Cover Story
Cover Story
Spring 2018 / Issue 57
For a Better a Tomorrow , we Need to Work Together Today
The long-term economic , social and democratic development of the country - including competitiveness - goes hand in hand with doing the best for our children . This is not only in the interests of parents and governments , but also of the private sector . The private sector is a social actor whether it likes it or not . The economic growth that this society has benefitted from in the past decade or so generates the surplus which underpins investment in health , education , and social protection and creates employment - the single most effective weapon in fighting child poverty .
But child poverty in this country remains high at 28 %. Investment of millions of Euros in health equipment and hospitals in the past decade has ran tragically alongside a period when this has been the only country in the region with growing infant mortality - we now have the second highest neonatal mortality rate in Europe after Moldova .
Most critically for business , our education system continues to languish at the bottom of global comparators . Our 35 % pre-school coverage is the lowest in Western Balkans and far behind the EU rate of around 93 %. A little over half of the country ’ s 15-year-olds scored below basic proficiency levels at the international OECD Programme for International Student Assessment ( PISA ) in 2015 . But , the pace of reform in the sector is a fraction of the reform process in education in high-performing European neighbours - this means the gap between us will grow and our competitiveness as a society will reduce . This is happening at a
Author : Benjamin Perks , UNICEF Representative
time of economic transformation . The average job that today ’ s 5-year-old will be doing when they enter the workforce has not yet been invented and we project that whereas our generation would expect to reskill and change their career one or twice in a life span , today ’ s 5-year-olds will have to do so several times .
When you come to the country and talk to civil society or business actors alike on these problems , they often don ’ t talk about or think in terms of solutions , outcomes or change - they talk about projects and donations . If one thought like that in business , one would go bankrupt . The resources used through donations do not always add up to more than the sum of their parts in delivering lasting change for society .
There has to be a sense of urgency in addressing the most pressing social problems that blight our society . For real change to happen , government , society , and business need to unite in some key areas . I would just highlight three :
We need to get child mortality down as soon as possible by strengthening prevention through ensuring that every pregnant woman has a minimum of 4 health checks during pregnancy , that neonatal intensive care units and maternity hospitals are better managed and that we address external issues such as smoking during pregnancy , obesity , and the impact of pollution - all of which causes complications during pregnancy .
Through science we have learnt over the past couple of decades that 85 % of human emotional , cognitive , and social development occurs before the age of five . Almost every high-income country is now ensuring universal access to pre-school ( for education , not just caregiving ) from 3 to 6 years of age and ensuring that visiting health nurses also teach all parents stimulating and nurturing parenting strategies in the first years of life . The Nobel prize winning economist James Heckman concludes that public spending on early childhood has the best return on investment of any public funding with US $ 17 for every US $ 1 invested . Government has committed to advance in both early parenting support and preschool in the current government programme , with World Bank and UNICEF support , but much more support is needed from across society including the private sector .
We need to accelerate reform in primary and secondary school , not just by focussing again on curriculum or buildings , but on the one single thing that drives quality more than anything - quality of teaching . We need to ensure that head teachers in schools are equipped and able to motivate and inspire improved performance from teachers . We need to ensure teachers can not only teach memorisation of facts but also nurture emotional and social learning in schools and to help children develop values and ethics that will help them create the kind of society we would like them to live in in the future . We are also making efforts to develop new approaches on innovation , action learning and creativity in schools - core foundations for success in a knowledge economy .
18 AmCham Macedonia Magazine