On my visit to UNESCO Paris to collect an Award in 2010, I was gifted with a copy of the Declaration of Human Rights which has hung in my office ever since. My office is now the old Chapel of the former Mount Carmel Monastery that became the Alison HQ earlier last year.
The important bit for us is Article 26 in the Declaration of Human Rights.
Article 26
Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
At Alison, our global team takes the ambition of this Article very seriously. As I write this note in September 2024, we are graduating close to 9,000 people per day in short courses - at Alison Certificate and Diploma level. It's a huge number from where we have come, but small in terms of where we want to go. We will engage over 10 million learners in 2024 - but why not 100 million and some day 1 billion and beyond.
From the very start, our ambition for Alison was to use new innovations in technology to enable us to provide free empowerment tools online. We started with free online learning, but we have moved now into comprehensive suites of psychometric tests and assessments, recruitment, and skills auditing services. The old traditional systems of certification are no longer fit for purpose. They are too slow, too costly, and take too long to deliver. Once empowerment content can be digitised, it can be commoditised, and made available for free to anyone that wants to improve themselves for a better tomorrow.
Free learning is not just about learning new skills and knowledge, and getting greater self-Knowledge on who you are and what your strengths are, it is also about self-esteem and confidence. As the old saying goes (attributed to Henry Ford in many cases), "If you think you can, you can. If you think you can't, you are right". Many years ago we did a survey of graduates and 88% of graduates responded that on the completion of their courses, they felt more confident. This is what we need in the world. Greater self-confidence to stand up and say we count. That we are the managers of our own destiny. That we don't have to accept our surroundings and that everyone, once you have a smartphone and access to the internet, can plan for a better day that will come.
Everyone who comes to our office is introduced to the Declaration of Human Rights and I, or a member of our team will also point out Article 26, and its dream for the future. It is useful to have on the wall, as it reminds us of the mission we have and of the great minds who 75+ years ago were bold enough to start out on the journey that education will one day be free.
