Maldives Joins UNESCO Declaration to Protect Education from the Impact of COVID 19
Heads of State and Government, ministers from over 70 countries and international partners met online in an extraordinary Global Education Meeting convened by UNESCO, the governments of Ghana, Norway and the United Kingdom on 22 October.
The meeting adopted a Declaration expressing strong commitment to protect education financing and outlining measures to be adopted over the next year to safeguard education from the devastating impact of the disruption caused by COVID19.
The meeting brought together the Secretary-General of the UN, the presidents of Angola, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Namibia, Portugal, and Rwanda, alongside the prime ministers of Italy, Morocco, Norway and Spain, as well as the Deputy Prime Minister for Social Development of Uzbekistan, and SDG Advocate Queen Mathilde of Belgium.
Over 65 ministers of education from the five continents took the floor in the meeting to share measures to counter the impact of the pandemic on learning, along with multilateral and regional organizations, the Global Partnership for Education and the Education Above All Foundation, among others.
The endorsed Declaration defines priority actions that are essential for educational recovery in the coming 15 months:
- Taking every measure to reopen schools safely and inclusively;
- Supporting all teachers as frontline workers and paying serious heed to their training and professional development;
- Investing in skills development from the socio-emotional dimension to gaining competences for new jobs;
- Narrowing the digital divide that has shut out education for one third of the world’s students.
As part of the Global Education Meeting today, a group of global organizations called for urgent investment in education to prevent a generational catastrophe. Releasing a joint White Paper, the Save Our Future campaign—a movement of the biggest education multilaterals in partnership with over 600 civil society organizations, research organizations, foundations, media, youth and influencers—set out an evidence-based roadmap with concrete recommendations for governments to build education systems back better.