By Robert Jenkins, the Global Director of Education and Adolescent Development at UNICEF.
In September 2022, world leaders and education stakeholders gathered for the Transforming Education Summit (TES) to mobilize solutions to tackle the global learning crisis. Global and national commitments were made to take urgent action to transform education systems, including prioritizing foundational learning.
The Transforming Education Summit was a key milestone for education around the world – but its impact will be determined by the concrete actions we take to follow through on our commitments to transform education. Now, more than a year after this critical moment, what progress has been made? Here are three key findings based on UNICEF’s June–July 2023 pulse survey with 94 low- and middle-income countries.
1. Many governments are taking concrete action on TES commitment areas, with varying degrees of progress.
Over 3 in 4 countries reported concrete government action on digital learning and access to inclusive, quality and safe learning opportunities. Many governments are also taking steps to advance education for children in humanitarian settings as well as foundational learning. To further monitor countries’ progress on foundational learning, UNICEF and the Hempel Foundation launched the Foundational Learning Action Tracker in 2023. It found that countries are still initiating progress on foundational learning: fewer than half of countries have a specific focus on foundational literacy and numeracy in their national curriculum, and only five per cent of countries are assessing socioemotional skills at scale.
2. Many of the countries where urgent action is needed most have reported taking concrete steps to meet their TES commitments.
For example, we find that among countries where more than half of children are in learning poverty – unable to read and understand a simple text at age 10 – about 3 in 4 countries reported concrete government action on foundational learning. In countries where over 10 per cent of primary school-aged children are out of school, about 4 in 5 countries are taking concrete government steps to advance access to inclusive, safe and quality learning opportunities.
3. Concrete actions are needed for greening education and education financing, especially among countries most affected by these challenges.
Greening education and education financing are the areas in which the fewest number of countries reported taking government action on TES commitments. Moreover, for countries where these issues are particularly relevant, not enough concrete action is being taken to address them. Among countries with high or extremely high risk of children’s exposure and vulnerability to the impacts of climate change, only a third reported concrete government action to advance greening education. Among countries failing to meet the benchmark of allocating at least 15 per cent of total government expenditure to education, just under half of countries reported government action on education financing.
These initial findings underscore how we cannot lose the momentum of the Transforming Education Summit. We need to keep education a national, regional and global priority.
Looking ahead, the African Union (AU) has adopted education as the AU theme for the year 2024. In a region with very high learning poverty rates, it is promising that most African countries in our survey reported taking concrete steps to advance TES commitments, including foundational learning. However, some issues stand out as needing intensified efforts: fewer than 2 in 5 African countries reported that the government is taking concrete action on greening education, despite the high risk of children’s exposure and vulnerability to the impacts of climate change in many African countries.
The Transforming Education Summit was an important step forward, but a true transformation of education will depend on how we turn our commitments into real action for learners, particularly the most marginalized.
Collectively, we need to ensure accountability to monitor progress and catalyze follow-up actions at national, regional and global levels. Only by doing so can we meet the goal of ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all children – no matter who they are or where they live.
