October 23, 2020

Anna Murray 

UN Secretary-General António Guterres was joined with 64 ministers from 97 countries and world leaders attending the Global Education Meeting held by the UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on October 22. In the meantime, UNESCO, in partnership with Ghana, Norway, and the UK, hosted the meeting via a video conference on revitalizing global education.

In the Global Education Meeting UNESCO tried to secure global commitments in financing education during the COVID-19 recovery period and to establish consensus on priority actions for 2021. In the meeting, UN Secretary-General warned the education of students globally is suffering a generational catastrophe under the risk of COVID-19 pandemic. The Deputy UN chief Amina Mohammed observed that there have been 250 million children already out of school before the COVID-19 outbreak. The UN Deputy distressed over the estimation of 11 million girls who would never return to school.

Among governments and the international organizations, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, the Director-General of UNESCO Audrey Azoulay and Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF Omar Abdi, and other leaders together enacted in the meeting to safeguard decades of progress in education, and demanded the education of children and the youth would never be reversed amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Photo:Webshot.