Education Never Stops - UNESCO's Global Education Coalition
A global crisis requires global solutions. With this intent UNESCO has created the Global Education Coalition, to rally the efforts of global intergovernmental organisations, companies and charities and tackle the main issues that this pandemic has generated. With 188 countries affected by school closures as of the end of March 2020, 89.5% of the world's student population has been affected, translating into 1.54 billon learners out of school.
Message from Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO Director-General
The Global Education Coalition will respond to countries’ specific needs, steered by the Education Ministers of UNESCO member countries, that meet regularly to share best practice and address common challenges. With a renewed on equity and gender equality, the coalition comes together to manage the present and plan for the future – when pupils return to schools once they are reopened. In the meantime, it assists in the creation of national digitised educational resource, providing digital tools and learning management solutions. At this link they have already curated a list of distance learning solutions, readily available worldwide for teachers and learners.
The United Nations, the World Health Organisation, UNICEF, Microsoft, Google and Facebook are just some of the organisations behind the endeavour. BBC News World Service has joined as a media partner, and made available projects to help isolated young people understand how the Coronavirus may affect them. This is part of the wider effort that the BBC is putting forward to create the biggest online education push in its history.
