Education
Summary
Introduction
Introduction to the Commonwealth Consortium for Education (CCfE) (paras 1, 2).
The People’s Commonwealth and the Official Commonwealth, while complementary, are distinct entities (para 4).
Education is central to Commonwealth relations as the foundation of the People’s Commonwealth and the sector with the most extensive inter-governmental co-operative infrastructure (paras 5, 6).
Education gets insufficient attention in the EPG Report & CHOGM Communique (paras 7, 8).
Future of the Commonwealth and reforms needed for success
Although the Commonwealth is likely to figure less prominently in member countries’ external relations as the balance of power and influence in the world shifts towards new players, and as regional ties become more important, this does not necessary mean that the Commonwealth’s usefulness and influence need diminish. If the Commonwealth is courageous in addressing issues facing humanity and in using its position as a bridge between countries at different levels of development and diverse faiths ethnicities, and cultures it can continue to contribute significantly to building a better world (paras 9–11).
Important ways forward in developing a more effective association include greater attention to building the “People’s Commonwealth”, more emphasis in Secretariat work on human development, and mobili-sation of creative thinking on global problems through use of high-level expert groups (paras 12–14).
The Commonwealth’s purpose and value and the impact of the Perth CHOGM thereon
The Commonwealth certainly retains purpose and value in the education sector; and evidence of this is provided by the health of the series of Conferences of Commonwealth Education Ministers, the operations of eg the Commonwealth of Learning, Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan, and the Association of Commonwealth Universities. The EPG recognised the value of CCEMs and CSFP but failed to recognise the pivotal place of education interchange in Commonwealth relations as did the CHOGM Communique. Both were curiously silent on the work of COL, widely thought to be the most effective of the three Commonwealth IGOs (paras 15–17).
Commonwealth Membership and UK diplomatic objectives?
Commonwealth members often support one another in global bodies and consult together informally in foreign-country capitals. CHOGMs afford the possibility for leaders to develop close personal relationships. Opportunities to study in the UK for extended periods under CSFP can be especially effective in creating long term friends abroad for Britain (para 18).
Benefits to UK in trade, promotion of human rights, “soft power” and a positive image of the UK
Study or service in UK under Commonwealth programmes can be very influential (paras 19–21).
Direct Benefits
For UK the reckoning should include presence of Commonwealth bodies in London, including the employment effect; benefit to UK colleges/universities and their students; jobs abroad.
Overseas Commonwealth members have gained from the Secretary-General’s good offices role, and programmes like CFTC, COL and CSFP. Small states have been significant gainers (para 22).
Dependent territories
Should participate in UK delegations, be eligible to gain from/contribute to CW programmes (para 23).
Recommendations (pages 5, 6)
R1. UK should be represented by a senior Department of Education Minister at CCEMs.
R2. The Diamond Jubilee Trust should be encouraged to give priority to CW education exchanges.
R3. Promote Commonwealth through curriculum, re-established CW Museum and observing CW Day.
R4. Establish post in Secretariat to co-ordinate CSFP and give human development higher priority.
R5. Make greater use of high-level specialist advisory groups.
R6. Enhance usefulness of CCEMs by establishing ongoing Ministerial advisory/steering group.
The Submission
1. The Commonwealth Consortium for Education is a grouping of 20 Commonwealth voluntary and professional civil-society organisations concerned with the development of education in Commonwealth countries, and with the promotion of Commonwealth co-operation to that end. The majority of the members are based in the UK, but six of them operate from other Commonwealth countries (Australia, Barbados, Canada, Jamaica, Kenya, South Africa). Most are formally accredited to the Commonwealth.
2. The Consortium itself, whose website is at www.commonwealtheducation.org :
undertakes representative functions as the collective voice of Commonwealth civil society organisations in education and related areas;
provides common services for its members
publishes information on Commonwealth Education co-operation;
convenes conferences and workshops on important contemporary issues; and
engages in advocacy on the way forward for Commonwealth educational co-operation.
3. In this submission the Consortium will not respond to every question posed in the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference but confine itself to aspects more directly relevant to its own work and expertise.
4. We start with two general points First is the need to distinguish formal Commonwealth membership from those many informal Commonwealth links and connections that would doubtless persist for some time even if the formal structures of the Commonwealth, whether official or non-governmental, were to dissolve. We assume that the Inquiry is mainly concerned with the value of formal Commonwealth membership and named structures: and that it will focus on the Commonwealth as an organised international association of nation states with formal structures, procedures, budgets and programmes. There is clearly a difference between the formal inter-state Commonwealth on the one hand and the Commonwealth seen as a group of societies linked by a common heritage of similar institutions, values and shared use of English—a family or Commonwealth of Peoples – on the other.
5. Second, education is central to Commonwealth relations in each of these two distinct but interdependent spheres, the formal and the informal. It is estimated that well over half the population of Commonwealth countries is aged 25 or under. Education lies at the heart of personal and social development, and has always been a key priority for developing and developed Commonwealth countries in their plans for social end economic improvement. It has a key role to play in promoting knowledge and awareness of the Commonwealth and its values. It provides the setting and the impetus for much of the movement of persons, services and ideas that has produced a shared sense of Commonwealth identity. Student and teacher mobility, academic exchange, cross-border provision of courses examinations and qualifications, trade in books and educational materials, all contribute significantly to building Commonwealth consciousness. The education sector has more pan-Commonwealth voluntary and professional organisations and associations than any other. Shared use of English has of course been an important factor facilitating all this unofficial educational interchange.
6. Education also provides a significant focus for inter-governmental co-operation. Indeed there is more public Commonwealth infrastructure in education than in any other sphere. Seventeen triennial Conferences of Commonwealth Education Ministers (CCEMs) have been held in the last 50 years and the 18th will take place in Mauritius in August this year. CCEMs and their associated forums have constituted – after the CHOGMs – the biggest of all Commonwealth consultative gatherings and it a matter of regret that in recent years UK has often not been appropriately represented at senior Ministerial level (R1). One of the three Commonwealth inter-governmental organisations – the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) in Vancouver—is devoted to education co-operation, and education also provides the focus for programmes run by the Secretariat/CFTC and by the Foundation. The Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan (CSFP) of which there are now about 30,000 graduates is a major programme that works bilaterally within a multilateral framework. The UK is the largest contributor, mainly through DFID but also to a small extent through DBIS. Governments also have a significant interest in the work of the Commonwealth Education Trust, formed when the Commonwealth Institute closed.
7. We would add that there is much that Governments could do to use education, both formal and informal to promote the Commonwealth and its values. We make certain suggestions for consideration by the UK Government to that end (R2, R3).
8. Against this background it is surprising and disappointing that educational co-operation often fails to receive the attention it deserves in discussions of the role and future of the Commonwealth. The recent Heads of Government Communiqué from Perth hardly refers to its central role in addressing issues like insecurity and terrorism, environmental degradation and sustainable development, skill needs for competitiveness in a global economy, promotion of democracy and good governance. With the exception of the CSFP, and the recommendation that Conferences of Education Ministers should continue, the Report of the Eminent Persons Group is equally inattentive to the role of education.
What is the future for the Commonwealth and what reforms are needed if the Commonwealth is to be successful?
9. Realistically, one must expect that with the passage of time the Commonwealth as a collective entity will figure less prominently in member countries’ overall external policies relative to their regional and other international ties. Allegiances inevitably undergo modification as new world powers like China and Brazil or within the Commonwealth, India, gather strength. It is quite possible that after the present Queen’s reign, the same commitment and loyalty she has inspired as Head of the Commonwealth, and for many member countries as Monarch, will not be vouchsafed to her successor(s).
10. Emerging regional groupings and regional economic interests will become more prominent, to some extent displacing older connections. But in this context one should note that certain regions and sub-regions – the Caribbean, Eastern and Southern Africa, South Asia, and Australasia/the Pacific are in a sense Commonwealth sub-regions because of the preponderance of Commonwealth states in their membership. In some of them the regional universities (University of the West Indies, University of the South Pacific) and examination boards (eg Caribbean and West African Examinations Councils) constitute an important part of the Commonwealth association’s educational infrastructure.
11. These conclusions do not necessarily mean that Commonwealth influence must diminish. That will depend on imaginative leadership and the readiness of the Commonwealth to think outside the box and to be courageous in raising issues and espousing causes that are in the interest of the whole of humanity – such as the sharing of the world’s resources more equitably, protecting the global environment, advancing human rights and non-discrimination, promoting tolerance and social cohesion, investing for the long-term future. As a community that bridges country differences in population size, wealth, faiths, languages and cultures the Commonwealth must strive always to promote the common global good, to accommodate different viewpoints and to reach consensus, seeking through mediation to protect the interests of the small and vulnerable in the face of dominant economic and social interests.
12. A much greater investment should be made in building the “Commonwealth of Peoples”, focusing on programmes of human development, institution-building and the exchange of persons, ideas and experience. The Commonwealth should exploit more fully its comparative advantage of shared language and commonalities in institutions and practices. This suggests inter alia a larger investment in programmes supported by the Commonwealth Foundation, stronger support for the Commonwealth of Learning, and building up the Commonwealth collective institutions, not only in education but also importantly in sport, youth, business, local government and parliamentary affairs.
13. The Commonwealth Secretariat needs to balance its work in the diplomatic and economic/trade areas with a more purposeful programme of work on human development, professional and technical co-operation and to effect better co-ordination between its programmes in education, youth, gender and health (R4). What it should avoid is a plethora of small programmes in areas where – simply it sometimes seems for the sake of putting down a Commonwealth marker in the area—it duplicates on an ineffective scale the programmes of major bilateral and multilateral agencies. In education, to take an example with which we are familiar, Commonwealth inter-governmental institutions would appear to have far less of a comparative advantage in co-operation on basic education, where a plethora of other agencies are active, than on exchange and co-operation at the post-school level.
14. The collective Commonwealth should strive to be a leader in the realm of ideas in thinking about emerging global issues, highlighting challenges and developing innovative solutions. Some of its most creative and influential work has been of this nature—the Task force under Manmohan Singh on democracy and development (British member: Sir Richard Jolly) or the Civil Paths to Peace Report from the Commission on Respect and Understanding chaired by Amartya Sen (British member: Lord Alderdyce). There is great potential to be derived from making more use of such high level groups (R5).
Does the Commonwealth retain a purpose and value? How has the Perth Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting impacted upon this purpose and value?
15. We believe the Commonwealth does retain a purpose and value generally. In the education sector the Commonwealth certainly has salience and comparative advantage. The Commonwealth of Learning dedicated to co-operation in distance learning for the public benefit, is unique in its field and has been instrumental in familiarising developing countries with new technologies and educational modalities. It has a high reputation among member states: significantly Australia has rejoined. The Association of Commonwealth Universities has 500 subscribing tertiary institutions in its membership, testimony to the value that the Commonwealth connection has for academic leaders round the world. The Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan has gone from strength to strength in its 50-year span of operation and DFID evaluation reports suggest that its developmental impact is substantial.
16. The Commonwealth Consortium for Education was encouraged by some but not all of what was said and done in Perth. As regards the EPG Report we:
welcome much of what the Group has to say about strengthening the Commonwealth and the importance it attaches to the role of civil society;
support its ideas about improving the operation of ministerial meetings, not excluding those recommendations that Governments have subsequently rejected (R6);
commend the positive conclusions and recommendations on the Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan, especially the creation of a co-ordinating post at the Secretariat (R4);
regret, however the Group’s seeming unawareness of the major effective contribution to development being made by the Commonwealth of Learning; and
deplore its inattention generally to the role of education and educational exchanges in Commonwealth relations.
17. The Heads of Government seem to have been wrong-footed by the EPG’s Report, reacting in a somewhat maladroit way to its appearance. By their apparent inability to respond quickly to the EPG’s recommendations – and doing so negatively to important suggestions about reforming ministerial meetings and a more important role for civil society in the Commonwealth—Heads created a sense of anti-climax at a meeting that had been intended to give the Commonwealth a dynamic fresh start. The EPG report with its 106 recommendations, has been criticised on grounds of length. Alas, the messages of the Heads’ own Communique are hardly more accessible, given that the document is so wordy and poorly “signposted” that readers have difficulty in locating content of particular relevance to them.
How does membership of the Commonwealth help the UK achieve its diplomatic objectives?
18. Based on observations of diplomacy in our own limited education sector, we note that the UK draws benefit from the following factors:
In international organisations Commonwealth countries are often inclined to support each others’ initiatives, resolutions and candidatures for office.
In many international organisations and individual countries Commonwealth representatives periodically gather informally to exchange views and concert common approaches.
CHOGMs and Commonwealth ministerial meetings provide opportunities for Commonwealth leaders to spend time together in less formal settings enabling them to reach understandings on difficult issues and to develop close personal relations.
The opportunity to spend 12 to 36 months studying in British universities under the Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan has been a formative influence on the lives and careers of some 20,000 Commonwealth students who have in many cases later become prominent politicians, or leaders in other spheres, in partner Commonwealth countries. The goodwill and friendship so generated is of incalculable but real value.
What benefits does the UK’s membership of the Commonwealth bring in terms of:
Trade —
19. This is outside our main area of expertise and we prefer to leave it to others to comment.
The — promotion of human rights
20. This too is outside our main area of competence.
The — promotion of “soft power” and a positive image of the UK?
21. Respect for and assimilation of British values and culture constitute a huge asset for the UK and its “soft power” objective of winning over “hearts and minds” of those abroad with whom it interacts. The English language, study abroad, UK-based qualifications together represent elements in a powerful nexus of influence. To the extent that these relations are mediated through programmes like the CSFP or through Commonwealth institutions based in the UK, then UK membership of the Commonwealth adds to their impact.
What direct benefits does the Commonwealth bring to citizens of the UK and of Commonwealth countries?
22. These benefits include:
Unlike European cities (Brussels, Geneva, Paris) the UK is home to comparatively few international inter-governmental organisations (IGOs). The presence of Commonwealth institutions, mainly but not only the two IGOs based in Marlborough House, contributes to London’s character as an international city, and provides a constant reminder that as well as pursuing its own interests through diplomacy the UK has wider responsibilities.
Commonwealth organisations are a direct source of employment for several hundred people, many of them British. The UK economy benefits modestly from their spending.
Because of the presence of Commonwealth institutions in London, overseas high commissions and some embassies maintain a higher level of representation in London than they might do if dealing with the British Government alone.
UK academic and other institutions benefit greatly from programmes like CSFP which attracts some of the best international students to study alongside British young people. Evidence of this has been shown by the willingness of universities in the UK to engage in co-funding Commonwealth awards, most recently those offered by the Department of Business Innovation and Skills for students from more developed Commonwealth countries. Reciprocally, UK students have also themselves been able to benefit from Commonwealth Scholarships tenable in other Commonwealth countries, awarded by their governments: this flow is expected to grow.
Commonwealth programmes have also supported UK expertise undertaking development assignments abroad.
For other Commonwealth countries, the benefits have been felt at both collective and individual levels. The Secretariat’s “good offices role has frequently helped defuse tensions and forestall overt conflict. Commonwealth programmes under the CFTC and COL have played an important part in human resource development and in building institutional capacity. The support for the small states of the Commonwealth and for their agendas, one of the hallmarks of Commonwealth co-operation, has been particularly valuable to them, and the Commonwealth has also been particularly proactive in assisting emerging Commonwealth states to negotiate favourable agreements with the large mining companies and other multinationals.
Every independent Commonwealth country and dependent territory has benefited substantially from Commonwealth Scholarships from UK and her Commonwealth partners. These awards have provided important staff development opportunities for governments and new universities, and have provided overseas nationals with access to disciplines not yet taught at home.
What role and status should the British Overseas Territories, Crown Dependencies and self-governing jurisdictions have in relation to the Commonwealth?
23. They should be:
Consulted about UK policy towards the Commonwealth and the position the UK will adopt at CHOGMs and ministerial meetings.
Represented on official UK delegations, in the case of the more affluent among them at their own expense, to CHOGM and ministerial conferences.
Invited to assume the role of spokesperson for the UK in some sessions of ministerial meetings.
Allowed to be full beneficiaries of Commonwealth co-operative programmes like the CSFP or through the Commonwealth of Learning. Where they are in a financial position to do so (eg Bermuda, British Virgin Is, Cayman Is.), they should be encouraged to contribute to Commonwealth programmes in their own right, eg offering Commonwealth Scholarships tenable in their institutions, and themselves contributing to the CSFP Endowment Fund.
Recommendations for Action
R1. The UK Government should ensure that it is represented at senior level at sectoral Commonwealth Ministers’ conferences, both as a matter of courtesy and to increase the value of these events to other participants. In the case of the triennial education gatherings (Conferences of Commonwealth Education Ministers – CCEMs) this should be by a senior Minister from the Department for Education, preferably the Secretary of State, who should stay for the duration of the Conference. The delegation should include appropriate representation from DFID and, if so requested, from Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
R2. The Government should encourage the Diamond Jubilee Trust to focus on promotion of links, exchanges and reciprocal visits between schools and colleges, students, teachers and other education professionals in Commonwealth countries.
R3. Following the demise of the Commonwealth Institute, which for many years took the lead in promoting knowledge of the Commonwealth in British schools and the adult population, the Government should consider fostering and supporting initiatives to develop awareness of the contemporary Commonwealth and its values by
incorporating suitable content in the school curriculum;
supporting efforts, whether through the Diamond Jubilee Trust or other channels, to secure the relocation and re-opening of the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum; and
setting aside a modest sum of money to fund national events in the UK marking Commonwealth Day each year, and encourage major cities, towns and schools to undertake appropriate activities at their own level to the same end.
R4. The UK Government in consultation and in concert with Commonwealth partner countries should encourage the Commonwealth Secretary-General to:
(a)
(b)
R5. The Commonwealth Secretary-General should be encouraged to draw more extensively on expertise residing outside the Commonwealth inter-governmental organisations, particularly where this is available to him on a non-commercial basis. One useful device used successfully in the past and to which significantly greater recourse could be made in future is the high-level specialist Expert Group to examine critical emerging issues affecting member countries and to make recommendations to Commonwealth governments.
R6. With other Commonwealth governments the UK should endeavour to strengthen the usefulness of Ministerial Conferences paying particular attention to ensuring leadership and continuity in the face of the inevitable high turnover among Ministers between triennial meetings. A device worthy of consideration is creation of a small ministerial advisory or steering group to monitor and facilitate the work of the Secretariat in fulfilling mandates from past conferences and preparing agendas for the next one. Our own long experience of Education Ministers’ Conferences convinces us that this would have positive value in the education sector.
30 January 2011