The UN Transforming Education Summit was being convened in response to a global crisis in education – one of equity and inclusion, quality and relevance. Often slow and unseen, this crisis is having a devastating impact on the futures of children and youth worldwide. The Summit deals with a crisis in education that has seen some 147 million students missing over half of their in-person instruction, since 2020. In 2021, 244 million children and young people were out of school. The pandemic has harmed the learning of more than 90% of the world’s children – the largest disruption in history – with half of all countries cutting their education budgets, further deepening the crisis.
The Summit provides a unique opportunity to elevate education to the top of the global political agenda and to mobilize action, ambition, solidarity and solutions to recover pandemic-related learning losses and sow the seeds to transform education in a rapidly changing world.
One of its outcomes is the Youth Declaration. The Youth Declaration is presented as young people’s inputs to the Transforming Education Summit Chair Summary/Secretary-General’s Vision Statement. Its aim is to drive political commitment on the need to transform education and build young people’s ownership over this process.
About Didier Jourdan
