|
|
|||
|
GLOBAL EDUCATION COALITION |
|||
|
February 2021 |
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Dear
Partners,
It
has been close to a year now since the
Global Education Coalition (GEC) was
launched in response to the historic
disruption caused by the COVID-19
pandemic. Today
this disruption continues, with two-thirds
of the student population still affected
by partial or full school and university
closures. We are gradually shifting from
an emergency mode to a sustained one
focused on building education systems that
are more inclusive, innovative and
resilient to shock. This is the best
investment any country can make in a more
sustainable and prosperous future. The
GEC has been a force for innovation and
partnership as our most recent progress
report details. We are determined that it
remain so. Since our UN General Assembly
side event last 25 September, GEC members
have shared their perspectives in global
events such as World Teachers' Day, Mobile
Learning Week, the Global Education
Meeting and the International Day of
Education. Most importantly, their
responses to the COVID-19 pandemic are
becoming more integrated in ambitious
flagships and missions to support
teachers, educators and learners,
strengthen education systems and equip
youth with employability skills. Through
this monthly newsletter, we aim to share
information on your engagement and
encourage fertile exchange. You will find
a featured project each month, a section
showcasing research underway by members,
forthcoming events and a social media pack
that you are welcome to share on your
channels. We
welcome your suggestions and
contributions, and thank you for your
steadfast commitment to ensure that
#LearningNeverStops. Best
wishes, Stefania Giannini,
Assistant Director-General for Education |
|||
|
|
|||
|
Featured projects |
|||
|
|
|||
Translate
a Story in
short
|
Translate a Story
Translate
a Story: Maternal language book
translation to promote early age reading
The COVID-19
pandemic has reinforced the need for early
grade reading resources in languages that
children mostly use at home. In response,
the Norwegian Agency for Development
Cooperation (Norad), the Association for
the Development of Education in Africa
(ADEA), UNHCR, The Global Book Alliance,
Verizon, The Global Digital Library,
Pratham Books' StoryWeaver, The Asia
Foundation's Let's Read initiative,
African Storybook, Learning Equality,
Creative Commons, and UNESCO established
the Translate a Story initiative to help
organise the translation of openly
licensed high-quality early grade reading
books into national languages last year. Translation
webinars were conducted for translators,
which included 1,266 volunteers. These
volunteers joined the organisers in
translating 6,614 books into more than 100
languages to ensure children were able to
access the books they need to continue
learning. All translated books are freely
available to share with education
stakeholders. Seven countries are
participating in the pilot: Bangladesh,
Cambodia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Palestine, Tonga and Uzbekistan. Anyone who can
write in English and another language can
join this initiative, which remains
ongoing. Education ministries, teachers,
donor missions, non-governmental
organizations, technology companies,
parents and others who can reach children
with digital reading resources are in
particular encouraged to take part. To
learn more and help ensure
#LearningNeverStops regardless of a
child's mother tongue, please visit the
project website here. |
||
|
|
|||
World
Food Programme (WFP) & UNICEF
WFP
& UNICEF: Partnering with
governments to ensure adequate health
and nutrition for students upon school
reopening During COVID-19
school closures, children were not only
deprived of their education, but in some
instances -especially among the
poorest - they were also deprived of
vital nutrition and health support which
allows them to learn. Globally, about
370 million girls and boys have missed 40
percent of in-school meals, on average,
since COVID-19 restrictions shuttered
classrooms. More than 39 billion in-school
meals have been missed globally, according
to a new
report released by the UNICEF Office
of Research - Innocenti and WFP. School
meals and essential nutrition services are
not only vital in ensuring children's
nutrition, growth and development, they
also provide a strong incentive for
children to return to school once
restrictions are lifted. The longer
children are out of school, the greater
the risk that they will drop out of
education altogether. While planning the
safe re-opening of schools, leaders have
the opportunity to use this crisis
to build more inclusive, efficient, and
resilient education systems. Under
the GEC, WFP and UNICEF have scaled up
their partnership and are supporting
governments with the safe reopening of
school while making sure that the health,
food and nutritional needs of children are
met to ensure a whole generation of the
most vulnerable children are not left
behind. |
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
UNESCO
& Various GEC Partners
UNESCO
& Various Partners: Improving the
quality of distance education in
French-speaking Africa The
French-speaking African regional platform imaginecole.africa was presented
publicly on December 21, 2020. It is the
key component of a Global Partnership for
Education (GPE) project to improve the
quality of distance education in Benin,
Burkina, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea
Conakry, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Chad and
Togo. ImaginEcole
offers a large-scale experience in
distance education for 6.6 million
students and 200,000 teachers, in the ten
participating countries. It already
numbers over 600 educational resources,
ranging from high-quality educational
videos and interactive lessons to
downloadable printouts. It covers a
comprehensive emergency response for
learning both in connected and
disconnected locations. ImaginEcole will
be enriched in the coming months with
locally produced content by teams that
will have their skills improved by UNESCO
and GEC partners.
|
|||
|
Searching
for. A call for research |
|||
|
As many of you
are researching the effects and responses
to COVID-19 and its effects on Education,
we'd like to collect this information to
create a mapping that will be widely
accessible and shared centrally with all
partners. If you have, or
are in the process of, conducting such
research that we could add to the
repository, we would be delighted to know.
You may send the information to your
portfolio manager.
Initial ideas
could include some research to compile,
compare and benchmark countries'
experience and trends around the following
topics:
Depending on the
interest of partners, we can develop
differential collaborative research work. We will be in
contact in due course with further details
on accessing the mapping of research
collected. |
|||
|
Events |
|||
|
COVID-19
Response Toolkit A
COVID-19 Response Toolkit, developed
by UNESCO in partnership with McKinsey
& Company, provides COVID-19 education
response frameworks, country practices and
examples, concrete steps for intervention,
and tactical action checklists to support
governments to respond effectively and
efficiently to this unprecedented
challenge The Toolkit covers from setting
remote and hybrid learning strategies to
ensuring full return of learners,
remediation of learning losses, and
preparing for resurgence(s). Since its
launch in October 2020, the Toolkit has
been regarded as one of the key reference
documents for governments. In
January/February 2021, UNESCO organized a
series of workshops for policy-makers in
Afghanistan focusing on hybrid learning,
remediation and re-enrolment. From 11
February 2021, the Organisation of Eastern
Caribbean States (OECS) will organize a
series of three weekly workshops on
resurgence contingency planning for its
member states using the Toolkit. UNESCO
and McKinsey & Company will jointly
facilitate the sessions. SAVE
THE DATE:
Global
Skills Academy (GSA) Partners Roundtable
-
17
March UNESCO is
convening its first meeting of the GSA
Partners with a view to taking stock of
progress and sharing lessons learned since
its launch in July 2020. Its establishment
was a fast response to the growing
consequences of COVID-19 on skills
development opportunities worldwide,
particularly in the least developed
countries (LDCs). The meeting will provide
room for exploring synergies among the GSA
Partners as well as accelerate the
implementation phase. The objectives of
the meeting include:
More
information on the meeting will be
forthcoming in the March newsletter. As
of December 2020, the GSA has so far
reached around 70,000 participants, of
which 38% are women, in 23 countries. To
read more, please see the latest
progress update here. |
|||
|
Welcome
to new members |
|||
|
We would like to
extend a warm welcome to the following
members that recently joined the Global
Education Coalition. A full listing of all
Coalition members is also
available online.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Social
media pack |
|||
|
This social
media pack was
prepared to support the ongoing work of
Coalition members. We invite you to share
these social media assets on your own
platform, and to utilize the
#LearningNeverStops hashtag for posts
related to the Global Education
Coalition's activities. You are also
invited to use and share widely the
social media
materials for the Keeping
Girls in the Picture campaign (see Feature
above). |
|||
|
|
|||
|
Contact |
|||
|
|
|||