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Nord Anglia and UNICEF Agree SDG Partnership

Students at Nord Anglia Education’s 73 schools across the globe will gain skills and knowledge in sustainable development to affect positive community change, the organization has said as it announced a partnership with UNICEF. The three-year partnership will make UNICEF learning materials, focusing on Sustainable Development Goals, available to teachers and students at Nord Anglia schools in 30 countries.

UNICEF is “committed to helping every child and youth globally to be equipped with the knowledge, tools, and support to take action to protect the future of our communities and our planet”, the organization's director of Public Partnerships June Kunugi said. “We are thankful to Nord Anglia Education for their global collaboration and support on our efforts to help children realize their rights and create a new generation of change-makers who are passionate about achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and a more sustainable and equal world for all,” Kunugi commented.

Nord Anglia Education chief executive officer Andrew Fitzmaurice emphasized the responsibility of educators to ensure the “next generation are empowered to create a more equitable future for all”. “As our global partnership with UNICEF shows, we believe in giving young people an education that broadens their understanding of how they can impact important issues including sustainability and equality which equips them with the confidence, collaborative mind-set and leadership skills to make a positive change in their communities and the world at large,” he said.

Nord Anglia has worked to embed the SDGs and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in all aspects of teaching and learning across its schools, the company added. The new program includes challenges for students to “think creatively and take action” of SDGs at a local level, as well as opportunities to share ideas with key policymakers at the UN High Level Political Forum.

Student Leadership courses will also help students learn about project management and develop good leadership and global citizenship skills. Nord Anglia has also recently launched a vodcast series for parents, led by teachers discussing how technology is changing education. The “Talking EdTech with A Little Bit of Genius” series will feature teachers from Nord Anglia schools in Hong Kong, the US, Panama, Poland, Czech Republic, Brazil, China and more. West noted that academic departments within an institution may elect to use agents, and cautions about the interpretation of survey data regarding agent use at HEIs. “If you’re to phrase the question, ‘Do any academic or other units at your institution work with agents?’ that’s going to be an even higher number,” West noted.

Chronicle editor Ian Wilhelm asked Craig Riggs, editor of The ICEF Monitor, about factors that are driving greater engagement with agents. “One is a real concrete move on the part of many institutions to diversify their international student enrolments,” said Riggs. “The pandemic drew a very sharp line under the idea that it’s no longer sustainable to rely on a relatively small number of sending markets for one’s international enrolment, and we see institutions recommitting themselves,” he noted.

He discussed the evolving nature of the university-agent relationship. “Many best practices and regulations in the field are no longer fit for purpose, now that master agent-subagent relationships are proliferating like never before, in large part because of agent aggregators. The lack of transparency in the aggregator space makes it harder for even experienced practitioners to maintain their bearings, much less schools that are just learning how to work with agents.”