 | Andrew Preston is Director of the Oslo-based Forum for Environment and Development (ForUM), a network of over 50 Norwegian civil society organizations working on international environment, development, peace and human rights issues. Andrew has 20 years of experience in the non-governmental sector, working on grassroots economic and social development as well as human rights issues in the disability and water sectors. Andrew Preston holds a degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the University of Cambridge. |
Free schools: myth and reality
"I was impressed by the intensity of the debate and the high level of intellectual engagement, not least by the audience. It was an invigorating, even exhilarating experience to be part of a festival based on the conviction that disagreement is good. The Battle of Ideas is a fantastic concept, may it spread epidemically to the rest of the world. I am already looking forward to next year's event."
Thomas Hylland Eriksen, professor of social anthropology, University of Oslo; novelist
follow the Academy of Ideas
