Search form

menu menu

Former Australian prime minister lectures at VUB

12:10 11/02/2015

The former prime minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, is giving a lecture today at the Free University of Brussels (VUB) on the importance of education for a society’s general economic and social development.

Gillard (pictured) was Australia’s first woman prime minister and the first woman to lead the labour party. She held both posts from 2010 to 2013 and is now chair of the Global Partnership for Education, a multilateral partnership of 59 countries that works on access to quality education for all children.

Gillard has emphasised the importance of education during her entire political career, introducing changes in the Australian education system, with special attention for children with disabilities. She also introduced new standards to improve the quality of child care and to guarantee early access to education for all children in the country.

She also created a system in which each school received subsidies on the basis of real needs and ensured that significant investments were made in school infrastructure.

Gillard will speak at VUB in the framework of the Kapuscinski Development Lectures. This a series of lectures on development-related topics, organised in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme and the European Commission.

 

photo by Peter Brew-Bevan/Random House

Written by Andy Furniere