Affordable Global Education — Fact or Fiction?
According to Horace Mann, the famous educational reformer, “Education, then, beyond all other divides of human origin, is a great equalizer of conditions of men — the balance wheel of the social machinery.”
However, the current education system is a reflection of the stratified socioeconomic structure present worldwide. Learners born into privileged positions get more opportunities to enjoy world-class education than their counterparts from the other end of the economic strata.
There have been attempts to break the socioeconomic barriers and make learning indiscriminately accessible to all. These projects have enjoyed varying degrees of success — both government-funded and private interventions. However, none has managed to erode the deficit that has historically held back learners from certain walks of life. This problem even extends into the job market, where some job seekers get unfair advantages over their peers.
The Current Situation
Access to quality education anywhere in the world is closely proportional to financial status and overall quality of life. Some other factors affect access to education, such as gender, disability, ethnicity, migrant status, to mention a few. However, the single biggest culprit is financial limitation. Simply, poverty leads to a lack of education opportunities.
Institutional interventions such as UNESCO have made significant inroads to bridging the chasm in education. It is the only United Nations agency charged with covering every aspect of education through the Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG-4). They work in close collaboration with foundation partners and donors to achieve its primary aim — ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.
There is no doubt that the SDG-4 is a wonderful attempt at making education the great equalizer that it has the potential to be. However, the biggest obstacle in the way of UNESCO’s goal is the solution that it proposes. It is the equivalent of putting new wine into old wineskins.
There are over 32 million out-of-school children in Sub-Saharan Africa alone. The numbers are similarly high in Central and East Asia and the Pacific region, with a total of about 258 million children worldwide without the opportunity to exercise their fundamental right to education. Getting these children back into classrooms is only one part of the solution though. Most of these children are from rural areas where educational standards are traditionally lower than in urban areas and severely lacking in infrastructure. Hence, if they are fortunate, they might end up with an expensive education that falls short of usefulness to themselves and their local communities.
Corruption and wasteful practices also seem to be the order of the day in most developing nations. Education depends on the four walls of a classroom. Hence, UNESCO still has to work with local authorities that have underdeveloped their own educational system due to years of ineffective leadership, underpaid educators, poorly maintained infrastructure, to name but a few reasons. Any progress made under these conditions is ultimately lost as time passes.
Forward Protocol’s Earn As You Learn Model
Forward Protocol’s revolutionary learning solution proposes a system that rewards learners of all ages as they go through their education. This solution can be described as a motivation-friendly reward system for learners with an ‘earn as you learn’ program. However, it differs in the following ways -
- It features the best experts and assures proper remuneration for their services.
- It is a merit-based system designed to provide help to the most vulnerable through a perfected algorithm.
- Forward Protocol works in close collaboration with charitable institutions, alumni, and well-meaning individuals to generate a sponsorship bucket that goes directly to the learner’s education who are most in need.
Learners that excel will be exposed to ample earning opportunities throughout their learning life within the Forward Protocol ecosystem. For example, Forward Protocol will provide the opportunity to an extensive list of well-meaning benefactors to buy Forward tokens (FORWARD) and contribute to a sponsorship bucket. Every fund donated to this bucket goes to learners that are eligible for these relief efforts and are driven by a genuine desire to learn. The deflationary nature of the FORWARD tokens also means that every token put away in the sponsorship ballot inevitably appreciates given that the demand in the market for FORWARD will increase, hence boosting the Forward Protocol economy.
This model also relieves the burden on benefactors in regards to whether their funds will be put to good use and encourages beneficiaries to contribute to the system that puts them on a pedestal to leverage their education to better themselves and their communities.
Forward Protocol also gives learners access to the best experts irrespective of their location. Qualified experts can earn more from their location and provide quality education affordable to learners from anywhere in the world, given that via the Forward Protocol platforms they can reach thousands of learners and be the masters of their own fate. Furthermore, sponsors no longer have to spend all of their income on overpriced education for their wards. They can reallocate these scarce resources to other causes, such as educating a less financially capable learner within their community.
So, what happens to the underpaid, underqualified educators in these rural areas?
Forward Protocol presents a solution that leaves no learner behind regardless of age and previous work experience. Educators can always pursue academic excellence and professional advancement on the Forward Protocol marketplace to improve their skills and earning potential.
The demand for knowledge is insatiable. That is why governments budget trillions of dollars for education yearly. However, the reward for imparting this essential commodity never reflects the importance of these experts’ services. Instead, tuition fees are redirected to cover redundant administrative costs at the expense of learners and their educators. Forward Protocol connects learners to experts directly and remunerates them generously for their service without putting extra strain on the system. When experts can impart their knowledge to a broader audience, they also exponentially improve their earning potential.
Verdict
Overall, Forward Protocol provides an affordable and rewarding learning system to all its participants. It achieves this through a system that acknowledges the peculiarity of each situation to provide an equal launchpad for success for everyone, without regard for their ethnic, religious, economic, or social background.
An affordable learning system finally appears to be within our grasp under the solution that Forward Protocol proposes. It saves costs, generates revenue, incentivizes learners to develop themselves and experts to strive for excellence in the services they provide. All of these measures make Forward Protocol the best thing to happen to learning in a long, long while.
There is no better time than now to join the new era of education. Take the first step and join our community on:
