Education - Pathway to Lifelong Learning

Challenges

Education is an essential building block for individual, community and national development, a cornerstone for economic growth and a universal human right. Today, education is viewed in the context of lifelong learning in which the individual is ever capable of further progress – given a conducive environment. Yet, education faces many challenges. UNESCO estimates 72 million children cannot exercise their right to education due to poverty, unemployment and discrimination. Therefore, reaching the marginalized has become this decade’s focus. Among other measures, coordinated policies to overcome social exclusion are required to meet Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Competency-based approaches in education should be measured against approved standards that will appeal to both students and subsequent employers. 


GFA Concept and Services

The GFA concept aims at assisting developing countries reach out to the marginalized sectors of society, helping them to meet MDGs through relevant support systems, and maximizing opportunities for lifelong learning. GFA offers proven competency in the fields outlined below.

Educational Planning and Management
Improving efficiency requires upgrading of knowledge and skills among administrators of educational systems at all levels. GFA experts assist educational planning and add global experience to the support of professional managers and administrators. They also install up-to-date education management information systems that guide decision makers. 

Curriculum Reform     
Modernizing curricula to reflect the complex needs of the 21st century and to incorporate the concept of individual competency-based performance and testing is a major task. GFA fields experienced experts capable of developing appropriate policies to support such reforms and to strengthen the capacities of educational staff in curricula design and relevant delivery modalities.

Evaluation and Quality Control
Developing and safeguarding quality in education is a core element in international transferability. Hence, GFA elaborates coherent quality management systems including legal provisions, standards development, accreditation of courses and capacity development of actors involved.

ICT and Distance Learning     
GFA introduces governments and individual institutions to new technologies that help lower educational costs, increase learning effectiveness and overcome many of the reasons for social exclusion.

Teacher Training     
GFA experts are capable of preparing and deploying professional teacher trainers who provide technical and pedagogical knowledge and skills to meet modern educational demands.

GFA’s Labour Market and HRD Department is responsible for the company’s interventions in the education sector.  This represents our conviction that education is an integral part of the preparation for the working environment and lifelong learning.  Rather than adopting a narrow supply-driven perspective, GFA consultants prefer a broader vision in which education is planned, delivered and its success measured according to real demand – evidence of the knowledge, skills and attitudes required by national or local economies, civil society, and the labor market.

GFA therefore delivers its services in support of the education sector within the wider scope of human resources development. We measure the extent of demand for education, and the extent to which it meets such demand, by the data embodied in labor market intelligence.