Education has many links with other sectors

The High-level Political Forum (HLPF) in New York has begun – the core moment in the global follow up and review mechanism of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Five goals are on the agenda this year, including SDG 4 for the first time. This week, along with UIS, we released new projections showing how off track we are from achieving out education goal. This, we will be emphasizing this week in New York, is not just bad news for education, but also for all those working on the sustainable development agenda. If we do not achieve the education goal, the other goals will not be achieved either. This is a now-or-never moment.

Why education is key to sustainable development

Today we are launching a new six-part cartoon that highlights the links and synergies between education and many of the other sustainable development goals and calls for sectors to work together to achieve their aims.

We look at the links with those working to protect the planet, with those looking at building prosperity for all, at fostering equality between people, fighting for peace and building stronger communities in cities. We examine the importance of education for building professional capacity in other sectors, and we illustrate the importance of working together, in a multi-sectoral approach, to achieve all our goals.

The world is off track to deliver on its education commitments by 2030

By Manos Antoninis, Director of the Global Education Monitoring Report, and Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics

Without a shift from ‘business as usual’, the world will miss its goal of a quality education for all by 2030, according to our first-ever projections on progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4).

We are almost one-third of the way to 2030 and the generation that should finish secondary education by the deadline is making its way into the world’s primary classrooms. Yet if current trends continue, in 2030, when all children should be in school, one in six aged 6-17 will still be excluded. Many children are still dropping out too: by 2030, only six in ten young people will be completing secondary education. There is a real risk that the world will fail to deliver on its education promises without a rapid acceleration of progress.

Leaders at this week’s 2019 High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) – the apex mechanism for the follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – will review progress on education for the first time. The meeting could not be more timely. Education is an accelerator for all the other goals in the SDG Agenda. If we do not achieve the education goal, SDG 4, the other global goals will not be achieved either. It is time for political leaders to #Commit2Education and put an end to complacency.

Over half of G7 aid to education goes to achieving gender equality

Feeding into the theme on inequality of this year’s G7 Presidency, we have carried out a breakdown of G7 donors’ aid to education to show that 55% goes to achieving gender equality. France, which holds the G7 presidency, allocates the second highest share (76%) after Canada (92%).

This analysis was a follow on from a broader analysis of donor aid to gender equality in education from our new Gender GEM Report released today at the G7 France – UNESCO International Conference. The Report, as we showed on this morning’s blog, gives five key steps to stamping out gender inequality in education.

Five steps to stamp out gender inequality in education

The new Gender GEM Report released today at the G7 France – UNESCO International Conference shows that equal numbers of boys and girls are still not enrolled in a third of countries in primary, half in lower secondary, and three out of four in upper secondary education. You can access our key messages here.

Parents and communities need to be engaged in migrant children’s education

by Anna d’Addio, Senior Policy Analyst at the GEM Report

“We were blind, now our eyes have been opened … the educated children help us see. (Zahra, mother)” (Changezi and Biseth, 2011)

Syrian Refugees in Beka’a Valley, Lebanon.
Credit: Justine Redman

Family and community involvement is key to overcome disadvantage in education – and all the more so for migrant and refugee students. The world is full with such examples, for instance in the United States for Latin American or Vietnamese diasporas, in the Netherlands for second-generation Turks and Moroccans, in Pakistan for Hazara girls or in Canada among African and Caribbean-born immigrants.

However, there are many reasons why parents of migrant or refugee children may be reluctant to become involved in their education. One of these reasons is because segregation by origin often overlaps with socio-economic segregation. They may feel marginalized and lack confidence because they don’t speak the language of instruction or because they have a lower level of education. This can prevent parents from becoming fully involved in their children’s schooling. In France, for example, only 5% of parents of immigrant students from Sahel, Latin America and the Caribbean have a university degree compared to 19% of French parents. Moreover, more than twice as many children with Turkish or Malian parents repeat as least one grade in high school in France compared to children with French parents.

“Some refugees in my class have physical pain which doctors cannot heal” says Jenny, a teacher in a Welcome Class in Germany

I consider myself a migrant. I have lived abroad for 29 years. I now teach in “welcome classes” in Germany, which are set up to teach newly arrived students. At my school we have two welcome classes of 12 students aged 12 and 18. It varies from school to school, but a lot of schools have been obliged to have a welcome class – and at least in my school, it feels like being on an island within the school: our classes are quite isolated.

Read the new GEM Report policy paper Education as healing: Addressing the trauma of displacement through social and emotional learning

Some of my pupils are traumatized. Some pupils started telling me in the second lesson about the beatings they used to suffer in their classrooms when in Iraq or Syria. Some have experienced hunger, torture, detention. Some crossed the Mediterranean in small boats. Before coming here, they lived in camps in Greece, Italy or Spain.

In December 2016, a boy threatened to kill us all. This was on the morning of the terrorist attack in Berlin. He had been tortured when in Iraq and his anger was triggered whenever anyone spoke loudly. He said he would kill us all, starting with me. The police ended up taking him to different psychiatric services and charges were pressed against him. He insisted it had all been a joke and I begged our headmaster to let him stay. Nothing ever happened again, and he got top marks. He blossomed. I’m still in touch with him. He wants to be a mechanic.

Policy-makers need to understand much more therapy is needed – through sports, music and arts. Many children are blocked, they cannot speak, there are high levels of fear and aggression. Some miss school a lot because they are in physical or psychological pain which doctors cannot heal.

New paper: Teachers need support to better help migrant and refugee students suffering from trauma

Image: UNESCO/Seivan M.Salim

The number of migrant and refugee school-age children around the world has grown by 26% since 2000. Eight years on from the beginning of the Syrian conflict, a new paper released today and at an event in the Netherlands looks at the importance of making sure that education systems are set up to address the trauma that many of these children face before, and during their journeys to new countries. In particular, teachers need better training to provide psychosocial support to these children, including through social and emotional learning.

In Germany, about one-third of refugee children suffer from mental illness, and one-fifth suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Unaccompanied minors are particularly vulnerable. One third of 160 unaccompanied asylum seeking children in Norway from Afghanistan, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Somalia suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. Among 166 unaccompanied refugee children and adolescents in Belgium, 37-47% had ‘severe or very severe’ symptoms of anxiety, depression and PTSD.

Rates of trauma among the displaced in low and middle income countries are also high. For instance, 75% of 331 internally displaced children in camps in southern Darfur in Sudan met diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder, and 38% had depression.

“If comprehensive sexuality education can happen in Pakistan, it can happen everywhere.”

By Aisha Ijaz, Aahung, Pakistan

I work on reproductive health for an organization called Aahung in Pakistan. For over 20 years now, we have been developing and advocating around comprehensive sexuality education, or, as it is called here, Life Skills Based Education (LSBE).

In 2018, the Sindh province in Pakistan became the first to introduce LSBE content. And Balochistan is working on doing the same soon. This blog discusses the work it entailed over the past decade to get to this point in what is a conservative society. I describe the barriers we have come across along the way – some of which still remain for other provinces yet to be convinced on the issue.

Back in 1995, we were the first organization that not only worked exclusively on sexual and reproductive health in the country, but also with young people on the issue. We developed jargon round it in the local language – making sure there was accurate and appropriate terminology. We built teaching tools on LSBE, and we now work to build the capacity of teachers in schools, training them on our content.

#FaceTheFacts: It’s time to bust the myths on comprehensive sexuality education

Image: Luciana Ianiri

Comprehensive sexuality education is an essential part of a good quality education that improves sexual and reproductive health, argues Facing the Facts, our newest policy paper out today jointly with UNESCO. Released at the Women Deliver Conference during an event with Rt Hon. Helen Clark, the First Lady of Namibia and Vivian Onano, the paper explores the resistance to sexuality education in many countries and the obstacles to its implementation, seeking ways to overcome them.

Globally, each year, 15 million girls marry before the age of 18. Some 16 million girls age 15 to 19 and 1 million girls under 15 give birth. This not only spells the end of their education, but is often fatal; pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of death among young women.

Young people also account for a third of new HIV infections among adults and across 37 low- and middle-income countries, yet only approximately one third of 15 to 24 year olds have comprehensive knowledge of HIV prevention and transmission.

In the face of these facts, our new paper calls for children and young people to receive comprehensive sexuality education before they become sexually active. This helps them protect themselves from unwanted pregnancy, HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, and promotes values of tolerance, mutual respect and non-violence in relationships.

Forgotten or ignored? Education gets no mention in the draft political statement for the UN High Level Political Forum

UN Photo/Sahem Rababah

The zero draft of the political declaration of the High Level Political Forum (HLPF), taking place this year under the auspices of the General Assembly, has been released ahead of a consultation among UN Member States in New York today. But it does not once mention education.

The draft mentions empowering girls; supporting the most vulnerable people; and reaching those furthest behind first, ‘freeing humanity from the tyranny of poverty’, committing to inclusive economic growth and helping children and youth reach their full human potential. But it fails to mention the role that education can play in driving this progress and making change possible. Why?