Seize All Opportunities to Create Education Systems Needed for ‘a More Just World’, Says Deputy Secretary-General at Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland Lecture
Following are UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, on “Transforming Education to Transform Our World by 2030” at the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland Carmichael Lecture, in Dublin today:
It is a pleasure to be back in Ireland and a privilege to deliver this year’s Carmichael Lecture.
As a surgeon, an educationalist, a reformer and a philanthropist, Richard Carmichael clearly made an incredible contribution to Irish life, and it is a credit to the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland that you continue to honour his legacy through your work to advance human health both here in Ireland and overseas.
In my role as Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, it is my duty to speak about hope and opportunity even when the hard truth is that our world is in deep trouble.
On so many fronts, right now, we face tremendous challenges.
The COVID-19 pandemic is causing massive disruption, fuelled by unacceptable levels of vaccine inequity and an international financial system that is failing to support developing countries.
We are moving closer and closer to climate catastrophe as Governments and businesses drag their heels despite all of the evidence, all of the support from young people and all of the technological developments.
A world at 1.5 °C dangles by a thread.
Raging conflicts are taking a depressing toll on innocent civilians and contributing to record levels of humanitarian need. Tensions between global Powers are worryingly high, undermining the ability of multilateralism to solve our common challenges. And democracy, trust and a commitment to facts and science are all being eroded — weakening the social contract and the protection of human rights. But despite all of this, we in the United Nations hold on to hope because it is our most precious commodity.
It is often said that our job, at the United Nations, is to fight every day to close the gap between reality and aspiration. During my career in public service, there was no topic that gave me greater hope than education. Investing in girls and women’s education was at the core.
Ireland knows better than most that education has long been a driver of social and economic transformation, indeed of all human progress. Introducing an initiative to ensure access to secondary education for all in 1966, then Minister for Education Donough O’Malley noted, and I quote: “The world of today and tomorrow would give scant attention to the uneducated and those lacking any qualification. We will be judged by future generations on what we did for the children of our time.”
Education is indeed key to economic prosperity. It is one of society’s great levellers. It is a fundamental human right, and it is a prerequisite for achieving lasting peace. But education as we know it today is in turmoil.
The pandemic has exposed and exacerbated pre-existing fissures, fragilities and shortcomings in education. Shortcomings that leave education systems ill prepared to meet the demands of a world that is changing at a dizzying pace. That is why the United Nations is calling for the transformation, indeed, the rebirthing of education, and it is on this subject that I would like to share a few reflections.
Many of you are no doubt familiar with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which were adopted by world leaders in 2015. And I want to pay tribute to the crucial role that Ireland’s Ambassador to the United Nations at that time played in making this landmark agreement possible.
The greatest strength of the 2030 Agenda is that it aligns the entire world around shared goals to eradicate poverty and hunger, protect our planet and leaving no one behind.
I am often asked which is the most important Sustainable Development Goal — and to me they are all fundamental and each Goal serves as a docking station for all the others. Take Sustainable Development Goal 4, for example: the Education Goal. It is pivotal to all other Goals and calls for ensuring access for all to quality and equitable education, with lifelong learning opportunities.
The Sustainable Development Goals also recognize the full cycle of education and the importance of supporting research and the knowledge commons and have important implications for higher education.
In the first few years after the Agenda’s adoption, progress on the education goal was slow, uneven and insufficient. It was an unfinished business of the Millennium Development Goals. But since the onset of the pandemic, education systems have suffered the greatest shock in recent history.
At its peak, the education of 1.6 billion students globally was disrupted. Today, almost a quarter of the global student population remains affected by school closures. The scenario is worst in our developing nations.
On average, schools have been closed for 20 weeks, but this climbed up to 60 and even 80 weeks in some countries — more than a full school year.
School closures not only disrupted learning, they also exacerbated inequalities. Nearly 370 million children in 150 countries missed out on school meals. Close to 500 million students — three quarters of whom came from rural areas and poor households — did not have access to remote learning programmes. And in many places, girls faced additional barriers that compound the challenge, including access to digital learning and skills, the burden of care work, and the risk of early marriage and teen pregnancies.
The unequal impacts of the pandemic on education are not just a concern for the global South. Studies from Australia, the United States and indeed Ireland show that the most vulnerable pupils — such as children from poorer backgrounds, migrants or communities of colour — have experienced the steepest learning losses of all. Such major setbacks are eroding recent gains and could carry impacts across generations.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) estimates that 24 million students could drop out of the school system entirely — in addition to more than 250 million — a quarter of a billion — who were out of school before the pandemic.
A recent UNESCO-United Nations Children’s Fund-World Bank report estimates that the pandemic could cost this generation of students close to $17 trillion in lifetime earnings. And the World Bank estimates that the pandemic could see the number of 10-year-olds in the developing world who are unable to read a basic text increase from one in five to 7 in 10.
Just think about this last point for a moment. Seven out of every 10 boys and girls could be unable to read a basic text by age 10 by the end of this pandemic. Truly a global crisis. Now imagine the impacts that that will have — on the lives of those children; on prospects for their families and communities; on the future of national economies; on forced migration, and on our pursuit of social cohesion, peace and justice.
Such inequities — within and between countries — are an affront to human dignity and their persistence alone should be sufficient justification for transforming education. But the urgency for transformation also comes from other pressure points.
We know now that we are on an even tighter timeline for addressing climate change than we thought even six years ago in 2015 with the world having already warmed by 1.2 °C.
Similarly, the digital transformation of our societies is having a profound effect on the future of work and challenges raised by algorithms and artificial intelligence run deeper than anticipated.
Furthermore, the challenge of ensuring democratic participation and social cohesion is becoming more acute, with polarization and inequalities everywhere threatening our future and leaving our youth in a place of great uncertainty.
Each of these trends pose profound questions for conventional education systems. They challenge, in particular, their ability to prepare learners for the digital, green and just transitions that we are now urgently needed; and to impart on learners the values that can help advance our world towards greater peace, justice, equality and sustainability.
This was among the central findings of a report from the UNESCO International Commission on the Futures of Education on the Futures of Education last November.
That report serves as a clarion call for transforming education and provides an inspiring framework for doing so — centred on three simple propositions.
First, we must re-evaluate why we learn.
In place of a narrow focus on education for national citizenship or to support economic growth, we need education to build personal and collective capacities for transformation and growth.
This goes to the heart of strengthening the social fabric that is at the core of the social contract.
Second, re-evaluating why we learn forces us to rethink what we learn.
In too many schools, subject-area knowledge is parcelled out to students without a framework that connects it with real-world problems and the context in which learners exist. Instead, curricula and learning outcomes need to focus on ecological, intercultural and interdisciplinary learning.
This includes the knowledge and skills that are needed to support sustainable livelihoods and development, to advance gender equality, counter violence against women; and strengthen peace. Knowledge and skills to appreciate and respect cultural diversity; to counter hate speech, to decode false narratives and reject all forms of racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination that have spiralled during the pandemic.
Third, transforming education means reimagining how we learn, and we need only look to the experience of the pandemic to understand what this means.
It is abundantly clear, for instance, that education is and must remain a public, societal endeavour and that we must preserve schools as places where people come together to learn from and with others. It is clear that personal relationships between and among teachers and students are vital to learning and must be given greater value within any effective education system.
Transforming education will demand a great deal of our teachers — and they will need our support. It is also clear that schools cannot be looked at in isolation.
We say it takes a village to raise a child and the same is very much true of education — where teachers, carers, families, civil society, business, religious institutions and communities each have a role to play. And lastly, it is clear that while teaching and learning are among our most human interactions and cannot be fully automated or programmed, technology has the potential to transform the future of learning for the good.
We have seen in the health sector that when well stewarded, technology can bring incredible progress — whether in diagnostics, surgical procedures or indeed vaccine development — progress that translates into lives saved and more efficient services. I have witnessed first-hand for example the transformative impact malaria test kits have had on health and lives of people in remote areas.
I believe we are only at the beginning of the technological transformation of education and there will be many bumps along the road. But when systems are strengthened, guardrails are put in place and teachers are skilled and well supported, I believe we will see technology become a key enabler for narrow educational divides; to support reskilling; and to ensure students are prepared to navigate an increasingly digital world.
These essential steps to transform education require political support and leadership. Adequate domestic investment in education is essential as it is in health and social protection. This must be considered by Governments in terms of using resources better to prioritize basic services and human rights. And it calls, increasingly, for a more intersectoral approach and for strengthened collaboration across ministries and among Government and key stakeholders.
Additional international financing for education has a key role to play, especially in refugee, conflict and other emergency contexts.
This also applies to the day after the guns have been silenced, when reintegration requires resource flows to keep the gains of peace.
But transforming education is not just about Governments and revenues. It is also about public ownership and responsibility.
Each and every one of us must engage in our own process of reflection on what we see for the future for education. We must listen attentively to our young people who tell us time and again that the education of the past is simply not delivering for their futures. We must move beyond our comfort zones and accept that change is both necessary and urgent. Because let’s be clear, this is about more than education. This is about the future of our societies — and our ability to live harmoniously with one and other and with our planet.
Last September, the United Nations Secretary-General put education at the heart of his vision for the future in a report entitled Our Common Agenda. The report is a call for a multilateralism that delivers better for people across the world. It is a call for a new global deal that better serves the prospects for peace and prosperity of developing countries. And it is a call to renew the social contract — for greater solidarity among nations, within societies and with young people and future generations.
To this end, the United Nations will host a global summit next September to unite world leaders, all stakeholders and young people around the fundamental questions of transforming education. This will be a moment for education to take its rightful place on the global stage, at the top of the world’s agenda. The Summit aims to mobilize partners to reverse the current slide on Sustainable Development Goal 4 and to make education transformation a top political priority for the recovery and beyond.
We simply cannot allow this generation of students to experience catastrophic losses in learning and well-being. Nor can we afford to be agnostic about the why, the what and the how of education. Now is the time to shift from crisis to recovery; from conventional to transformational.
Please imagine with me a transformed education that I believe is possible within our lifetimes. Imagine classrooms around the world where the individuality and well-being of each child is prized. Lessons focus on cooperation, collaboration and solidarity, and on unlocking the potential of each child, rather than creating winners and losers.
Imagine school systems that are designed from the perspective of the most marginalized and those in the most precarious and unstable circumstances. Imagine a situation where Malala in Pakistan has access to the same learning opportunities as Niamh in Ireland or Jeff in the United States. Imagine a world where we all have access to learning opportunities throughout our lives, expanding our horizons and building an appreciation of the richness of our world.
The time is right for a massive transformation of education worldwide, that will in turn transform the world. But no single country has the knowledge or research capacity to advance this transformation. The global pandemic has taught us that.
At the United Nations, we are working daily to build diplomatic bridges to overcome our greatest challenges. And we are grateful that Ireland has been a steadfast partner for over 60 years. It continues to make a remarkable contribution on many fronts, including through its current efforts on the United Nations Security Council.
I encourage all of you to continue to support a strong national commitment to multilateralism. I urge all of you to join the preparations we will be launching next month for the Secretary-General’s Transforming Education Summit.
I encourage those among us from universities to up their commitment to teacher education; to leverage the Sustainable Development Goals as an ideal reference point for research and learning; to break down the siloes and democratize the production and sharing of knowledge; and to strengthen the nexus between research, policy and society. And I encourage each and every one of you to make yourselves, your skills and expertise available to the schools in your communities — to learners young and old — and to uphold and champion the teachers in your communities.
As I end my humble reflections, the great Kofi Annan best captured education when he said: “Education is a human right with immense power to transform. On its foundation rest the cornerstones of freedom, democracy and sustainable human development.” Let us seize all opportunities to create the education systems we all need to shape a more just and sustainable world.