Enver Yücel Becomes a Member of the UN Advisory Board

Enver Yücel, President of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) International Training Center Türkiye, has been given a new role by the UN. Yücel has become a member of the Advisory Board of the UN Institute for Training and Research.

Chair of the Bahçeşehir University (BAU) Board of Trustees Enver Yücel has become a member of the Advisory Board of the United Nations (UN) Institute for Training and Research. Yücel had been serving as President of the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) International Training Center Türkiye. At the conference on the Role of Education in Sustainable Development organized by the UN in Geneva on 26 November, also attended by UN Assistant Secretary-General Nikhil Seth and United Nations Institute for Training and Research Division Director Alex Mejia, Enver Yücel said:

'EDUCATION SHOULD LEAD ALL SECTORS'

"Solving the problems of countries and the world requires mutual understanding, sharing and cooperation. This culture of sharing and living together needs to be passed on to all individuals from childhood. The most effective, and perhaps the only, way to do this is global, high-quality education. Through this education, we can first inform the whole world about the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, raise public awareness and create joint solutions to achieve these goals by 2030. Education should be structured to lead all sectors.

INNOVATIVE EDUCATION MODELS SHOULD BE DEVELOPED

To ensure every young person's access to education, innovative education models should be developed at every level from preschool to doctorate. We must make education high-quality, inclusive and accessible. Through work such as STEM+A, coding, robotics and global citizenship, we must raise generations who can produce sustainable solutions to the world's problems and contribute to the development goals. For this, we must take into account the role of women and provide equal opportunities in education for all girls and women in the world. All obstacles to women's education must be removed. To contribute to equal opportunity, we must help women gain competence in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, which will prepare them for the new world order. We must encourage, support and increase their participation in the workforce and their employment.

WE MUST LEAVE YOUNG PEOPLE A SUSTAINABLE PLANET

First of all, we must leave young people a sustainable planet. That is why we must ensure that everyone, from children to adults, internalizes the awareness of producing and consuming only as much as we need. More than 800 million people in the world live on the brink of hunger, and more than 750 million people lack basic literacy skills. On the other hand, military and armament spending in the world is approaching 1.8 billion dollars a year. We must also review our production and consumption priorities and work towards current and essential needs.

WE MUST ENSURE EQUAL OPPORTUNITY IN EDUCATION

All sub-dimensions of the education system, such as content, methods, measurement and assessment, must be restructured on the basis of sustainable development. Our compass for this should be ensuring equal opportunity in education so that every individual can access the right to education they are born with, as stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As an educator who has worked for more than 40 years for sustainable education, I am aware that our path is long and difficult. That is why only by working together and making education global and high-quality can we leave a sustainable world to our children, the architects of the future."