WHO makes five key appointments to drive strategic direction
Author: BI Bureau
New Delhi: The World Health Organization (WHO) has appointed five new senior figures to its headquarters leadership team in Geneva. The new appointments follow the reappointment of Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to his second five-year term as Director-General.
The overall leadership team has been consolidated to align with the Organization’s priorities for the next five years and will work closely with the Director-General to drive forward these priorities and WHO’s ambitious transformation agenda.
To accelerate progress on implementation of WHO’s 13th General Programme of Work (GPW13), and achievement of its “triple billion” targets and the health-related Sustainable Development Goals, WHO’s work for the coming five years is focused on five priorities: making a paradigm shift towards promoting health and preventing disease by addressing its root causes; radically reorienting health systems towards primary health care; strengthening the systems for health emergency preparedness and response; harnessing the power of science, innovation, data and technologies to advance health; and strengthening WHO as the leading authority on global health and to achieve impact in countries.
Dr Jeremy Farrar will become WHO’s Chief Scientist as of 8 May 2023. The appointment of Dr Farrar was previously announced in December 2022. In this role Dr Farrar will oversee the Science Division, bringing together the best experts and networks in science and innovation from around the world to guide, develop and deliver high quality health policies and services to the people who need them most.
Prior to joining WHO Dr Farrar was Director of the Wellcome Trust. Before joining Wellcome in 2013 Dr Farrar spent 17 years as Director of the Clinical Research Unit at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Viet Nam where his research interests were in global health with a focus on emerging infectious diseases.
Dr Ailan Li will become Assistant Director-General for Universal Health Coverage, Healthier Populations as of 8 May 2023. In this role Dr Li will oversee the Organization’s efforts to promote better health and well-being through interventions relating to the environmental, social, and economic determinants of health, including climate change, tobacco control, chemical safety, road safety, food systems and nutrition, physical activity, air pollution and radiation, through a One Health approach.
Dr Yukiko Nakatani will become Assistant Director-General for Access to Medicines and Health Products as of 2 May 2023. In this role Dr Nakatani will oversee the development and implementation of WHO’s norms and policies to ensure equitable access to quality medicines, vaccines and diagnostics for all populations everywhere, including for preventing and responding to epidemics. Dr Nakatani has been serving as the Director of the Cancer and Disease Control Division of the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. Dr Nakatani holds a medical degree and a PhD in public health.
Dr Razia Pendse will become the Chef de Cabinet as of 4 May 2023. In this role Dr Pendse will head the Director-General’s Office, helping to drive the Organization’s priorities and initiatives, and will ensure alignment within the WHO leadership team and across the three levels of WHO. Dr Pendse has been serving as the Director of Healthier Populations and Noncommunicable Diseases in the WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia and was previously the WHO Representative to Sri Lanka. Dr Pendse holds a medical degree and master's degree in public health.
Dr Jérôme Salomon will become Assistant Director-General for Universal Health Coverage, Communicable and Noncommunicable Diseases as of 17 April 2023. In this role Dr Salomon will oversee a broad portfolio of technical programmes covering HIV, viral hepatitis, sexually-transmitted infections, tuberculosis, malaria, neglected tropical diseases, mental health, substance use disorders, and noncommunicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases and cancer. Dr Salomon has been serving as the Director-General for Health at the Ministry of Health and Prevention of France.
He was a Member of the WHO Executive Board prior to his appointment and has extensive experience in health systems management, communicable diseases and international public health. Dr Salomon holds a medical degree, a master’s degree in public health and a PhD in epidemiology.
Dr Samira Asma will continue as the Assistant Director-General for Data, Analytics and Delivery for Impact. Dr Asma oversees a portfolio which ensures that health data are reliable and accessible, and are used to improve health outcomes worldwide, including tracking and accelerating progress towards the triple billion targets and the health-related Sustainable Development Goals. Prior to joining WHO in 2018, Dr Asma held leadership positions at the US.
Dr Bruce Aylward has been appointed Assistant Director-General of the Universal Health Coverage, Life Course Division as of 4 May 2023. Dr Aylward has been leading WHO’s Transformation Agenda and the Organization’s work on the multi-agency Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) Hub. In his new role, Dr Aylward will drive the Organization’s agenda to transform primary health care as central to universal health coverage, as well as overseeing WHO’s work on health systems, immunization and reproductive, maternal and child health.
Dr Hanan Balkhy will continue as Assistant Director-General for Antimicrobial Resistance. Dr Balkhy provides technical and political leadership to curb the health and economic burdens of drug resistance, including through multi-sectoral collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Organization for Animal Health, and the United Nations Environment Programme. Prior to joining WHO, Dr Balkhy was Executive Director for Infection Prevention and Control at Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of National Guard. Dr Balkhy holds a medical degree with specialization in paediatric infectious diseases.
Dr Catharina Boehme will become Assistant Director-General, External Relations and Governance as of 4 May 2023. In this role Dr Boehme will lead WHO’s strategic engagement in the areas of governance, resource mobilization and partner relations. Her portfolio will include critical Member States processes, such as their negotiation of a pandemic accord, the reform of WHO’s governance and the implementation of recommendations on sustainable financing. Dr Boehme has been serving as the Director-General’s Chef de Cabinet during which time she drove the leadership’s strategic vision, ensuring alignment across the Organization and with Member States and partners.
Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu will continue as Assistant Director-General for the Division of Health Emergency Intelligence and Surveillance Systems in the Emergencies Programme. As part of his portfolio, Dr Ihekweazu leads the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence, bringing together partners to address future pandemic and epidemic risks with better access to data, analytical capacities, and tools for decision-making. Prior to joining WHO, Dr Ihekweazu was the first Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), from 2016 to 2021. Dr Ihekweazu holds a medical degree, with specialization as an infectious disease epidemiologist, and a master’s degree in public health.
Dr Michael Ryan will continue as Executive Director of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme. Dr Ryan has been managing health emergencies in WHO for the past 25 years and most recently led WHO’s emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He leads WHO’s response to disease outbreaks, humanitarian crises and other public health emergencies. Dr Ryan is a founding member of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN), which has aided the response to hundreds of disease outbreaks around the world.
Raul Thomas will continue as Assistant Director-General for Business Operations. Thomas has overall responsibility for WHO’s business functions, including budget, finance, human resources, administration, audit, risk management, accountability and compliance, and general management. He is responsible for implementing many of the initiatives under the Organization’s transformation agenda and creating a respectful, inclusive workplace. During his 20 years of employment with WHO, Thomas has served in the regions of Africa, the Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Western Pacific, as well as with the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Thomas holds a master’s degree in organizational management and a bachelor’s degree in business administration. /BI/
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NEP-2020 aspires for inclusive excellence in school education
Rajeev Ranjan Roy
The New Education Policy-2020 (NEP-2020), unveiled recently, aims at achieving excellence in school learning by imparting quality, affordable and inclusive education to all, with an extra emphasis on those children coming from socially and educationally disadvantaged groups of the society. It is a futuristic endeavour towards building Ek Bharat, Shrestha Bharat. The previous education policies largely focussed on the issues of access and equity in giving school education, while the NEP-2020 commits to laying the foundation of a vibrant Bharat where no one is devoid of a kind of school education, which helps every student become an asset for the nation in a true sense. The unfinished agenda of the National Policy on Education 1986, which was modified in 1992, has been effectively dealt with in the NEP-2020 along with the vision behind the Right to the Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, which “laid down legal underpinnings for achieving universal elementary education.”
Given the undisputed role of education in nation building, the NEP-2020 rightly lays the stress on standardization and accreditation of school infrastructure and teachers as well, since education with accountability, transparency and affordability is the need of the hour, and hence the need to “empower schools, teachers with trust, enabling them to strive for excellence and perform at their very best, while ensuring the integrity of the system through the enforcement of complete transparency and full public disclosure of all finances, procedures and outcomes.” Since private sector is significantly present in the field of school education, the idea to promote ‘not-for-profit’ entities is a unique feature of NEP-2020, which at the same time intends to promote private philanthropic efforts for quality education, thereby affirming the public-good nature of education, while protecting parents and communities from arbitrary increase in tuition fees.
An equally important area, which has got due attention in the NEP-2020 is the need for efficient resourcing and effective governance through school complexes and clusters, a significant initiative in view of the fact that nearly 28 per cent of India’s public primary schools and 14.8 per cent of upper primary schools have less than 30 students. The average number of students per grade in the elementary schooling system – Grades 1 to 8 – is about 14, with a notable proportion having below six students during 2016-17, the year which also had 1,08,017 single-teacher schools, and majority of them – 85,743 – being primary schools taking care of Grades 1-5 children. It was, therefore, a pressing need to evolve a mechanism for establishing a grouping structure, say, school complexes, consisting of one secondary school together with all other schools, which lead to greater resource efficiency and more effective functioning, coordination, leadership, governance, and management of schools in the cluster. This will not only ensure optimum utilisation of resources, but will also foster the sense of oneness and togetherness among the school children, who are the future of the nation.
What further makes the New Education Policy-2020 uniquely special is its pledge for equitable and inclusive education for all, one of the great dreams of our founding fathers. Education, as the NEP-2020 rightly envisions, is “the single greatest tool for achieving social justice and quality.” Inclusive and equitable education, indeed an essential goal in its own right, is also critical to achieving a social order where every citizen has “the opportunity to dream, thrive, and contribute to the nation.” Quality, affordable and ethical education to all is the first move to break multiple social and economic barriers, which sow the seeds of exclusion, discrimination and exploitation against our own people on different parochial considerations.
Needless to say efforts were made in the past as well to bridge the educational chasm between socially and educationally disadvantaged groups (SEDGs) and the children of top social strata, but the desired results remained elusive. SEDGs account for the country’s overwhelming population, but their children’s share in quality school educational institutions has been minimal over the years. Early childhood care and education (ECCE) needs to be handled more comprehensively. According to the Unified-District Information System for Education (U-DISE) 2016-17 data, about 19.6 per cent of students belonged to Scheduled Castes (SCs) at the primary level, but this fraction fell to 17.3 per cent at the higher secondary level. These enrollment drop-outs were more severe for ST students (10.6 per cent to 6.8 per cent), and differently-abled children (1.1 per cent to 0.25 per cent), with even greater declines for female students within each of these categories. Thus, there is no scope for any complacency on the part of the government. A series of interventions including better facilities, more and more hostels, scholarships and other enabling support have been provisioned in the NEP-2020 so that the idea of ‘learning for all’ is realised in a more comprehensive manner.
Teachers are not only an integral part of an education system, but the most important stakeholder in the entire gamut of things. Their quality and ability to teach school students, when they are in their formative age, become something of paramount importance. From their recruitment to training, every precaution needs to be taken to ensure that school education is not rendered to a mere formality, but becomes a game changer. The New Education Policy-2020 comes with a basket full of tools and parameters to ensure holistic training and upgradation of teachers and their teaching skills in a sustainable manner. From continuous professional development (CPD) to career management and progression (CMP), the NEP-2020 vouches for a set of common guidelines – National Professional Standards for Teachers (NPST), which will be put in place by the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) in its restructured new form as the Professional Standard Setting Body (PSSB) under the General Education Council. This exercise will be carried out in consultation with National Council Educational Research and Training (NCERT), SCERTs, teachers from across levels and regions.
The teacher education will also undergo a sea-change. By 2030, the minimum degree qualification for teaching will be a 4-year integrated B.Ed. that teaches a range of knowledge content. Today B.Ed. teaching is most poorly regulated in our country ever since the standalone B.Ed. colleges were allowed to be opened up in the private sector. It is high time to take B.Ed. teaching more than seriously. The NEP-2020 stipulates that by 2021, a new and comprehensive National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education (NCFTE-2021) will be formulated by the NCTE. NCFTE, which will also factor in the requirements of teacher education curricula for vocational education, will be revised once every 5-10 years.
In conclusion, the NEP-2020 visualizes to impart a school education which lays the foundation of a self-reliant India and also to help our country emerge as a knowledge hub. From the foundation of learning to foundational literacy and numeracy to checking drop outs and ensuring universal access to education for all and at all levels to the restructuring of school curriculum, India is in for a metamorphosis in the field of school education, recognizing, identifying and fostering the unique capabilities of each student. Tools such as multi disciplinarity, emphasis on conceptual understanding, creativity and critical thinking, ethics and human and constitutional values, full equity and inclusion, and light but tight regulatory framework are bound to do wonders. Education is a public service, a rare pursuit in nation building, which should be holistic and inclusive and must make one take pride in India and its rich, diverse, ancient and modern culture and knowledge systems and tradition. The NEP-2020 aspires so, indeed!
( The writer is a senior journalist and author. The views expressed are strictly personal.)
NEP-2020 aspires for inclusive excellence in school education
Rajeev Ranjan Roy
The New Education Policy-2020 (NEP-2020), unveiled recently, aims at achieving excellence in school learning by imparting quality, affordable and inclusive education to all, with an extra emphasis on those children coming from socially and educationally disadvantaged groups of the society. It is a futuristic endeavour towards building Ek Bharat, Shrestha Bharat. The previous education policies largely focussed on the issues of access and equity in giving school education, while the NEP-2020 commits to laying the foundation of a vibrant Bharat where no one is devoid of a kind of school education, which helps every student become an asset for the nation in a true sense. The unfinished agenda of the National Policy on Education 1986, which was modified in 1992, has been effectively dealt with in the NEP-2020 along with the vision behind the Right to the Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, which “laid down legal underpinnings for achieving universal elementary education.”
Given the undisputed role of education in nation building, the NEP-2020 rightly lays the stress on standardization and accreditation of school infrastructure and teachers as well, since education with accountability, transparency and affordability is the need of the hour, and hence the need to “empower schools, teachers with trust, enabling them to strive for excellence and perform at their very best, while ensuring the integrity of the system through the enforcement of complete transparency and full public disclosure of all finances, procedures and outcomes.” Since private sector is significantly present in the field of school education, the idea to promote ‘not-for-profit’ entities is a unique feature of NEP-2020, which at the same time intends to promote private philanthropic efforts for quality education, thereby affirming the public-good nature of education, while protecting parents and communities from arbitrary increase in tuition fees.
An equally important area, which has got due attention in the NEP-2020 is the need for efficient resourcing and effective governance through school complexes and clusters, a significant initiative in view of the fact that nearly 28 per cent of India’s public primary schools and 14.8 per cent of upper primary schools have less than 30 students. The average number of students per grade in the elementary schooling system – Grades 1 to 8 – is about 14, with a notable proportion having below six students during 2016-17, the year which also had 1,08,017 single-teacher schools, and majority of them – 85,743 – being primary schools taking care of Grades 1-5 children. It was, therefore, a pressing need to evolve a mechanism for establishing a grouping structure, say, school complexes, consisting of one secondary school together with all other schools, which lead to greater resource efficiency and more effective functioning, coordination, leadership, governance, and management of schools in the cluster. This will not only ensure optimum utilisation of resources, but will also foster the sense of oneness and togetherness among the school children, who are the future of the nation.
What further makes the New Education Policy-2020 uniquely special is its pledge for equitable and inclusive education for all, one of the great dreams of our founding fathers. Education, as the NEP-2020 rightly envisions, is “the single greatest tool for achieving social justice and quality.” Inclusive and equitable education, indeed an essential goal in its own right, is also critical to achieving a social order where every citizen has “the opportunity to dream, thrive, and contribute to the nation.” Quality, affordable and ethical education to all is the first move to break multiple social and economic barriers, which sow the seeds of exclusion, discrimination and exploitation against our own people on different parochial considerations.
Needless to say efforts were made in the past as well to bridge the educational chasm between socially and educationally disadvantaged groups (SEDGs) and the children of top social strata, but the desired results remained elusive. SEDGs account for the country’s overwhelming population, but their children’s share in quality school educational institutions has been minimal over the years. Early childhood care and education (ECCE) needs to be handled more comprehensively. According to the Unified-District Information System for Education (U-DISE) 2016-17 data, about 19.6 per cent of students belonged to Scheduled Castes (SCs) at the primary level, but this fraction fell to 17.3 per cent at the higher secondary level. These enrollment drop-outs were more severe for ST students (10.6 per cent to 6.8 per cent), and differently-abled children (1.1 per cent to 0.25 per cent), with even greater declines for female students within each of these categories. Thus, there is no scope for any complacency on the part of the government. A series of interventions including better facilities, more and more hostels, scholarships and other enabling support have been provisioned in the NEP-2020 so that the idea of ‘learning for all’ is realised in a more comprehensive manner.
Teachers are not only an integral part of an education system, but the most important stakeholder in the entire gamut of things. Their quality and ability to teach school students, when they are in their formative age, become something of paramount importance. From their recruitment to training, every precaution needs to be taken to ensure that school education is not rendered to a mere formality, but becomes a game changer. The New Education Policy-2020 comes with a basket full of tools and parameters to ensure holistic training and upgradation of teachers and their teaching skills in a sustainable manner. From continuous professional development (CPD) to career management and progression (CMP), the NEP-2020 vouches for a set of common guidelines – National Professional Standards for Teachers (NPST), which will be put in place by the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) in its restructured new form as the Professional Standard Setting Body (PSSB) under the General Education Council. This exercise will be carried out in consultation with National Council Educational Research and Training (NCERT), SCERTs, teachers from across levels and regions.
The teacher education will also undergo a sea-change. By 2030, the minimum degree qualification for teaching will be a 4-year integrated B.Ed. that teaches a range of knowledge content. Today B.Ed. teaching is most poorly regulated in our country ever since the standalone B.Ed. colleges were allowed to be opened up in the private sector. It is high time to take B.Ed. teaching more than seriously. The NEP-2020 stipulates that by 2021, a new and comprehensive National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education (NCFTE-2021) will be formulated by the NCTE. NCFTE, which will also factor in the requirements of teacher education curricula for vocational education, will be revised once every 5-10 years.
In conclusion, the NEP-2020 visualizes to impart a school education which lays the foundation of a self-reliant India and also to help our country emerge as a knowledge hub. From the foundation of learning to foundational literacy and numeracy to checking drop outs and ensuring universal access to education for all and at all levels to the restructuring of school curriculum, India is in for a metamorphosis in the field of school education, recognizing, identifying and fostering the unique capabilities of each student. Tools such as multi disciplinarity, emphasis on conceptual understanding, creativity and critical thinking, ethics and human and constitutional values, full equity and inclusion, and light but tight regulatory framework are bound to do wonders. Education is a public service, a rare pursuit in nation building, which should be holistic and inclusive and must make one take pride in India and its rich, diverse, ancient and modern culture and knowledge systems and tradition. The NEP-2020 aspires so, indeed!
( The writer is a senior journalist and author. The views expressed are strictly personal.)
