By Stephanie Genkin

Dave Paquin has taught hundreds of online and critical thinking courses at universities and educational institutions in the United States. So, when Sultan Qaboos University (SQU), Oman’s only public university, requested a Fulbright Specialist to train its faculty, he jumped at the opportunity to gain valuable professional experience abroad.

It was a perfect fit. Over the last 20 years, Paquin has honed his expertise in critical thinking development, online learning, and workforce training, first as a technician and instructor for the U.S. …

By World Learning

While Egypt’s Social Solidarity Ministry estimates that nearly one in every 160 children in the country shows signs of autism, autistic children and young people remain marginalized within Egypt’s education system. Autistic young people are often excluded from traditional schools and may not receive basic education, let alone more advanced subject-matter training or opportunities for workforce preparation.

To bridge this gap, in the fall of 2020 STEM Hub Egypt partnered with Launch Egypt to offer online STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) training specifically for autistic young adults. The STEM Hub Egypt is a learning center that…

International Women’s Day is an annual celebration of the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. It also serves as a day to raise awareness of the need to continue advocating for women’s equality.

Today, we’re highlighting a few of the incredible women who have taken part in our programs and used what they learned to give back to their communities and the world.

Djamila Azzouz

People who are marginalized and excluded from political and economic power are more likely to be negatively impacted by development projects and significantly less likely to receive benefits from development, humanitarian assistance, or advocacy. Interventions that address marginalization due to age, disability, gender, race, and other factors, can therefore be important catalysts for more sustainable, equitable societies.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is driving transformative social change by prioritizing disability-inclusive education and incorporating Universal Design for Learning (UDL) into its education programming, especially for literacy education. …

Zahle, Lebanon, is home to more than 7,000 students in public primary schools, including eight-year-old Krysta Al Arjaa, who attends the New Zahle School and is the youngest of four children.

Across the world, the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools, universities and many other sectors to move classes and operations online. In Lebanon, already contending with an economic crisis, the situation was no different. The country endured several lockdowns to contain the virus’ spread, which impacted livelihoods, businesses and education. …

Siberia was not where Maurice Mongkuo had initially imagined he would be going when he applied to the Fulbright Specialist Program.

When he was matched to a project to provide lectures and workshops at Altai State University (ASU), a public institution in Western Siberia, Mongkuo acknowledges he did not know much about the region, except for the long and complex political relationship between Washington and Moscow.

“I had no idea what to expect,” says Dr. Mongkuo, a Professor of Public Administration at Fayetteville State University (FSU), a historically black university in North Carolina. …

Mega Subramaniam is on a mission to engage underserved youth through libraries and digital learning. The associate professor at the University of Maryland in College Park is passionate about helping librarians use design thinking techniques and digital technologies to re-envision how libraries can engage and serve youth patrons in the 21st century.

In the Spring of 2019, Subramaniam took her expertise to the Kyrgyz Republic as a Fulbright Specialist in order to train librarians from a wide range of educational and professional backgrounds how to better engage with youth.

“In an increasingly divided world of haves and have-nots, libraries play…

Developing soft skills, such as those related to communication, decision-making, and social interaction, is a top priority for youth workforce and entrepreneurship programs around the world. However, measuring participants’ progress in these areas can be challenging. To help take the guesswork out of this process, World Learning has developed a new, free tool that can be used to track and assess changes in soft skills both at the individual and group level.

Now available to download in English and French, with Arabic versions under development for several countries, the WorkLinks Skills and Values Assessment (WLSVA) is designed to measure a…