BRIEF HISTORY
The World Summit of Educators (WSE) was conceived as a forum where a small but broadly representative group of educators from around the world would gather to discuss education for global citizenship and address the pressing challenges to achieving equity in education. By bringing together educators with hands-on experience in the field, the Summit aimed at reaffirming the agency of teachers as key players in educational decision-making and in the task of building global citizens.
The WSE assembled on the 12th and 13th of June, 2016 at Soka University of America, marking the 20th anniversary of a speech delivered by the founder of the Soka schools, Dr. Daisaku Ikeda, at Teachers College, Columbia, on the the topic of Education for Global Citizenship. Moderated by former UN Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury and featuring a keynote address by Betty Reardon, a pioneer in the field of peace education, the Summit was attended by over one-hundred K-12 and tertiary educators and educational activists from over 30 countries around the world, including India, Malaysia, Japan, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and Syria. As a final outcome of two days of individual presentations interspersed with a series of richly interactive small group discussions, the Summit produced a Declaration to the world stating its “collaborative conviction that the concept of global citizenship as an objective of education, which has been articulated in the speech given on June 13, 1996, has assumed even greater relevance and significance today in view of the continuing and ever-increasing challenges education systems in our countries face.”