Education is every child’s number one priority; It should be ours as well
At the dawn of a new decade, we have just 10 years left to achieve the Agenda 2030. Yet millions of children around the world are not learning what they need to contribute to a more peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world. Unless we make transforming education systems our number one priority, we will be 80 years too late to achieve this goal.
In November 2019, I met a group of young South Sudanese refugees in a school on the outskirts of Kampala, Uganda. Haltingly, they told me about their experiences fleeing their homes and seeking refuge in a foreign place. When I asked them how they felt about being able to go to school again, though, their eyes brightened and out tumbled their hopes and dreams. Like millions of children and young people around the world, education is their number one priority for the future.
It would be easy to assume that education is our global priority, as well. After all, it is a country’s greatest investment in the future. Education has a ripple effect on almost every aspect of development. An educated population is healthier, more productive, more peaceful, and more capable of tackling the great challenges facing our planet, including climate change. This effect is particularly powerful when we educate girls. If every girl in the world received 12 years of education, infant mortality would be cut in half, and the global economy would rise by as much as US $30 trillion. In our interconnected world, these benefits know no borders or boundaries. Education is the cornerstone of a better future for us all.
So it’s alarming that today, 260 million children are still not in school. It’s even more alarming that millions of children who are in school are not learning. More than half the world’s children are unable to read and understand a simple story by age 10. If we continue with business as usual, half the next generation won’t have the skills they need to harness the opportunities of the 21st century. In fact, at current rates of progress, it will be 2111 – well into the 22nd century – by the time the poorest girls in the world can expect to complete 10 years of basic schooling. That’s 80 years after the deadline to meet the Sustainable Development Goals expires.
We urgently need to recognise and prioritise the global learning crisis, and mobilise the resources and political will to get education back on track. Yet education is all but invisible on the world stage. Aid spending on education has been stagnant for nearly a decade, despite a global funding gap of $39 billion. Clearly, that must change.
However, it’s not just a case of investing more money, when business as usual is not working. That’s why the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) supports governments to transform education at systems level, where the impact of change can reach all children.
We are uniquely placed to do this. As a partnership, we mobilize global expertise to identify solutions at country-level, tackle challenges holistically and reduce fragmentation. As a fund, we channel investments to where they will have a catalytic effect to improve learning – be it investing in teacher training, creating conditions for girls to get to and stay in school, distributing textbooks, or modernizing data to drive evidence-based decisions.
Our unique approach gets results. In our partner countries, 77 million more children are in school today than when we began in 2002, including 41 million girls. Our success demonstrates what we all know to be true: that only by working in partnership can we tackle the challenge ahead.
With the clock ticking for millions of children around the world, we need to stop investing in business as usual. GPE has long counted on the UK as a champion for global education, particularly for educating girls. Now more than ever, we need such leadership to make transforming education systems our number one priority for 2030. Millions of children cannot afford to wait an additional 80 years, and neither can we.
Article from Engage Issue 20.
BY ALICE ALBRIGHT CEO OF THE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP FOR EDUCATION. • June 17, 2021
This week while out and about in Hertfordshire and we visited the British Schools Museum. We discovered the first school opened by Joseph Lancaster, was known as the ‘Poor Childs Friend”, was in 1810. It was his lifelong mission that all children regardless of their circumstances, should benefit from an education. Apparently, Joseph heard a small girl say, “Oh that I could read!” and this inspired him to create a simple education system that eventually would benefit children across the world. Joseph was the tenth son of a poor man himself from South London. His aim was to offer free education for everyone. However, it would be 93 years before the U.K. government finally made education free for all. There are still many countries today where education is still not free to access and it is certainly not compulsory for primary and secondary age pupils. Joseph’s mission really resonates with that of the Foundation, to support access to education for all. We enjoyed our visit and appreciated the tour given by two of the Museum’s volunteers, Angela and Clare. They described some of the challenges faced in the early years of formal education and shared some of the rules that teachers and students had to abide by with us.
Sparks Bristol is a collaborative community project initially envisioned by The Global Goals Centre, (GGC) more of which below. A few years ago, GGC took over an empty Marks and Spencer store and that’s how Sparks was born. Sparks is a department store with a difference, co-created by Global Goals Centre and Artspace Lifespace. On the ground floor is a huge range of shops, installations, events and more. Upstairs is a hub for local artists, it offers affordable studios as well as rehearsal and performance space. The Global Goals Centre is a Bristol-based educational charity inspired by the Sustainable Development Goals. (SDGs). GGC believe the SDG’s or Global Goals as they are sometimes known, can be reached, with imaginative solutions and widespread education and engagement. They work with partners to promote creative solutions and deliver ground breaking projects that work towards these ambitious goals. The Steve Sinnott Foundation supported the Global Goals Centre with seed funding when it first started over 5 years ago. This month we went to visit them to see how they are getting on and we were taken aback by the volume of work they have achieved since they started. It is amazing to see how though working together with other local community groups it has grown into the vibrant centre it is today. All of the creative projects they host are linked to the SDGs. They cover topics that tackle poverty, education, climate change, fashion recycling and upcycling, to name a few.
Spring is definitely here, daffodils, blossom and crocuses are all basking in the bright sunshine. There is still a chill in the air in the shade but it's happening and all the seeds that were sown over the last few months are coming to fruition. At the Foundation, we have been planning the year ahead and our Positive Periods and Prevention of Gender Based Violence programmes got underway this weekend in Haiti and Ghana. These projects will have a long-lasting effect on the lives of the women and girls who take part: tackling the root causes of gender-based violence and enabling girls to attend school every day when they have their period, to feel safe at school and know how to take action when they are faced with violence. These are the first of many projects planned for the year ahead as we continue to work towards Education for All children everywhere.
