He has to solve social challenges or lose importance

More than 2,000 leaders and innovators in education from around the world gathered at the annual WISE Summit in Doha last week. They were asked in the online survey before the event started whether they thought a university degree is essential for economic progression in the 21st century. More than 60% answered no.

This is a group of deeply committed to being one of the speakers, Ricardo Seller, director of SEMCO partner and founder of Ralston-Seller Foundation in Brazil, described as "transformational power of education", and in particular its ability to change the lives of marginalized groups.

This year's winner of the annual award WISE Dr. Sabena Jacobi. It is almost single-handedly transformed the lives of thousands of women in the most difficult circumstances in Afghanistan through education. Then why do so many of these pioneers and innovators to show such skepticism when it comes to access to higher education?

The first reason could be the face of the difficulties of higher education, especially in areas such as the Middle East, in defining the 21st century. The session panel at the summit entitled "The Future of Higher Education 'featured, among others, former Higher Education Coordinator at the World Bank, Dr. Jamal Salami and renowned American journalist Jeffrey Schelling.

While all panelists are valuable contributions, there was little consensus on how to balance the desire for higher education to prepare citizens to face and address global challenges in the early 21st century in relation to the need for students to be employable.

Graduate unemployment is far too high, especially in the Middle East. This is causing real damage to the access and equity arguments. Citizenship argument commands great sympathy, but it was not clear how to combine it with mechanisms to make this level of unemployment down.

The summit focused mainly on disparities in primary and secondary education. Her Highness Sheikh Moa bent Nasser stated in the opening plenary session of the 60 million children around the world will not finish primary school, and the number is growing with the crisis of refugees.

Inevitably, in the face of this challenge, access to higher education looks like a second-class discussion. But if the paths to higher education has expanded and built, the ceiling is placed on the impact of participation in primary / secondary education in the lives of children in developing countries.

This argument is missing from the debate about the primary / secondary education and inequalities and solutions. 2015 WISE Education Survey, conducted among 1,550 education professionals from around the world in the month preceding the summit, which called for collaborative solutions to "the failure of education to keep pace with changing jobs." However, cooperation is proposed included schools and workplaces, but Tellingly, not universities.

Finally, perhaps the most important message coming out of the summit was the need to influence the conflict. We are experiencing now the highest sense of forced displacement after World War II, with more than 60 million people displaced from their homes. Of these, half are young people, and only 1% goes to higher education. Action is underway to engage higher education on this issue.