The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed Jan. 24 as International Day of Education in celebration of the role of education for peace and development. Without inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong opportunities for all, countries will not succeed in achieving gender equality and breaking the cycle of poverty that is leaving millions of children, youth and adults behind.
The 2020 celebration will position education and the learning it enables as humanity’s greatest renewable resource and reaffirm the role of education as a fundamental right and a public good. It will celebrate the many ways learning can empower people, preserve the planet, build shared prosperity and foster peace.
To recognize this, McLaughlin College will present a special panel presentation as part of its Lunch Talk Series, on Jan. 22 from 12 to 2 p.m. in the Senior Common Room, 140 McLaughlin College.
James C. Simeon, head of McLaughlin College and associate professor in the School of Public Policy and Administration (SPPA), Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, will moderate the event. He is a member-at-large of the Executive of the Canadian Association for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies (CARFMS) and a past-president of CARFMS.
Panelists will include:
Don Dippo, a professor in the Faculty of Education at York University. Together with Professor Wenona Giles, he co-directs the Borderless Higher Education for Refugees (BHER) project, an initiative designed to bring post-secondary education opportunities to people living in the Dadaab refugee camps in northeastern Kenya.
His talk is titled “Learning with and from people living in displacement: The promise of borderless higher education.”
Kate Tilleczek, a professor and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Youth, Education & Global Good in the Faculty of Education. She is the founder and director of the Young Lives Research Laboratory which employs transdisciplinary approaches to collaborative, international research about how young people and their communities navigate the digital age and Anthropocene.
Her talk is titled “Towards International Education as Wellbeing with/by Youth.”
Gillian Parekh, an assistant professor and Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in the Faculty of Education. With a doctorate in critical disability studies, Parekh has conducted extensive research with the Toronto District School Board in the areas of structural equity, special education, and academic streaming.
Her talk is titled “Getting in, getting through: Exploring access, participation and graduation from York University.”
All are welcome to attend.
The event is co-sponsored by the Office of the College Head, McLaughlin College, Centre of Public Policy and Law, Centre for Refugee Studies and the Department of Sociology.