Wednesday July 8th in Paris

Wednesday was the final day of the UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education +10. We were prepared for our battle over the students in the closing plenary. I had gotten almost four hours of sleep. (this was due to over sleeping my initial 8 am appointment).

I arrived a little late to the "Stakeholders" session for NGO's. A friend of mine the General Secretary of the Swiss Student Union got herself on the panel! The MC began the session by asking who wanted to speak on the panel. This was the first time I had seen a student on any panel. She did very well. She represented the student voice and was well spoken. I was so glad when I walked into the session (only 30 minutes late) that she was there.

I had my computer with me and checked my emails. According to an email, some delegates had met with the Man. He said No. Plan B. (Plan B did not involve duct tape and a fire extinguisher, but somehow I wish it had.) We were to find others to pressure him.

Back to my session. Full inclusivity for NGO's in implementing the results of this conference. We want to see learning based in the community. the University can no longer be an ivory tower. Students need to be heard at every level. NGO's also need to be included because they do not have alternative motives, like governments can.

End of the morning session. Planning for our attack. People were still looking for The Man. Trying to pressure him into changing his mind. No luck yet, but hopefully ....

Back to the NGO stakeholder's meeting. We made an "action plan." We divided the group of about 75 people into smaller groups to create action plans for UNESCO and member states on the following topics: Student involvement, Education for all, Funding of education and NGO implementation of UNESCO's plan. I landed in the Education for all committee. Using this very computer we drafted a few sentence description for how to implement Education for all. It was a good process and I think I impressed the people I worked with. Mainly because I had a computer.. :) Sometimes older people (60+) are impressed simply by having a laptop and the knowledge of how to use it quickly. (I like to be able to impress people with something that comes so naturally and easily to me... but that is a topic for another post).

We left that session to have lunch. After a quick sandwich I heard that the Man had been contacted by a different group. This time he had said "yes." (hesitantly, but the yes was still there). All our hard work had paid off! If we got our man on the panel it was definitely worth it to stay up until 4:30 am working with him. I felt so vindicated.

The rest of the afternoon was a blur. I could not tell you what I did until the closing plenary at 5 pm. I sat in the plenary next to my new Norwegian friends and my new American friend. We could see the young faces behind the "official" panel. The group of students did not include our student. Why not? What was going on. We listened as someone from the World Bank spoke in euphemisms about how privatized education would be great. How is he going to get on stage? I listened to The Man present a colleague. What was going on. What should we do now? Should we let these students represent the student voice? How do the 20 of us that are gathered together react to this breach of faith by The Man. He simply broke his word. We decided to do nothing. We sat and watched as the "official" panel finished. It was time for the "voice of the Future". (I have some issues with that because current students are not the future voice of higher education, they are simply the current voice....) The students looked diverse. There was a young Latina, a Chinese woman, an African man, even a woman wearing a head scarf. Okay, so far so good. I began to listen. The African man went first. He was from Benin, I think, and then he started talking about how lucky he was to study in Paris. Okay... an African in Paris, but they really could have gotten an African from Africa. Then the Chines woman. She also was going to school in Paris. Okay.... well.. The the woman from Columbia. She also was going to school in Paris. The American? She was an intern at UNESCO. The woman with the head scarf? She had been chosen by Microsoft. She took the opportunity to thank Bill Gates for allowing her to speak here. What? Microsoft and Bill Gates? I thought we were at a UNESCO meeting, not a meeting sponsored by Microsoft. These students were paraded out in front of the 1,300 Higher Education Ministers of the Member States to prove that UNESCO was listening to the student voice. What did it prove in reality? In reality it proved that UNESCO was talking about how to end the constant drawing of intelligent students from the Global South to the Global North, but in reality was praising this very practice. The future of education is to privatize it all and have all students study in France. That is the message I received. As representative students we were appalled and outraged. What to do? That was all to be decided the next day during our Student Day meeting.

Sorry to all my readers, but you'll have to wait at least one more day to find out what we decided to do.