Australia as Prime Minister. I caught up with her at the global offices in washington, d. C. Julia gillard, welcome to talk to al jazeera. For decades, now, the world has been preaching to itself about the value of education. Transform individual lives, remake society, big bang for the buck. Is there anywhere where that lesson hasnt taken yet . Do you still have to preach the gospel of education . I dont think we have to preach the gospel, education changes lives more educated people, higher skills, more prosperous economy. What weve got to do is get out and not only talk about that gospel but implement it on the ground so we are changing childrens lives. And whilst a lot of progress has been made and we should be congratulating ourselves for that, more has to be done. Im gad to chair, and to make a difference for the children who are still out of school and the children who are in school that the quality of their learning isnt really high enough. They are not coming out of school being able to read or right or do math. What is the impediment . The aid effort, the amount of aid money going into education go backwards by more than 6 . I think thats a very concerning statistic. When we know were going to to make sustainable change, the glop Global Partnership for education, has made a real different will be out and about knockinknocking on doors in comg months as we move towards our replenishment round to try to galvanize more effort into education. I think there has been more momentum generated, a lot of things have happened, more kids in school more girls in school, developing countries are putting more of their budget into education. We are working in fragile and conflict affected areas and making a difference. If you are in a newly democratizing part of the world, compared to home affairs or defense or some of the ore ministries that people are vying for in a new government . I certainly hope you would be. And in my own country where i served as Prime Minister, i started as Education Minister and i was very delighted to get that portfolio. Because i knew if i was going to make a long term difference for my own nation, for the opportunity, for the lives of our young people, for our economy for the long term. For our Competitive Position in the asia pacific, that there was no better portfolio than change. And whats true for a country like australia is even more startlingly true in developing nations. If im an up and coming politician i would be scratching and fighting for that portfolio. Thats why i asked you. You said earlier in your career that in fact Foreign Affairs was passion. You preferred the education ministry. But is that the place where you become an International Personality . If we look, you know, there are 50 nations in africa, three dozen in asia, is that where people are going to say yes, thats where things are happening . Thats where i want to be . I think increasingly they are. And that was my personal experience as Prime Minister. I would go to a lot of countries representing australia, id go to a lot of multilateral meetings. I can certainly tell you apart from the globa important discuss like Global Economy, leaders did get together and talk about education, how you were going with your schooling system as opposed to how they were going. And thats why theres such interesting international testing. Everybody is looking over their shoulder to see whether or not their Education System is keeping up. I managed to specialize in the end in not only traveling overseas, theres no greater feel of how a country is doing than visiting a local school. Is it only on a second look that sometimes we find that nations are all gung ho for education, but when you start asking probing questions it turns out oh, i didnt know you minority. I didnt know that you meant girls too. I dont know that you meant this region that we normally ignore and disempower. Is it important to remind countries that are revamping their systems that everybodys got to be in the game . Its important to remind all of us that everybodys got to be in the game. There are 57 million children around the world who dont get to go to school. Some of them are in ethnic minorities that are discriminated against. Many of them are girls. And many of them of children in conflict and fragileaffected zones. And the world made them a promise that we would get universal Primary School education for them and we have promise. Is it a battle sometimes . I mean there are places where it is just understood. It is in the social fabric that certain people just dont get the benefits even of a well functioning state. We dont bother to give it to them. We dont search them out to make sure that hard to serve communities are reached by these things. I think theres a set of attitudes weve got to work through. Some cultural predispositions some prejudices and some economic equations, some for families in the poorest part of the world. How they have been making choices as to whether children are contributing to the labor of the family, getting water, collecting firewood or getting to school. We got to make sure that economic formula stacks up so they are able to come out of math. And get work to better help the family, access is important as far as lifting economy. We have 57 million kids who dont get to go to school. We have 250 million kids who go to school but still dont come out with even the most basic of skills and thats why we have well. A lot of governments have given individual families incentives to keep their children in school. And the amount of compensation goes up as they advance through their school careers. But i got to tell you one of the most heartbreaking conversations ive ever had while covering education was in a small village in rural mexico standing around with a bunch of guys who had finished high school. They were the first people in all their respective families to finish high school and it was solely thanks to conditional cash transfers. Their families were paid for keeping them in school. And one guy said you know my father finished the second grade and the only job i can find is working with him in the field. Does opportunity necessarily follow the educated . Its a circle. And weve got to be making sure all parts of it are there. The Global Economy has to continue to grow. And of course we had the great shock of the Global Financial crisis, and many parts of the world are still recovering. Weve got to have Global Growth. And within ghoabl growth each i have Global Growth each individual nation have got to provide opportunities for their people, their workforce, to get on and get ahead. But those nations are not going to attract capital or investment or Economic Activity if they cant offer a workforce with the skills to do the jobs, which is why educating the population will help attract that Economic Activity. And then for the life of individuals will mean that theres a pathway beyond schooling into something that pays well and helps, then, create a better life. Is there enough of an effective dialogue between that very posh Conference Room in the ministry and the village, where theyre deciding whether or not to let their girl continue past Primary School . Whether or not theyre think its worth it to scrape together the fees for secondary school for their son . The Global Partnership works as a donor of funds. But in order to have funds flow a developing country has to bring together everyone whos got a stake in education, develop an Education Sector plan that everybody is buying into, and theyve got to be lifting their own efforts, as well. And the Global Partnership for education has enjoyed success at that in the countries where weve worked what you see is that the amount of money going into education, its share increases by 10 of gdp. Now thats a fantastic achievement that youve not only got donor funds but youve got local funds coming together in a combined education plan. So you dont get some of the problems that people hear about where, you know, someones bought the computers and someones built the classroom and someones got the textbooks, where actually putting it together it doesnt fit it doesnt celebrate an integrate and it doesnt help the children. The people who pie ebuy the computers also must people who buy the computers must know theres got to be electrification to plug the computers into. When we talk about fragile and conflict ridden countries, capacity problems in Public Sector in rolling out services, thats to be expected. But those capacity issues are going to be better addressed if there is a comprehensive plan piece. And thats the model of the Global Partnership for education. Doing the whole Education Sector plan. Are the governments giving you the money in the donor parts of the world ready to pony up . We have come through an age that was very difficult in ministries of capitols. Im certainly aware as a former government leader that there have been many ministries of the world that have gone tbrai afte gray after this, better focus on education out of aid. Aid dollars are actually growing again. There was a period that they went down as a result of the Global Financial crisis but theyre growing again. But even in a growing situation, the amount going to education has gone backwards. So we need a better focus on education because its the best way of making sustainable long term change. There are countries that we traditionally think of as feeding the rest of the worlds help needing the rest of the worlds help that are actually doing pretty well. Creating new classes in society, spinning off wealth. Do we have to take another look at the map of the world and ask for help from the brazils, Mexicos Chinas that can be donating to the global kitty . I think any nation with the capacity to give should be giving and weve got to be very rigorous. Does does that even mean thinking about yourself in a different way . If you are in ankara, in mexico city, in brazilia . If we hadnt thought of ourselves as International Aid donors anymore . I think the country im most familiar with is china, making the shift policy wise and intellectually and in demeanor, the country that was an aid recipient with hundreds of millions of People Living in poverty to now feeling civility as a global power and conducting itself as a global power by maybing funding aid available. Were talking with julia gillard, making sure the worlds children are properly educated. How that may increase the supply globe. Twenty five years ago, pan am flight 103 exploded in the skys above lockerbie. Only one man was convicted of the attack the major difficulty for the prosecution, that there was no evidence. Now a three year al jazeera investigation, reveals a very different story about who was responsible they refuse to look into this. So many people at such a high level had a stake in al megrahis guilt. Lockerbie what really happened . On Al Jazeera America youre watching talk to al jazeera. Im ray suarez. With us on the Program Julia gillard, the former Prime Minister of australia and now the board chair of the partnership for global education. Youre very much an asian economy and an asian oriented economy and that probably took a shift inside the mind of australia, about who you were, and where you were, on the globe. Yes, it did. And it was a shift originally led by the competing labor governments, Prime Minister bob hawk and Prime Minister bill keating. Led to the community of apek, the community of stations in asia pacific. Under my prien ministership, we sharpened that focus, for having a whole of nation policy paper, calling australia in the asian century, looking across the 100 years to come, the original growth in our region of the world and its Rising Economic power. We were very conscious of the strategic weight of the world in which we live and the australias place for that and the great opportunities that can flow from it. Do you think australia has a lfn lesson to teach to the United States as it talks about tilting towards asia, refocusing not necessarily away from europe but taking a wider view of the world . China is a big player now. And i think americas associations are still very heavily pitched across the atlantic. I was very happy as Prime Minister to welcome president obama to australia. He spoke in our parliament house. And he spoke at the time that the United States was first articulating the doctrine of the pivot or the rebalance, whatever terminology you want to use, towards asia. It seemed to me a very smart move and was followed up by a lot of activity. I mean the u. S. Has always been deeply engaged in our region of the world but it was clearly a conscious Foreign Policy decision to strengthen that engagement even more. And in my experience that has meant a very deep and sophisticated engagement with china, as china rises in our region, and that starts to shape and change the worlds history and the strategic balances in our part of the world. Was that a process . Did that take some time for the average australian to remake their own internal map of the world, the map they carry around in their heads . Its been an endeavor over decades, with government leadership. You know, pointing to where our path in the world is going to be. So we are an ally of the United States of america, of course people look to america, travel in america, you know, hollywood, you know, american culture, all of that. We have our special and historic ties to the united kingdom. We still have Queen Elizabeth as our head of state. We are not a republic. She is our ultimate head of state. But weve got this clear consciousness of ourselves in our part of the world needing to understand what is happening right across our region. So of course thats about china. But its also about india and whats happening in south korea. For a very long period of time its been about whats happening in japan now, such a strong trading partner of ours and partner in the region in so many ways. Its whats happening in indonesia. So across all of our region we are deeply engaged and weve got more of a sense of ourselves in that place. Than perhaps we had 20, 30, 40 years ago. Along with being comfortable with itself as an asian country, does australia have something to say to the west about Global Climate change . Because its in a very different place on the globe. Are you suffering in ways that are kind of the thin edge of the wedge here . I think like the rest of the planet, i accept the science of climate change. I dont think that you can look at any one weather event and say thats climate change. But you can look at the way the patterpatterns overall and the scientists tell us the world is getting warmer and the weather, as a result, more extreme droughts, more extreme flooding, more extremity hurricanes and cyclones. We suffer from these extreme weather events. Certainly weve seen extreme heat and flooding, cyclones. So for all of us, whether its living in australia or any other part of the world, weve got an obligation to make sure were doing less damage to the world in which we live and constraining the amount of carbon we generate. Under the governmental i led we government i led, we introduced an emissions trading scheme with a fixed price for the first three years. It was a very controversial policy, and continues to be a very controversial policy. Youre watching talk to al jazeera. Well have more in a minute. Start with one issue education. Gun control. The gap between rich and poor. Job creation. Climate change. Tax policy. The economy. Iran. Healthcare. 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Im joined by julia gillard, who is now the board chair of the Global Partnership for education, after a run as Prime Minister of australia. Weve talked from time to time through this conversation about your time at Prime Minister. You are at the moment a recovering politician. Does it take a while to actually get used to being a regular person again . Its got its delights, as well as its regrets, i suppose. Theres a lot thats bittersweet about moving out of politics. Of course you miss the opportunity that politics gives you and government gives to you to make meaningful change, to have the direct power and ability to do that. So of course, there are Public Policy things i would still have liked to have done in australia and continued in politics to do. But that wasnt to be. And so there is the life beyond. And im very much enjoying taking some of the skills and things i learned from politics into different ways of working, including becoming the chair of the Global Partnership for education. And it is you know nice to be able to travel in a more informal way and wander down city streets by yourself and some of the things that you didnt get to do when youre in politics. A lot of countries in the world have had heads of government or heads of state who are women, elected women. We havent had that yet in the United States. Maybe were a little bit behind the curve. But have you had a chance to think about what it means to be a woman in power, and how so many welcome that, and so many are still a little put off by it . I think our, you know, world is undergoing a change about gender equality and more women going into politics. I think its important we see more women going into politics for the future. If you believe as i do, merit is equally distributed between the sexes, then we should see National Leaders being around half men, half women. If were going to get there weve got to fix a series like girls education. Because if you dont get that Foundation Stone then you are not ever going to get equal outcomes. Education is changing the nature of who can aspire to Political Leadership isnt it . I think thats true. I think if we look at the poorest countries in the world then were only going to see women come through and take their equal place. In business, in politics, in law in every walk of life if we get education. There and equal for girl children. So you talked about missing the ability to affect events in that way that you had when you were in high elected office. In this new role, can the effect be as measurable . Yes, absolutely. The aim of the Global Partnership for education is a very measurable. We can measure the number of children who are getting to go to school who didnt used to go to school. We want to make sure over the coming years that we, through the work we are doing see 24 million more children get into school. Theres a focus on learning metrics which is the way in which we measure the quality of learning. So getting not only more children into school, but making sure when theyre there, that they are actually learning, and we can measure what is happening with the learning. So if we can be measuring that, the quality of the learning, as well as counting the heads of the number of children going into the school, i think that gives everybody a lot more reassurance that we are achieving what we are setting out to achieve for the children of the world, which is that they end up with the skills that they need to lead fulfilled and empowered lives. Julia gillard, thank you very much for being on talk to al jazeera. Thank you very much. Referendum day in ukraine. Voters head to the polls in crime crimea deciding whether or not to join russia. Civil unrest informant streets of venezuela, where protesters say they are fighting for their future. The investigation into the missing Malaysia Airlines jumbo jet, focussing on the pilot and whats inside their