Our current global education system fails to provide quality learning for everyone throughout life and helps us shape peaceful, just, and sustainable societies. UNESCO data shows that 244 million children and youth are out of school worldwide. There is a crisis in foundational learning, literacy, and numeracy skills among young learners.
It is estimated that 60% of children globally cannot read and understand a simple text by the age of ten. The COVID-19 pandemic triggered the largest disruption in education history and deepened a pre-existing crisis of inclusion, quality, and relevance.
UNESCO has been mobilizing and consulting all stakeholders and partners to galvanize the transformation of every aspect of learning, including an urgent call to increase education funding. An estimated US$200 billion in additional education finance is required annually to get low- and lower-middle-income countries on track to achieve SDG 4.
Recent UNESCO findings reveal that around half of the 100 countries reviewed did not mention climate change in their national curriculum. And nearly one-third of school-age children - 463 million - lack access to distance learning.
That is why at the Transforming Education Summit, UNESCO put the spotlight on key initiatives to accelerate action:
- Getting every learner climate-ready: Building on the knowledge and practice accumulated in Education for Sustainable Development, a new Greening Education Partnership aims to deliver strong, coordinated and comprehensive action that will prepare every learner to acquire the knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes to tackle climate change and to promote sustainable development.
- Expanding public digital learning: A Global Initiative on Public Digital Learning will map and analyze existing public platforms and content; help countries create and strengthen national platforms; identify and share best practices; and establish international norms and standards to guide the development of platforms. The initiative aims to ensure that every learner, teacher, and family can easily access, find, and use high-quality and curriculum-aligned digital education content to advance their learning.
- Fast-tracking gender equality in education: UNESCO and partners launched a Call to Action to catalyze cooperation and transformative action on gender equality in and through education, together with a Global Platform to drive leadership and accountability.
- Improving access for crisis-affected children and youth: UNESCO together with partners presented a Commitment to Action to improve access and learning outcomes for children and youth affected by crises; to support teachers and to increase financing across humanitarian and development instruments. It stresses a holistic approach across health and social sectors.The right to education begins at birth. But new UNESCO data shows that 1 out of 4 children aged 5 have never had any form of pre-primary education. This represents 35 million out of 137 million 5-year-old children worldwide.
Despite research that proves the benefits of early childhood care and education, only half of all countries guarantee free pre-primary education around the world. UNESCO’s World Conference on Early Childhood Care and Education took place in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in November. With the adoption of the Tashkent Declaration, countries committed to invest at least 10% of total education spending on pre-primary education and to ensure that salaries and working conditions of preschool personnel are at least at par with those of primary education teachers.
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