Transcripts For ALJAZAM Talk To Al Jazeera 20140913

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. Coming out of school being able to read or right or do math. What is the impediment . The aid effort, the amount of 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 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. 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 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 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 in a small village in rural mexico. Standing around with a bunch of guys who had finished high school. It was solely thanks to conditional cash transfers. Their families were paid for keeping them in school. 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 educated . Its a circle. 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 th the financial crisis, and many parts of the world are still recovering. Rehave to have global growth. And then each individual nation has to be aiming for Economic Development to be creating 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 visi activity if they cant offer workforce with the skills to do the jobs. Which is why educating the population will help to attract that economic activity, and then in the lives of individuals will mean there is a pathway beyond schooling into something that pays well and helps to 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 they are thinking together to help their children. A developing country has to bring together everyone who has a stake in education, develop an Education Sector plan that everybody is buying in to, and theyve got to be lifting their own efforts as well. And the Global Partnership for education has enjoyed success in that in the countries where weve worked. What you see as the amount of money going into education. Its share increases by 10 of gdp. Now thats a fantastic achievement not only have you got donor funds but local funds coming together in a combined education plan. So you dont get some of the problems that people hear about where someone has bought the computers, someone has built the classrooms, someone has the text books, but putting it together it doesnt work, it doesnt fit, it doesnt integrate and it doesnt help educate children. How can you be sure that doesnt happen . You can talk about it. You can circulate policy papers, and make sure that people who buy the computers you have to have Rural Electrification so there is something to plug them in to. When we talk about fragile effected areas, there are capacity problems in the Public Service in rolling out services, thats to be expected, but those capacity issues are going to be better addressed if there is a comprehensive plan rather than doing it piece by piece. And thats the model of the Global Partnership, doing the whole Education Sector plans. Have the government who is have been giving you money in the donorparts of the world, are they ready to pony up. It has been very difficult in these various ministries of capitol. Im fully aware there are many finance ministers who have gone rapidly gray after the process, and its not easy for governments, but what were essentially asking for is a better share for education and a better focus on education out of aid. Aid dollars are actually growing again. There was a peter when 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 better focus on education because its the best way of making sustainable long term change. There are countries that we traditionalcally think of as needing the rest of the worlds help that are actually doing pretty well, and creating new middle classes in their society, spinning off wealth. Do we have to take another look at the map of the world and ask for a little more help from the brazils, the mexicos, the clin chinas that used to be aid recipients who now can add to the kitty. I think those areas who have the capacity to give should be giving. And does it mean thinking of yourself in a different way. If neur yes a mexico city or brasilia, feeling that shift on the axis of were a different kind of country now, and maybe we hadnt thought of ourselves as International Aid donors before. I think the example im most familiar with is china, which certainly has made the shift policy intellectually and in demeanor from being a country that was a recipient with hundreds of millions of People Living in poverty to now feeling itself as a global power and conducting itself as a global power including by making aid funding available. Were talking with Gillian Gillard who is now working to make sure that the worlds children are properly educated, and how that may increase the supply of women politicians around the globe. We chicago chiraq, because we have more killings. Life changing moments. Shut the camera. From oscar winning director, alex gibney, a hard hitting look at the real issues facing american teens. On the stream, children of divorced parents are twice as likely to drop out of high school than their peers. Is it time to time to rethink how were approching the social and legal aspects of divorce. The stream, youre watching talk to al jazeera im ray suarez. With me on this edition of the program i the board chair of the Global Partnership for education. Lets talk more about china. Australia, while through history and culture, hasrailroadened to western europe, youre very much an asian economy and asianoriented economy, and that probably took the shift inside the mind of australia about where you were and where you were on the globe. Yes t did. It was a shift originally led by the Prime Minister bob hawk and Prime Minister paul casing, where the world led to the creation of apex, the community of nations coming together to talk through economic questions. And here were all those years later, and under my Prime Ministership we sharpened that focus by having the whole of nation looking across the hundred years to come at the remarkable growth. We will see an region of the world and its Rising Economic power. So we were very consideration of those shifting economic weight of the world in which we live and utahs place in that, and the great opportunities that can flow from it. It as focuses in the 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. He spoke at the time that the United States was first articulating the doctrine of the pivot or 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. It was clearly conscious Foreign Policy decision to strengthen that even more. In my experience that has meant a very deep and sophisticated engagement with china as china rises in the region, and starts to shape and change the worlds history and strategic balances in that 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 that they carry around in their heads . Its been an endeavor over decades. Government leadership pointing to where that path of the world is going to be. Our ally of the United States of america, of course, people looked to america, travel in america, you know, hollywood, american culture, all of that, we have our special 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 wasatch front a cle we have a clear consciousness of what is happening in our part of the world. Of course thats about china, and thats also about india and soutsouth korea, and whats happening in japan, such a strong trading partner i in the region in so many ways. Its what is happening in indonesia. Across all of our region were deeply engaged, and weve got more of a sense of ourselves in that place than perhaps we had 20, 30, 40 years ago. Being comfortable with itself as an asian country does australia have something to say to the west about Global Climate change because it is 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, you know, 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 weather patterns over all and the scientists tell us that the world is getting warmer and the weather as a result more extreme, more extreme droughts. More extreme flooding. More extreme storms. We as a country suffer from these extreme weather events. Certainly weve seen extreme heat and flooding, cyclones. So you know, for all of us, li living in australia or any other part of the world we have got an obligation to make sure that were doing less damage in the world in which we live in and constrain the amount of carbon that we generate. We have have a 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. This is talk to al jazeera, im ray suarez. Im joined by jill gillard. After a run as Prime Minister of australia. We talk from time to time throughout this conversation about your time as Prime Minister. At the moment youre a recovering politician. Does it take a while to actually get used to being a regular person again . Oh, look, its got its delights as well as regrets, i suppose. There is a lot bittersweet about moving out of politics. Of course you miss the opportunity that politics gives you and the government gives you to make meaningful change, to have the direct power and ability to do that. Of course there are Public Policy things i still would 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 more informal way and do things that you werent able while you were in politics. There are heads of government, heads of state that are 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 world is undergoing a change about gender equality. Were seeing more women go into politics in the future. If you think that merit is equally distributed between the sexes then we should see our National Leaders be half men, half women. We need to see girls with education because if you dont get that foundation stone, you wont have equal outcomes. Who can aspire to political leadership. I think thats true. As we look at some of the poorest countries in the world well see women come through and take their equal place in business, in politics, in law and every walk of life if we get education there and equal for girl children. So you talked about missing the ability to effect 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 very measurable. We can measure the number of children who have getting to go to children, who didnt used to get to go to school. We want to be sure of the coming years that through the work that were doing see 24 more million children get to school. There is a focus on learning metrics which is the way in which we measure the quality of learning. 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 weve set out to achieve for the children of the world, which is that they end up with the skills that they need to lead for fulfilled and empowered lives. Great to have you on talk to al jazeera. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Building a coalition against the Islamic State group. Egypt has a key role to play in the site says egypt. The world news on al jazeera. Also on the programme pakistans military rescue flood survivors, thousands of others are trapped. Teachers in gaza say children are traumatized by what they saw in the