Speech for the Opening of the Conference
Marking the 10th Anniversary of the
Ukrainian-American Fulbright Program
Kyiv, 17 October 2002

International Education for the 21st Century:
A View From Ground Zero

By Dr. Allan E. Goodman, President and CEO
Institute of International Education

Since I have just come from New York City, where the Institute is headquartered, perhaps that is the place to start these reflections on the role of international education in today's world. One of the best books written about New York contains this passage:

The subtlest change… is something people don't speak much about but that is in everyone's mind. The city, for the first time in its long history, is destructible. A single flight of planes … can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges… . The intimation of mortality is part of New York now: in the sound of jets overhead, in the black headlines of the latest edition.

It may surprise you to learn that this was written in 1949. The author is the famous American essayist E.B. White who wrote to juxtapose the dawn of the Atomic era with the construction of the United Nations headquarters building, which he called "the greatest housing project of them all … to clear the slum called war."

In whichever context you choose to think about ground zero, I was struck by the fact that we have not come all that far in solving the problem of war since 1949. And as we now know, the end of the Cold War did not make the world a less dangerous place.

While the cruelest symbol of the division between East and West was torn down in Berlin and two Germanys became one - much that happened in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union proved to be the herald of a new age of intense conflict and upheaval.

The much hoped-for peace dividend was quickly spent in Operation Desert Storm, Bosnia, and Somalia. Nonetheless, between 1991 and 1997 the largest number of people in human history were lifted out of poverty thanks to the "East Asian miracle." Thus the Asian Currency Crisis that began in the summer of 1997 struck a cruel blow to many who shared in the rising expectation that globalization might turn out to be good or at least benign. As the full extent of that crisis unfolded, we became more acutely aware of both the digital and intellectual divides that not only separated the haves from the have nots, but pointed up fault lines that appeared to be precursors of a genuine clash of civilizations.

What many of us missed during this period was the connected and steadily increasing incidence of Al Qaeda terrorism. Fueled by hatred and ignorance - by-products of lack of education -- which flourished in the dark spaces of many of the divides mentioned above, the terrorists took aim at key military and diplomatic targets in the Arabian/Persian Gulf and Africa. It was there, we thought, that the war might have to be waged.

And then the attacks on New York and Washington came. The terrorists' aim was to close minds as well as markets.

Instead, the world embraced America's tragedy as its own. Candles for victims were lit outside American embassies worldwide, as well as by Iranian students and Palestinian residents of the West Bank. Millions of people from virtually every country on earth visited Ground Zero in the months that followed and the Mayor of New York City received an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth. The outpouring of support connected ordinary people everywhere; citizens of over 80 countries were lost in the destruction of the World Trade Towers and part of the Pentagon and the air crash in Pennsylvania.

In the year since, some of this empathy and good will has eroded. But I take as heartening the fact that the fundamentals are still in place. As the editor of Le Monde put it recently, the columnist who wrote the lead story in that paper a year ago proclaiming that "We are all Americans now" used this headline just a few weeks ago: "We are all still Americans - but not every day now."

Even before 9/11, the first decade of the post-Cold War era had spawned more terrorism, wars, and internal conflicts than happened during the preceding 40 years. The number of rogue and near-nuclear states grew. Anti-Americanism increased substantially. And social conditions in over 50 countries are worse today than a decade ago, according to the latest Human Development Report. In the area with which we at the Institute are most concerned - education - some 35 countries are also spending less today on education as a percentage of GNP than a decade ago and another 100 countries are unable to spend more in this area on a per capita basis than they did in 1985. The net effect of all this is creating what Henry Kissinger called in his most recent book an "ugly reality;" namely, that "a permanent worldwide underclass is in danger of emerging… which will make it increasingly difficult to build the political consensus on which domestic stability, international peace, and globalization itself depend."

Like other dimensions of globalization, the impact on education has been quite uneven. And while knowledge and ideas now flow freely across most borders, education officials in some cultures have been among the most resistant to the implications that this reality has on what is being taught or how access can be enhanced. As we have been reminded recently in the news stories recounting the appalling content of some text books in use in schools throughout the Islamic world, despite globalization it is still possible for curricula to preach hatred and distort the most basic facts of history. Even in an advanced society like Japan, education officials have been unable to come to terms with the task of correcting text books that have been used for decades and which deal inaccurately with events leading up to and during World War Two. And recent visa and border control restrictions are making it increasingly difficult for students and scholars from some countries to undertake studies and consultations in cultures beyond their own.

The world thus faces the prospect of an education divide as profound as the digital divide and with direct consequences for global stability and for peace. Ignorance and lack of educational opportunity not only affect the supply and quality of the labor force, but directly affect the level of conflict within societies and between nations. Winning the wars against poverty and HIV/AIDS is as important today as success in the war against terrorism. Victory in all three depends on education and by helping both to globalize and increase access to it, the private sector and NGOs can play a unique and strategic role. They will increasingly be called upon to do so.

Governments everywhere report that they are overwhelmed. Population growth and the improvement of health standards has created a situation where the public sector cannot build schools fast enough or train enough teachers and professors to cope. In more than 100 countries, according to the UNDP's latest report, the amount government can spend per student is either unchanged from that of a decade ago or actually lower. In many countries in the developing world, where the proportion of persons between the ages of 18 and 24 that actually enroll in post-secondary education is rarely greater than 5%, the university system is already full. Over half of all of the world's universities are in the United States, where there are more seats in the colleges and universities of the state of California than in all of China. Clearly there is going to be more need than ever for international educational opportunities.

Those of us engaged in international education tend to forget just how few ever have the opportunity. International students account for less than 1% of enrollments in higher education in all but twenty countries today. We need to find ways to increase their number substantially in the decade ahead.

While even the earliest universities hosted scholars and visitors from foreign countries, the concept of international education is basically an invention of only the second half of the 20th century. One scholar has concluded, in fact, that only after the end of World War Two did the phrase "become an integral part of the American language. During these years senators and congressmen have alluded repeatedly to international education while framing legislation to support academic travel abroad" while others invoked the term in connection with global efforts to "strengthen education in underdeveloped nations and furthering international goodwill." By the late 1960s, nearly a thousand books and articles had been written on the subject. For some, international education begins and ends with a study abroad experience. For my colleagues and me at the Institute of International Education, it is what we do.

International education refers not only to the mobility of students and scholars (and the books authored by the latter) across geographic boundaries, but also to the increased understanding and personal and professional networks that come from being immersed in a society that organizes and conducts itself in different ways than one's own. As the late Senator J. William Fulbright once said, international education "transforms nations into people." When that happens we all become a little more tolerant and appreciative of our differences, we humanize international relations, and we develop greater understanding and also respect for the diversity that makes up our world. Encouraging those habits of mind contributes directly to world peace and pays dividends for many years, as business leaders and diplomats repeatedly attest.

In this region, through the Fulbright and other U.S. government-financed scholarship programs the people of the United States have supported the transition process to new forms of governance and society. These programs have helped to identify future leaders in all fields and give them the opportunity both to develop the knowledge essential to success in a globalized world and to create the network of relationships that contribute directly to peace among people of many different countries. These programs are the most concentrated investment that the U.S. government has made in the field of international education in any region in half a century.

Senator Fulbright would have valued greatly the Program here in Ukraine and would welcome this anniversary. And he would have felt an affinity with your great poet Shevchenko, who President John F. Kennedy designated "a part of the world's heritage," and whose "Last Poem" made a compelling case for opening one's mind to the world:

Gaze upon the world, my fortune,
See how wide it spreads,
Wide and joyful, it is both
Bright, and of great depth!