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Tom Schuller reports back from the:
The Social Innovation Conference IACE/OECD conference organised by the China Centre for Comparative Politics and Economics, the Young Foundation and the British Council, held in Beijing, 16-18 Oct 2006
I was invited to run a workshop on education and employment at a conference on Social Innovation, organised by the China Centre for Comparative Politics and Economics, the Young Foundation and the British Council. Some 200 people participated, mostly from China and the United Kingdom but with representation from 12 other countries, including interesting contributions from Brazil and South Africa from people responsible for inventories of innovations.
The conference had opening addresses from Luo Hocai, Vice-President of the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Committee, Yuan Guiren, Vice-Minister of Education, and Zheng Guo’an, Vice-Secretary, Ministry of Science and Technology. The general message, predictably but not insignificantly, was the need for stronger innovation, especially if China is to move from relying on quantity of human resources to skills. A constant theme was the respective roles of central and local governments and NGOs in nurturing innovation.
My workshop revealed strong feelings from all that education is one of the least innovative sectors in almost every country; and from the Chinese that their system is particularly behindhand, with low investment and low innovation. This is a major issue if they are to move from being a high-volume low-skill producer to further up the value chain.
On the following day I took part in a meeting which pooled information and ideas on network-building towards social innovation. It confirms the relevance of developing comparative analysis of educational innovation at the systemic level, following on and drawing on relevant work in the business and health sectors. Cross-sectoral approaches are very much more likely to generate innovation and creativity, both in delivery of services and in their analysis. The notion of a ‘fourth sector’ was much used; which refers to approaches which draw on public, private and NGO provision.
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