As world leaders descend on New York for the United Nations' General Assembly, Australia's former prime minister and GPE Chair Julia Gillard called on them to focus on preventing future sources of conflict including lacking education in the developing world. Nearly six in 10 school-age children won't be on track to graduate from high school in 2030, according to projections by the UN-backed Education Commission.
Though it is not easy right now to argument about how important it is to educate every child, evidence abounds that higher levels of education tend to be associated with less radicalization and consequently less prospect of terrorism. Access to quality education is personal for Gillard who credits education for allowing her to rise from a working class family to become Australia's first female prime minister.