The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, in partnership with the Governments of Ghana, Norway and the United Kingdom, are convening a virtual Global Education Meeting on 20 and 22 October.
As announced on UNESCO’s website, the meeting aims to secure commitments from leaders for the protection of education financing during the COVID-19 recovery, and produce consensus on priority actions for the next year.
UNESCO noted that, “the COVID-19 pandemic has created the most severe disruption to global education systems in history, forcing more than 1.6 billion learners out of school at the height of the crisis.
“It has exacerbated pre-existing inequalities and impacted vulnerable learners the hardest. The pandemic threatens to reverse decades of progress in education.
“The economic downturn will put increasing pressure on national education budgets and aid to education at a time when higher funding is required for the sector to recover.
“According to projections, even if the budget share allocated to education remains stable, overall public spending could drop by 8% and aid to education could fall by 12%.
The global education meeting “will provide a unique platform for exchange among high-level political leaders, ministers, policy-makers, multilateral organizations, development partners and global education actors to protect and rethink education in the current and post-COVID-19 world.”