Transformation of Education Key to Achieving Sustainable Development, Prerequisite in Preparing for Uncertain Future, Deputy Secretary-General Tells Member States
Following are UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed’s remarks at the Members States briefing on the Transforming Education Summit, in New York today:
Thank you for this opportunity to brief you on the follow-up to the Transforming Education Summit. Today’s meeting allows us to reflect on the Summit’s main outcomes and, perhaps even more importantly, to discuss the next steps.
In February of this year, we held our first Member State briefing on the Transforming Education Summit, in the context of the Secretary-General’s proposals in Our Common Agenda. Since then, we have travelled a long way together.
We clarified the Summit’s scope and objectives. We conducted national and regional consultations, thematic action tracks and a series of public engagements. We held a pre-summit in Paris with more than 150 ministers of education. We developed the Secretary-General’s vision statement for transforming education. And we organized the largest global convening on education in recent decades.
More than 2,000 people attended in person; with tens of thousands more following online. Millions were reached through press and media engagements around the Summit.
Through all of this, I believe the Summit succeeded in its overarching objective: to elevate the global crisis in education on both national and international agendas.
This can be seen in the Summit’s five key outcomes. Allow me to take a moment to touch on the next steps envisaged in each of these.
The first and most formal Summit Outcome is the Secretary-General’s Vision Statement on Transforming Education.
This document provides the Secretary-General’s perspective on the deep and fundamental change needed to transform education — drawing from the inputs received during the Summit process. It calls for a revisiting of the purposes and, in turn, curricula of education. And it urges specific actions in four key areas: transforming the learning environment; reimagining the teaching profession; leveraging the digital revolution and rethinking education financing.
In the view of the Secretary-General, the transformation of education is both key to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and a prerequisite for preparing for an uncertain future. As such, education must move to centre stage.
The Secretary-General’s Vision Statement serves both to support countries seeking to transform education systems and to support delegations as they prepare the intergovernmental outcome of the Summit of the Future.
We look forward to exploring ways to address the future of learning in the Pact for the Future, during the next phase of the Summit’s preparations.
A second major outcome from the Summit is the 133 national statements of commitment submitted by Member States.
We are very grateful to all countries who submitted their contributions building on national consultations. We commend also those countries that addressed the Summit at the level of Head of State and Government. These contributions provide us with a new baseline for country action in the years to come.
It is essential that Member States integrate these commitments into existing national education plans and governance arrangements. This will be a priority for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)-convened SDG4 [Sustainable Development Goal 4] High-level Steering Committee, which will provide guidance to countries, support broader monitoring and accountability, and mobilize regional support for national action.
As we heard from United Nations resident coordinators attending the global resident coordinators meeting this week, United Nations country teams, in particular the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and UNESCO, will step up their support to countries in the next phase, including by adjusting United Nations Cooperation Frameworks where necessary.
A third outcome from the Summit was the emergence of a number of new initiatives anchored in the Summit’s Action Tracks.
These initiatives address foundational learning, education in crisis settings; greening education, girls’ education and public digital learning resources. While each initiative is unique, all seek to mobilize political, financial or technical support for national action in these key areas. This is central to moving forward with Government plans for transforming education.
These initiatives will be taken forward by different groups of actors from government, the United Nations and beyond. And they will report to the High-Level Steering Committee to ensure effective oversight, coherence and monitoring of progress.
The Summit also saw the emergence of a new push in the area of teaching, given both the chronic shortage of qualified teachers worldwide and the need for a revolution in the role and capacities of teachers in a transformed education system. Yet advancing concrete progress in this area is extremely difficult and there is a significant diversity of views around what works and what doesn’t. We therefore welcome the proposed establishment of a Global Commission on the Teaching Profession and are working with UNESCO, International Labour Organization (ILO) and partners to determine how best to move this forward.
A fourth outcome from the Summit relates to financing.
The Summit saw the launch of a call to action, which set out a new paradigm for education financing and called for a series of actions to invest more, more equitably and more effectively in education.
The Summit also saw the establishment of the International Financing Facility for Education, thanks in no small part to the advocacy and commitment of Gordon Brown.
Moving forward, it is essential that work continues to make the case for greater investment in education both domestically and internationally.
We must also ensure that education is brought more centrally into the broader push for investment in the Sustainable Development Goals, including in the context of the need for greater fiscal space, debt relief and financial support for developing countries through the work of the G20, the Sustainable Development Goal Summit and Summit of the Future.
Fifth and finally, the Summit generated the green shoots of a new movement for education transformation.
Young people were in the forefront of the Summit process, actively engaging in Summit Action Tracks and national consultations and developing their own Declaration on Transforming Education.
Youth will remain in the driving seat of this global movement, and a youth initiative aimed at supporting young people to more proactively engage in domestic policymaking processes is currently being discussed. But for education to become a top priority everywhere, we must continue to deepen and broaden the public support base. As such, UNESCO will work with other partners to unite civil society groups, teachers, academia, the private sector, media and more behind education transformation.
Here, we also look forward to the contribution of the five champion countries that emerged from the Summit. They can play a key role in keeping education high on the political agenda of world leaders going forward.
Together, over the past eight months we have succeeded in significantly lifting the profile of education and we have laid a foundation for a surge of action in this area. I thank all Member States who engaged in and supported this process. I commend in particular those who took up roles within the Summit Advisory Committee, as co-leads of Summit Action Tracks, and as Chairs of Summit Leaders Round Tables. I thank also the Special Adviser, the Summit team in UNESCO and United Nations entities and partners for their contributions.
Looking ahead, we will work to maintain the strong bonds between New York and Paris that were so critical to this process. We also look forward to continued engagement with Member States. I thank you for your attention and look forward to hearing your feedback on the Summit and your perspectives on the follow-up process.