India: New Skills for Global Innovation

Asia-Pacific Forum on Secondary Education

New Delhi, India

March 2008

In recent years, India has greatly increased its primary school enrollment and the stage is now set for a major expansion of secondary education in India. At the same time, the global skill and talent pool and quality of education around the world is rapidly increasing. Held in New Delhi in March 2008, this Asia-Pacific Leaders Forum on Secondary Education:

• analyzed the strategies used to expand access to secondary education in selected industrialized and middle tier countries;
• examined the characteristics common to the world’s most successful education systems as they seek to combine ambitious goals with substantial school autonomy and professional support for teachers;
• shared experiences in modernizing curriculum and instruction and using technology to produce the new skills needed for success in the global, digital knowledge economy.

The Forum brought together key leaders and innovators from a number of countries to share lessons learned that might inform the expansion of secondary education in India. Following the opening session, each session began with brief presentations from several countries and from India, followed by roundtable discussion.

New Skills for a Global Innovation Society: the Asia Pacific Leaders Forum on Secondary Education was the second event in a series focused on creating a dialogue amongst leaders in the region on major educational issues. This Forum builds on our first dialogue (Beijing, 2006) which focused on educational responses to globalization. At both Forums, participants worked through roundtable discussions to assess current practices and suggest the most promising lines of innovation for the future. These findings are disseminated broadly through a comprehensive meeting report and media coverage.