One of the most influential women in the world talks about education: Nemat ‘Minouche’ Shafik, the British-Egyptian deputy governor of the Bank of England and the next director of the London School of Economics discussed education and the rise populism for The Economist’s The Agenda series. Minouche tells editor-in-chief Zanny Minton-Beddoes about her first exposure of populist uprisings: “Egypt had a very populist phase after the revolution [of 1952] … my own family was nationalized and lost all of their property and I personally experienced massive downward social mobility as a result of that … it makes me very sensitive to how very well-intentioned but very misguided policies can go terribly wrong and it also makes me feel very passionate about education.” She suggests that a starting point would be a model, possibly derived from the German one, that is modified to be able to retool people with skills they might need to redevelop. Minouche also says “experts” are guilty of overselling what can do, particularly given the limits of they know and don’t know, and should focus on being able to communicate to wider audiences more effectively (runtime 06:32).

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