ABU DHABI // The former British prime minister Gordon Brown has called on the UAE to join his campaign for a global education fund to ensure every child in the world can attend school by 2015.
Mr Brown said millions of children would not go to school this year because there was no one to teach them.
"I would suggest to you that here in Abu Dhabi you pioneer a new movement in education that is global," he said in the capital.
"I suggest we create a global fund for education whose purpose would be to fast-track support to countries and communities that want to make education reforms."
Education for all is one of the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals but it has not been given much emphasis, Mr Brown said.
"Why is education not a priority?" he asked. "When you see suffering you want to relieve it immediately, and so when there is a famine you want to immediately react.
"But thinking of a child not being able to attend school does not have the same dramatic effect."
Real change requires a new initiative driven by international organisations, Mr Brown said.
"It will need education without borders so that even in countries where there are broken-down regimes, we find a way to make available teachers and teaching facilities," he said.
Dr Mugheer Al Khaili, director general of the Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec), said the Transforming Education Summit was the perfect platform for such dialogue.
"Every country should support these initiatives because it is heartbreaking to see so many children not in school," Dr Al Khaili said.
"However this is not only the responsibility of governments but of individuals and other organisations too, to take it forward."
