In an op-ed piece today, New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof proposes a new program that would combine the foundations of Teach for America and the Peace Corps. The program, which he calls “Teach for the World,” “would be a government-financed effort to supplement an American public diplomacy outreach that has been eviscerated over the last few decades.” Teach for the World would be designed to help “meet the demand from young people seeking to give back.” Kristof bases the idea of Teach for the World off of successful, privately-run programs such as WorldTeach and Global Citizen Year. He proposes a low-cost government program that would offer students a gap year before college, or before grad school and the “real world.”

Kristof explains that the program would not only offer young people a chance to promote education and American ideals abroad, it would also be a prime opportunity for American citizens to engage globally:

Teach for the World also would be an important education initiative for America itself. Fewer than 30 percent of Americans have passports, and only one-quarter can converse in a second language. And the place to learn languages isn’t an American classroom but in the streets of Quito or Dakar or Cairo.