In 1996, when I was transferring power at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business over to my successor, I served on a couple of federal government task forces associated with the new and exciting digital technologies. It was where I saw the potential of using the web for purposes of online training.
And I was invited along with the Deputy Minister of Industry to attend a top-level meeting of senior officials in Paris at the OECD, which is the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The topic was the future impact of e-commerce and many of the senior officials from the OECD countries brought with them leaders from their business communities.
Before the meetings got underway, the Deputy Minister took me to meet the Secretary-General of the OECD, who was Don Johnston, a former Minister in the Trudeau government in the early 1980s. We knew each other well.
What impressed me most when the formal meetings got underway was the quality and stature of those in attendance, and all the machinery in terms of translators to deal with so many languages.
Naturally, the OECD has lofty goals to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world.
But that is not what impressed me. I was impressed by the realization that these meetings were the place where real decisions were made about public policy and not our legislatures or parliaments.
And if you are what they call a “policy-wonk” you will love the OECD.
Although I was attending a meeting on the policies necessary to promote e-commerce and other digital technologies, similar meetings were being held by other officials while I was in Paris on matters of education policy.
Here officials were closely monitoring policy initiatives in nations like Finland, Japan and yes Canada. Again, I heard about the extent OECD nations had achieved goals of equity and quality, how well they were preparing students for the future and how well nations were evaluating their success.
During my teaching years at Ryerson, which was a Polytechnic in the 1960s and a University today, I was the elected President of the Ryerson Faculty Association. A union leader? Hmmm.
Anyways, I was intrigued how staff members from the social sciences and English departments were so focused on issues of equity in education. Colleagues tried to explain that this was left wing politics, but I was not convinced.
I had spent a lot of time going into the backgrounds of my students in terms of schooling and marks, and I was always surprised that those that did well were not necessarily those who came with the best credentials.
This is what equity is all about, finding students from disadvantaged backgrounds that can be inspired to achieve. Teaching is about surprises.
If there is anything I learned about the OECD is that what goes on there in terms of the co-operation between developed societies is what really counts. And it has always been my clear understanding that the OECD is the organization that helps make the global economy function.
Another lesson that reinforced my experiences studying economic development generally is that economic development cannot be separated from education policy.
Certainly nations like Japan always link their performance as a nation which develops high value-added products to an education system that promotes excellence and internationalism.
Most people that read the business pages of their newspapers see the impact of all the studies and surveys that are conducted by the OECD.
But they seldom appreciate or know about the meetings of the senior officials who are deciding which policies they will tell their so-called political masters to implement.
Yes, I believe in “edumacation”.