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Hi, everyone.

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My name is Kaussar Rahman.

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I'm a senior biology major and
[INAUDIBLE] education minor.

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This summer I had the
fortunate opportunity

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to travel to Ghana in my
internship with a non-profit

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there.

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And so the non-profit
that I worked with

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is called the Ghana
National Education Campaign

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Coalition, or NECC for short.

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And so what NECC is, it's a
network of civil societies

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that are advocating
for education

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for all, equality-based
education

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for all types of students.

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And so I got this internship
to do a bunch of networking.

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It took a couple months to get
it, but when I finally did,

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it was a good moment for me.

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And so while there, I
read a lot of literature,

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a lot of policies.

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And I attended
meetings, conferences.

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I had an opportunity to do
a little bit of field work.

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And so I also drafted and
edited a bunch of policies.

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And so I'm here to talk
about-- one of the things

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that I focused on
during the summer

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was privatization of education.

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And so what that means is
that in Ghana, it clearly

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states in the constitution
that free, basic education is

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mandatory for K-12, basically.

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However, sometimes the
government cannot sustain that

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promise to all.

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And so they allow the private
corporates or companies

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to come into Ghana, and go
into these rural communities,

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build schools, and
try to kind of fill

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in the gap between those
who have schools and those

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who don't have any schools.

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And so they're shifting
the control of education

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the future generations
to private companies

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who really don't know
the social, or political,

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or cultural climate
of these communities.

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And so one of the
biggest companies

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who are coming to Ghana is
called Omega Schools Franchise.

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And this franchise
was funded in 2009

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by James Tooley and Ken Donkoh.

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And James Tooley is a professor
of education in the UK,

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and Mr. Donkoh is a
Ghanian entrepreneur.

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So you have someone
who's for-profits, trying

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to make money, and then another
person who's like, let's have

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[INAUDIBLE] for education.

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So it's like putting together
education for a profit,

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which cannot be good.

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It is funded by Pearson.

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And if you have an education
in the United States

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basically from pre-K all
the way to high school,

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one of your textbooks
were funded by Pearson.

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And so they're the
largest contributors

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of textbooks around the world.

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So they are filthy
rich, and they want

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to basically make more money.

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And so their goal with the
Omega Schools Franchise

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is to reach a large number of
students in rural communities

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and build as much
schools as possible.

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However, there's some
problems, of course.

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There's many issues, but some
of them that are highlighted

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was the bottom
[INAUDIBLE] strategies.

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So what that means is that
these companies are taking

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the communities that are
on the bottom, the bottom

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of the pyramid, the rural,
impoverished communities,

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and they are making profits
off of these people.

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And so that's obviously one
of the biggest problems.

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Another problem is that
they're not actually

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solving the issue of
school being expensive.

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So you have families who
make less than $2 a day.

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And let's say the school
is $0.50 per child.

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Most of these parents
have multiple children,

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and that can add up to $2.00.

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So then parents have
to make a decision.

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Well, which child are they
going to send to school?

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And mostly they send the male
child over the female child.

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So there you have
gender discrimination

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of who goes to school, and
who doesn't, and [INAUDIBLE]..

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Furthermore, they have
inadequate teachers

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and inadequate buildings.

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These teachers clock in,
clock out whenever they want,

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however they want.

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They teach whatever they
want and however they want.

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The construction
of the buildings

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are absolutely terrible.

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Ceilings, chalkboards,
no chalkboards.

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It's not a good learning
environment, right?

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And so another
thing is that they

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don't follow the government
educational standards.

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So in Ghana, they have a
syllabus for each grade level.

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And most of these
schools, they follow

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whatever they want to follow.

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They follow the
policies that are not

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set by the Ghanian Ministry
of Education, unfortunately.

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And so the organization
I work with is

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trying to basically take
the [INAUDIBLE] of education

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as an investment for the pocket
and mostly for the future.

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So changing that outlook of
education, of what education

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means, from educating the future
rather than educating-- sorry,

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investing into the future rather
than investing for your pocket.

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And so what they
really want to do

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is help hold press
conferences, media conferences,

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get the media involved,
get the community

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brought into the
conversation of changing

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that role of education.

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And so when I was
there, I helped

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them draft a policy that
calls for a stronger

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regulation of these
private corporations

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and private companies.

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And we wanted to
present these policies

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to the Ministry of
Education and hopefully

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get them talking and
having a conversation

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about these issues.

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And so actually, they
just finished a policy

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before I left that place.

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And so they actually
presented this policy

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to the Ministry
of Education now.

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And so hopefully things
will be starting to change.

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And so taking what I
learned while I was there,

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I did a little bit of
field work in Tamale,

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which is in the
northern part of Ghana.

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And I went to this school, which
you can see in this picture,

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is that they did not have enough
desk or chairs for the students

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to actually write on.

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And there was no
chalkboard, right?

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So a lot of the teachers would
write on the cement floors.

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That's where the students will
actually copy their notes down.

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And most of these
students did not even

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have notebooks or pencils
to write down either.

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So while at Mount
Holyoke, last semester,

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I did start an organization
called the [INAUDIBLE] Promise.

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And this year we actually
changed the name to Advocating

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for Global Education.

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And we are trying to
fundraise as much money

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as possible to hand
over to the school,

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so that they can also get the
desk and chairs that they need.

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And I'm just really happy
that Mount Holyoke gave me

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the opportunity to
go travel to Ghana

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and learn more about
education policy that's

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happening in my hometown.

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And so thank you so much.

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[APPLAUSE]

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