The main dynamics active in the 2022 UN Transforming Education Summit

This year’s UN Transforming Education Summit was, in the words of Amina Mohamed, the UN Deputy Secretary General, a once in a century event as it brought together heads of states, major actors in education – both governmental and non-governmental, and youth representatives. The Summit structure marked the UN’s intention to involve youth more actively in the policy-making process as the future outcomes of any policy decided in the present, mainly concern them. The event was spread over three days, beginning with youth-led Mobilisation Day, moving on to Solution Day, orchestrated by major actors in education, and concluding with Leadership Day, involving heads of state.

In his Mobilisation Day address, Secretary General Antonio Guterres highlighted further the beginning of the transition marked by this Summit by outlining the four stages in the relationship between policy makers and youth. In the first stage policy is imposed on youth, who are otherwise ignored. In the second stage youth are addressed through instruments of propaganda with their potential as social drivers recognised and exploited. The third stage sees youth in a counselling role, where they contribute their opinion but are not directly involved. The fourth stage, in which we presently find ourselves, is the stage of responsibility entailing direct involvement of young people in policy making. DG Guterres further stressed

• The need for cooperation instead of competition in Education
• The need for an educational model that heals cleavages instead of exacerbating or preserving inequalities (e.g. the private and state divide)
• The need to resolve issues of access to education in order to effectively address issues of quality
• The need to do better in achieving agreed targets

In wrapping up his address, it could be argued that DG Guterres passed the responsibility-for-the-future torch to the youth a bit too readily, failing perhaps to acknowledge more explicitly that both the material resources as well as certain skills required to implement – even draft – any plan of transformation, are not in the hands of young people but remain in the hands of those responsible for the current “dystopic” reality. This was balanced and redressed in David Archer’s closing remarks on Solutions Day. Representing the Global Campaign for Education and Action Aid, Mr. Archer coordinated thematic action track 5, concerning the funding of education. He stated clearly that without successful funding none of the solutions proposed for the other four tracks could be implemented.

The keynote of Mobilisation Day was the widespread consensus on the need to involve younger people actively in reshaping education. However, the perspective of the significant number of youth present at the Summit on how that would come to be, differed from that of the more mature participants, no matter how aligned the two groups seemed in their intentions. Younger people consistently spoke of getting actively engaged in the process of transforming Education, which for them meant the creation of a new system. More established actors consistently spoke of the need to integrate the voice of the youth into the current system, through existing processes. Although this may seem minor, it’s representative of a major challenge facing our society globally. Those actively involved with an established system find it difficult to accept its failure and may not perceive the end of its usefulness and the need for a major overhaul that will result in a new system. The difficulty to acknowledge the system’s faults and inadequacies in time, is usually accompanied by a campaign to reinvigorate the system by absorbing youth potential to patch up existing problems.  

Still, regardless of how subject to global psychological trends the participants of the Summit may have been, they did an excellent job in showcasing the main problems in Education, on the first day. More importantly, on the second day they presented brilliant solutions that could eradicate these issues over the next century, provided people decide to back governments that choose to make a major commitment to education, investing the required funds and human resources.

Two issues that all youth representatives referred to in their addresses, and so heard time and again throughout the first day, were climate and inclusiveness beyond gender, race, geography, creed, income, etc. Extreme weather events were classed as major crises, alongside other major disruptive events such as war or health crises, currently undermining the education of 40 million children.

On Solutions Day, the three foci stressed beyond all others were: the need to invest in people more than anything – with Japan strongly advocating this point; the viewing of funds channelled into education as investment rather than expenditure, with Finland presenting a living example of the beneficial outcomes of this approach; and the advantages of digital resources which, once created,  can be used again and again and be freely distributed from the richer to the poorer countries, a point emphasised mainly by Greece.

In all, one of the most encouraging aspects of the Summit was the widespread recognition of the need to rethink the purpose of Education in order to effectively transform it. This was acknowledged in different ways in the first words of all addresses. Another positive sign of the Summit was that the solutions put forth addressed all the issues raised by the general public and several that they have not grasped yet. And it was encouraging to note that all the participants had a more or less holistic view of the social – political – economic aspects involved in the implementation of long-term, transformative solutions.

Finally, for the first time an International Financing Facility for Education was established to – as was said in the Summit – channel funds for education from richer to poorer countries. It was co-developed with the British, Swedish, and Dutch governments, as well as the Asian and African Development Bank.

Please find a summary of the UN Transforming Education Summit outcomes here.
Read on  2022 UN Transforming Education Summit - Solutions Day Events here.
Read on The Tranformative Power of Education here.
Read further on Education in the New Age here.