Learn about the core obligation set forth by the Abidjan Principles, the need for states to prioritize the funding and provision of free, quality, public education, and the latest work in Kenya with the East African Centre for Human Rights (EACHRights).
Whether you are parenting a 12-year-old girl in Los Angeles whose reading skills have slipped during this exhausting year of Zoom school or in a remote Zambian village where she is trying to learn from educational radio broadcasts while doing chores, the last year has shown both the value and vulnerability of our education systems. Whether in LA or Zambia, this has been our shared reality, exacerbating pre-exiting inequities. And without prioritizing education in the COVID recovery, societies will become even more unequal and fragile. We need a new type of global solidarity and international cooperation.
Shreyan Acharya is a MA student in Development Studies at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. He shares a keen interest in the Education sector and previously volunteered with Teach for India and worked briefly with Stones2Milestones. He is presently a member of the student-led Education Hub and wants to explore his interest in filling the gaps in the education space.
The global education crisis has been going on for decades. Hundreds of millions of children are out of school all over the world. Lack of access to resources or living in conflict areas are two of the overarching reasons. Many organizations have been working on the ground in every corner of the world to get children an equitable, quality education. So why haven’t we achieved that goal yet?
The Lost Potential Tracker is an interactive tool that counts in real-time the increasing number of 10-year-olds who cannot read and understand a simple story since 2015.
School closures during COVID-19 have impacted the learning and social emotional well-being of a generation of students. According to UNESCO, 192 countries implemented some sort of school closure over the past year, affecting over 90% of learners worldwide at some point during the pandemic. The consequences will be immense and long lasting.
In early 2020, as education systems around the world began to close as a result of the growing COVID-19 pandemic, it quickly became apparent that our individual and collective responses, as with all emergencies, would occur in two phases: response and recovery.
As the education sector learns from the pandemic, it is clear that we cannot afford to leave another generation of children behind. The struggle of children with disabilities to realise their right to education continues. Removing barriers to access and thrive in education is an imperative that requires cross-sectoral collaboration and investment.
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the education of over one billion people, including many of our most marginalized being impacted the most; this includes–but is not limited to: girls, children with disabilities, and children in conflict settings. Many of these children already faced challenges to access quality, inclusive education prior to the pandemic, which has now exacerbated these problems. On March 31, we co-hosted an event, in conjunction with the Civil Society Policy Forum during the World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings, that discussed the issue of education financing during COVID-19 response and recovery to reach the most marginalized.
Inclusive Education and Early Childhood Community of Practice members Salzburg Global Seminar, Humanity & Inclusion, Amal Alliance, and GCE-US jointly organized a workshop on March 1, 2021, Zero Discrimination Day, that looked the teacher training and inclusive education. The interactive workshop featured speakers from the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report, Carey Institute for Global Good, UNICEF, World Learning, and the Wellbeing Project.
