For the past few days, I have been attending the African Regional UWC National Committees meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  It has been a wonderful opportunity to meet and mingle with hard-working and very dedicated members of many National Committees, many of whom I have come to know over the years through e-mail, but had never previously met.   These regional meetings are always an important opportunity for Colleges and National Committees to exchange views and advice, and this week’s meeting in Addis Ababa was no exception.  The meeting has not yet finished, and I think I will be very sorry when all the stimulating discussions and debates do come to an end.

Diversity

One of the key recurring themes discussed at the meeting has been ‘diversity’.  Diversity is a concept that is significant not only within the context of Africa, but as a key issue being examined in significant depth by the United World Colleges movement globally.  There were particularly challenging addresses on the subject by Mr Laurence Nodder, Head of Waterford KaMhlaba UWC (Swaziland) as well as several representatives of National Committees.  As a result, I have been reflecting more deeply on this notion of ‘diversity’ and the important role it plays in defining the character and identity of United World Colleges.

Of course, diversity is not an end in itself, but it is an important means to achieve the UWC vision in an authentic manner.  Having said that, in the same way that our world is changing, so our notions of diversity are changing.  When the first United World College (Atlantic College in Wales) began, it worked to address the particular issues of diversity that were relevant at the time, these being issues relating primarily to political differences (the Cold War, East vs West)and geographical/cultural diversity.

At its most basic, the aim in the early years of UWCs was to bring together students from nations with diverse political systems in order to form bonds, develop a commitment to service, and truly understand one another.  Young people came to Atlantic College with various stereotypes and different views about ‘others’, and through their profound experiences at the College, they came to develop a deep sense of understanding these ‘others’.  It was clearly a fabulous yet demanding response to addressing the key issues of diversity for its time.

Similarly when Waterford KaMhlaba UWC (in Swaziland) was first established, it was nothing short of earth-shattering to put black and white students in the same rooms.  It was revolutionary, and it had significant political repercussions at the time.  Today, most people would say ‘so what?’ when they see students from different races sharing the same rooms.  The issues that are seen as being relevant in addressing ‘diversity’ today have moved on.

Increasingly, some people are arguing that United World Colleges have stagnated to become a collection of nationalities rather than a reflection of the true diversity that exists in today’s world.  Our notion of merit (which is the fundamental basis for selection) grew up in essentially egalitarian (and generally more economically developed) societies, but does this notion still work where people’s access to education, knowledge and opportunities are very unequal?

The early UWC students took huge risks by stepping out of their familiar surroundings and education systems to attend a United World College.  They often had to move to other countries into a largely unknown educational model.  They were risk takers, and they didn’t even know whether the universities in their home countries would accept them when they returned.  Looking back, it is remarkable that they took on these immense risks notwithstanding.  These days, by contrast, many applicants to UWCs seem to expect (or at least place a priority on) a stable educational environment with an assured university entry at the end, and some people in the UWC movement are now questioning whether this certainty (or expectation of certainty) is actually helpful in achieving the UWC mission.

For some time now, UWC Heads have been discussing the challenge of how we might be able to restore the cutting edge nature of a United World College education.  How can we make sure that students are not just coming  to UWCs because of enhanced university opportunities (which are certainly there as a result of the Davis scholarships scheme).  At one time a few years ago, the three-year program was one possible option, where students would complete the IB in two years and then pledge to a third year of voluntary community service before going on to university, thus putting themselves a year behind other students as a demonstration of their commitment.  Both Pearson College (Canada) and the United World College of South-East Asia (Singapore) implemented this program for a while, though only as an option, but legal issues in recent years have sadly led to its demise.

The shift into focussing on ‘tensions’

From this long-running discussion in the UWC movement, the latest suggested initiative to emerge is the idea of ensuring that all UWCs are structured to reflect the ‘tensions’ in contemporary society.  The United World Colleges recently adopted a set of Guiding Principles, of which number one in the list reads “UWC education should take place within a diverse college community – the selection of students should ensure representation from regions and social groups that reflect the wide range of tensions among and between peoples”.

In the discussions at this week’s meeting in Addis Ababa, many of those present suggested that UWCs should make efforts to reflect a much broader range of tensions, and this led in turn to the consequent question – what do we need to do in UWCs to cater for and address these tensions?

This led in turn to a long discussion on the practical implications posed by this question, such as this big one – given that UWCs have traditionally been based on a western liberal viewpoint, should we in all conscience bring people from other backgrounds into such an environment?  Indeed, trying to establish a more neutral environment was one of the reasons behind the recent introduction of a common code of student conduct.  The argument was that if we are aiming to bring (for example) fundamentalists and liberals together, but that is done within a very liberal environment and a free social setting, the students from more fundamentalist backgrounds will almost certainly be disadvantaged, and will they be unable to live with equal status and influence as those from more liberal backgrounds.  The challenge of students from more conservative backgrounds being able to have significant influence within the liberal environments of most United World Colleges is an issue that clearly continues to concern many members of the African National Committees quite deeply.

The perception among UWC Heads for some time has been that the diversity of students coming to UWCs is probably diminishing.   The purported trend has been that the proportion of students from privileged educational backgrounds in UWCs has been increasing.  Of course, this is perhaps to be expected as UWC selections are defined as being based on merit, and well-resourced schools inevitably often provide a better quality of educational preparation than impoverished schools.  Interestingly, it has been suggested that this trend is strongest in Pearson College, which is one of the colleges that has a full scholarship policy.   This suggests that a full scholarship policy, whatever its other merits, is not a successful way to attract increasing numbers of students from poorer backgrounds.  A more formal and complete study is now underway to see if this perception of diminishing diversity is accurate or not.

This will be an important study, as the feeling is becoming more widespread  that students with prior privilege are growing proportionally in UWCs world-wide.  There is a real challenge here for UWC Selection Committees globally – how do we measure the potential of two students, one whose talents have been developed in a ‘good’ school, and one who has not had such access?

So, what are today’s tensions?

There was a very wide-ranging discussion in Addis Ababa to try and identify the tensions that are relevant in today’s world.  Among the suggestions raised were differences in sexual orientation, religions, regions, health status, (e.g. HIV-positive and negative), racial and ethnic groupings, socio-economic differences, different types of physical disabilities, recent immigrants vs long-established ethnic groups, liberal vs conservative outlooks, public vs private schools, different languages spoken, and abilities in language.

A very interesting discussion arose from developing this list, centred on the practice of some National Committees to select students only from government schools on the basis that government schools are where the students with the greatest needs are said to be found.  Other National Committees argued against this “preferential option for the poor”, suggesting that all facets of society must be represented if UWCs are to achieve broad diversity and if students from different backgrounds are going to learn from each other.  Another point made was that selecting students only from poor backgrounds can lead to stereotyping of those countries in the Colleges to which the students are sent, as the other students only ever have the chance to meet poor students from those countries.

The discussion raised another interesting and related issue – is there a tension between the original vision of United World Colleges (as existing to develop the next generation of world leaders) and the emerging view of UWCs as being an arm of development aid that exist to provide opportunities to students who lack any other access to a good education?

But these are perhaps all minor tensions compared with some of the even more significant issues in global education.  One that was mentioned explicitly was the possibility of UWCs taking on the challenge to educate students who have never previously attended school – some would argue that if UWCs neglect such students, they would be ignoring a very significant population in many countries.

Is it possible to identify and attract students that reflect these tensions?

There was an interesting debate on whether UWC Selection Committees can really collect the information required to ensure diversity in the selection process.  Should students be selected on a basis that takes into account their political views, their sexual orientation, and so on?  The consensus at the meeting was – probably not.  And yet, if we do not collect such data, how can we ensure the selection of students reflects this broader view of ‘diversity’?

Another interesting discussion developed this point by asking – is it inevitable that we will continue to emphasise diversity as being just ‘geographical diversity’ in UWCs as long as we continue to organise National Committees on a simple geographical basis (i.e. one country, one National Committee)?  A few of those present asked whether we should look at a new and different structure for organising National Committees and Selection Committees to reflect non-geographical diversity.

A related tension in the selection process is that we claim to place very little importance on ability in English, but sending students with weak English into a UWC environment essentially sets them up to fail in the opinion of many African National Committees.  Many members of the National Committees present emphasised that there is a real tension between suitability for UWCs on one hand, and addressing the diverse range of the tensions identified on the other – and some even argued that given such a tension, then suitability for life in the UWC ought to be the paramount consideration.

What do we need to change in the UWC schools and colleges?

Several possibilities were raised about the ways in which United World Colleges should adapt to accommodate greater diversity among students.  One widely supported suggestion was to give more time to academic instruction in the classroom, which was somewhat paradoxical as some of the same people expressed concerns that they had heard rumours that United World Colleges were becoming more and more academic at the expense of other aspects of UWC life.

One interesting suggestion was that United World Colleges need to create special social spaces for Muslim girls, so they can relax with other girls without needing to remain fully covered all the time.  It was also suggested that most African and Asian students feel suppressed in expressing their viewpoints because of the more outgoing nature of articulate, dominant, liberal European students, and many insisted that this must be addressed as a matter of urgency – but how? 

One suggestion that led to an interesting discussion was the idea that perhaps each UWC should have less geographical diversity in its student population, but wider diversity from within a smaller number of countries.

As always, many of the changes that were suggested would require significant investments in resources and would require extensive funding.  Unfortunately, funding is always short in UWCs because of the constant demand to provide more scholarships.  I wonder whether this particular tension will ever be resolved.

Some final thoughts

Overall, this has been an excellent and stimulating meeting in Addis Ababa.  The questions raised have been highly significant and of immense importance.  Should UWCs move on from its mission statement that is based on peace and sustainability (adopted in Singapore in 2006)?  How can the mission statement develop and evolve to remain contemporary in a changing world?  Should we, for example, evolve the mission statement to embrace social justice issues more explicitly?

As you might perhaps imagine, it has been a privilege to be part of this challenging and stimulating discussion – an important dialogue that has immense potential to re-shape the future of United World Colleges.