Gordon Brown, the former British Prime Minister, has been appointed United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education.

Mr Brown has long been a powerful advocate for Education For All and has already worked extensively with world leaders, international charities and the business community to keep the promise of quality education for all by 2015.

Accompanied by our Young Ambassadors Lily Taylor–King and Jenade Sharma, he travelled to Mozambique a few years back to meet with Nelson Mandela in support of universal access to quality education. We are certain that Mr Brown will now use his position, contacts and passion to work tirelessly to ensure that every child in the world realises their right to an education.   During his time as both Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister, Mr Brown met with many young people from the Send My Friend to School campaign to discuss the importance of universal primary education, including pupils from Langdon School, East Ham and Sir John Lawes School, Harpenden (pictured below).

He says: “Ensuring that every child in the world has the opportunity to go to school and to learn is a longstanding passion of mine… Education breaks the cycle of poverty and unlocks better health and better job prospects.

“Education breaks the cycle of poverty and unlocks better health and better job prospects”
Gordon Brown

“My hope is that the Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon’s ‘Education First’ initiative will accelerate progress not only towards the Millennium Development Goal on education, but across all the goals.”

Now Gordon is ‘Going for Gold!’; he is determined to meet the 2015 finish line. He continues: “Enrolling an additional 61 million children and ensuring a quality education for all by the end of 2015 will not be easy – but it is a goal which, working together, we can achieve.”

Photo: GCE UK