International Education Policy

Director's Message

From Fernando Reimers, the International Education Policy program director:

Our extraordinarily challenging and complex times call for new leadership in education worldwide. Most of the opportunities for economic and cultural exchanges made possible by new telecommunication technologies and by the emergence of global institutions are yet to be created. These are opportunities to improve the living conditions of most people on the planet, to expand human freedoms and capabilities, to foster unprecedented understanding and collaboration among different people, and to allow all to live in peace.

Educational institutions are uniquely equipped to developing these capabilities and dispositions. Each year a diverse group of educators from around the world come to Harvard to prepare themselves to lead reforms that create those opportunities. The International Education Policy program (IEP) at the Harvard Graduate School of Education provides these leaders with the skills and habits of mind to achieve their goals.

In too many places around the world schools reinforce a social order that imprisons the human mind, where social origin is also social destiny, where merit and ability have no value, where authoritarianism and tradition rule over human reason and dialogue, where lessons of hate and mistrust breed conflict and instability, where failing schools undermine the cohesion of communities and States. The leaders who graduate from the International Education Policy program are working, in every corner of the planet, to bring about change in this state of affairs so that schools contribute to peace, developing opportunity, understanding and the expansion of all human capabilities and talents. Working with governments, private organizations and civil society, IEP graduates bring an acute understanding of how schools work and of how to support effective pedagogy to conversations about education reform worldwide.