Zubair Qureshi
Islamabad
Beaconhouse is launching its first fully virtual School of Tomorrow (SOT) Conference: A World of Tomorrow: Negotiating a Better Future. The online moot will be held on Friday-Sunday (July 10-12) and in organizing it the Beaconhouse is partnered with the UBL. According to a statement issued Tuesday, targeting a global audience of over 500,000 people, the SOT seeks to understand how Covid-19 is shaping important global conversations about safer and more balanced futures, as well as pushing educators to re-imagine the future of education at both school and university levels.
The conference opens with a special message by Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organisation. The Federal Minister of Education, Shafqat Mahmood, and Sindh Minister of School Education, Saeed Ghani, are amongst key Pakistani speakers. Global participants include Andreas Schleicher, OECD’s Head of Education & Skills, Carla Rinaldi, President Fondazione Reggio Children, and Lord Jim Knight, UK’s former Minister of State for Schools along with 2 other members of UK’s House of Lords, Lord David Puttnam and Baroness Nosheena Mobarik, a life peer of Pakistani origin. Other key speakers include Professor Maggie Atkinson, former Children’s Commissioner for England and Dr Siva Kumari, Director General of the International Baccalaureate Organization, amongst many others.
The 3-day virtual conference is anchored on the idea of a ‘brave new world’ being shaped by our response to the pandemic and will be streamed live on www.sotevents.com along with Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube, and is primarily aimed at parents, educators and policy-makers. Registration is free of cost for all. Speaking about the conference, Kasim Kasuri, Event Chair and CEO of Beaconhouse, said “The present crisis presents an unprecedented opportunity to us to reimagine the kind of future we truly want, and what we need to do to get there.”
