Watson Events

Abhimanyu Singh ─ Attaining Education for All: How do India and China Compare?

Monday, October 7, 2013

12 p.m.

Joukowsky Forum

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While much international attention has been paid to the recent rapid rise of China and India in economic terms, there has been relatively little focus on their efforts in the equally critical domain of developing human capabilities through the provision of basic education and adult literacy. China and India both emerged as sovereign nations in the mid-nineteenth century with roughly comparable levels of literacy but have since followed distinctive approaches to education. This talk will examine and compare the progress and identify challenges in these domains within the framework of Education for All (EFA), a global agenda launched at Jomtien in 1990 and reaffirmed in Dakar in 2000.

Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia

Abhimanyu Singh is Director of the UNESCO Office Beijing and UNESCO Representative to the PRC, DRK, Japan, Mongolia and the Republic of Korea. From 2006 to 2008, Singh served as Director of the UNESCO Office in Abuja, Nigeria. From 2001 to 2006 he led the global coordination and monitoring of the Education for All (EFA) movement at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. From 1974-2000, as a member of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), the premier civil service of the country, Singh held key leadership positions at various levels of National and Provincial Governments. He chaired the global drafting committee at the World Education Forum at Dakar in 2000. As a mid-career professional he was a Hubert Humphrey Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh.