Education is a fundamental basic human right. No child, youth or adult should ever be deprived of their human right to access free quality education. While this rings true, and many policies around the world support this notion, millions of children remain deprived of their right to education. Vulnerable, marginalized communities and those negatively impacted by conflicts are the least likely to attend or complete their full 12 years of schooling.
The global indicator for SDG 4.2.1, the goal focused on early childhood, is the “percentage of children under 5 years of age who are developmentally on track in health, learning and psychosocial well-being.”The most recent SDG 4 Data Digest from UNESCO evaluates progress against creating the right measures for this and clearly identifies that we “need a definition of developmentally on track.”
Please call on your Members of Congress to support the Global Partnership for Education and promote continued US investment in education for the world’s most marginalized children.
The Trump-DeVos proposed budget would lead to significant cuts in the International Affairs Budget and global education funding. These cuts would regress the work the United States has done to promote global education and assist those who need our support the most, including: girls, those with disabilities, people in crisis-ridden regions, and the impoverished.
buildOn is a nonprofit with a mission to break the cycle of poverty, illiteracy, and low expectations through service and education by building schools in seven of the economically poorest countries in the world. Schools are constructed in true partnership with local communities and in villages that historically haven’t had an adequate school structure. Community members pledge to send girls to the new school in equal numbers to boys, and local men and women are given equal leadership opportunities in project management and construction. buildOn has altered the lives of hundreds of people, including children like Elizabeth.
Especially on this day honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement, it is vital to recognize that unequal access to quality education violates children’s rights and affects all of our futures. Dr. King said, “I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits.” This is the day to rededicate ourselves to the cause of education and equality, and to do everything we can to level the playing field for children throughout the world.
Just over a year on from the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its associated 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Brookings Center for Universal Education, the Global Campaign for Education-US and the Global Education Monitoring Report team hosted the launch of the Global Education Monitoring Report (GEM Report) and Gender Review. The GEM report – hosted and published by UNESCO – provides an analysis of SDG 4 targets and respective indicators (inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities) as well as a consideration of the interaction of SDG 4 with all other SDGs on the sustainable development agenda.
Early childhood development can sound technical or overly complicated, a jumble of dozens of interventions across all sectors. Really though, it’s quite simple: giving each child all of the things he or she needs to grow up strong and healthy, feel secure, learn and succeed. ECD interventions are critical for ensuring that all children are given a fair start in life and an equal chance to reach their full potential, no matter who they are or where they were born.
The remote Kenyan village I called home from 1999-2001 had just one reliable phone line located in a Catholic Church. The Priest there allowed me to accept incoming calls from my parents in New York every other Sunday at 7 p.m. If I missed that call, which happened on occasion, two long weeks would pass before that phone would ring again.
As children all around the United States are in their last days of school, counting down to summer vacation, there are refugee children across the world who are desperately hoping to get back to school and learning.
