E-learning Divide Places World’s Disadvantaged Children at Risk of Dropping Out

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a new layer of challenges to inclusive education. As many as 40 percent of low and lower-middle income countries having not supported disadvantaged learners during temporary school shutdowns, finds United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s 2020 Global Education Monitoring Report  released today, Jun. 23.

The Foundation to Build Back Better: Education

To realize the concept of ‘build back better,’ we need a foundation. That foundation is education. This is an incontestable truth.

Education Cannot Wait Interviews Amina J. Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-general of the United Nations

Ms. Amina J. Mohammed is the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations and Chair of the United Nations Sustainable Development Group. Prior to her appointment, Ms. Mohammed served as Minister of Environment of the Federal Republic of Nigeria where she steered the country’s efforts on climate action and efforts to protect the natural environment. Ms. Mohammed first joined the United Nations in 2012 as Special Adviser to former Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon with the responsibility for post-2015 development planning. She led the process that resulted in global agreement around the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the creation of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Meritocracy Legitimizes, Deepens Inequality

How often have you heard someone lamenting or even condemning inequality in society, concluding with an appeal to meritocracy? We like to think that if only the deserving, the smart ones, those we deem competent or capable, often meaning the ones who are more like us, were in charge, things would be better, or just fine.

Racism and Dominance

The #MeToo movement triggered worldwide protests that hopefully was instrumental in making people better aware of a continuous and often hidden mistreatment of women. Maybe can the current I can’t breathe movement make people realize that institutional racism is far from extinct.

Economic Ghosts Block Post-Lockdown Recovery

As governments the world over struggle to revive their economies after the debilitating lockdowns they imposed following their failure to undertake adequate precautionary containment measures to curb Covid-19 contagion, neoliberal naysayers are already warning against needed deficit financing for relief and recovery.

Shedding Some Light at the End of the Covid-19 Tunnel: Plotting a Way Forward

Lockdowns have been the main measures to ‘flatten the curve’ of COVID-19 infections. But lockdowns typically incur huge economic costs, distributed unevenly in economies and societies. In fact, some governments acknowledged that they were choosing ‘life over economy’. ‘Life vs. Economy’: A false dichotomy As lockdowns have been repeatedly extended arguing that economy can be revived but not the dead, it has become increasingly clear that ‘lives and livelihoods’ are intrinsically intertwined. The longer the lockdowns, higher is the risk of hunger and hence death.

COVID-19: Reset Food Systems Now for a Better Future

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the inherent fragility of food systems, Marta Antonelli told an international video conference organised by the Barilla Center for Food Nutrition (BCFN).

No Woman Should Ever Die Giving Life

Consider this. 24 women, children and babies were murdered at a hospital in Kabul, the Afghan capital. Even by standards of a country as accustomed to bloodshed as Afghanistan, the May 12 attack on a Kabul maternity clinic was an event of unmitigated horror.

Women are Often an After-Thought in a Humanitarian Crisis

In an interview*, Bina Pradhan, an independent researcher, focuses on gender, macroeconomics and emerging issues of inequality. She is affiliated with the Federation of Business and Professional Women, Nepal (FBPWN), and has been working on the promotion and advancement of women in enterprise development and trade, post-earthquake community reconstruction, and rebuilding people’s lives and livelihoods with a focus on sustainability.

Education Post-COVID-19: Customised Blended Learning is Urgently Needed

Many well meaning education benefactors and commentators in South Africa have expressed that in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic online self-guided learning could solve some of the current teaching problems and address the educational backlog. What learners need, the reasoning goes, is to get free internet access to educational support materials on offer online. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Forgotten Children

Children residing in Child Care Institutions (CCIs, commonly known as orphanages) in India have often found themselves to be the forgotten lot, when it comes to support and development initiatives by the government. This has also been the case during the current lockdown.

The Government of Kenya and UN commit to expanding education, training and employment opportunities for young people, on an unprecedented scale

Hon. Joseph Mucheru, Cabinet Secretary for ICT, Innovation and Youth, (CS) and Kenya’s representative in the Generation Unlimited (GenU) Global Board convened today the UN Kenya Country team to identify opportunities on how to swiftly expand education, training and employment opportunities for young people, on an unprecedented scale.

We Cannot Let the Education Gap Widen at the Start of the Decade of Action

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, we estimated that 75 million children and youth - of whom 39 million are girls - were not able to access a quality education in countries impacted by armed conflicts, forced displacement, natural disasters and climate change-induced emergencies. The impact of COVID-19 has both globally and exponentially deepened the already existing critical education crisis.

UNESCO and Education Cannot Wait provide the Ministry of Education and Higher Education with online learning material for teachers and students

(UNESCO/Ministry of Education and Higher Education/ECW) - The COVID-19 pandemic has translated into a major education crisis. In Lebanon, 1.2 million children are affected by school closures and have seen their learning routines disrupted. While Lebanon has switched to distance teaching and learning to mitigate the effects of this disruption, challenges related to preparedness, infrastructure and capacity, as well as the digital gaps, have put additional strains on students, parents, teachers, and the educational authorities.

COVID-19: Why We Must Reset Our Thinking

Covid-19 is the most significant event since the Second World War. It changes everything. It brings great sadness to many of us as we lose loved ones, as we see people losing their jobs, and as we see people around the world suffering immensely.

Women Taking Charge during COVID-19

As the COVID-19 mayhem carries on in most countries, the role of mothers, daughters, and female caregivers have been affected the most. Besides looking after the household and home schooling children, they are also working on the front lines, actively or passively caring for their respective communities.

COVID-19: The Digital Divide Grows Wider Amid Global Lockdown

The digital divide has become more pronounced than ever amid the global coronavirus lockdown, but experts are concerned that in the current circumstances this divide, where over 46 percent of the world's population remain without technology or internet access, could grow wider -- particularly among women.  

Time for the World Bank and IMF to Be the Solution, Not the Problem

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have a historic opportunity to help stabilize a world reeling from COVID-19. Doing so will require the institutions to change course and aggressively support poor countries’ ability to invest broadly in the government services their populations need.

The Power of Education in Emergencies: Interview with Denmark’s Minister of Development Cooperation Rasmus Prehn

Denmark is Education Cannot Wait’s (ECW) third largest donor, with US$79.1 million in contributions to date. In this insightful interview with Denmark’s Minister for Development Cooperation, Rasmus Prehn, we explore the importance of girls’ education and gender equality, the humanitarian-development nexus, expanded engagement with the private sector, education in emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic and more. A former high school teacher, with a master’s degree in social science, Minister Prehn has been a member of Danish Parliament since 2005, and was named Minister for Development Cooperation on June 27, 2019. Minister Prehn is the former chairman of the Danish Research, Education and Further Education Committee, a tireless advocate for education in emergencies, and a true champion for achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, especially SDG4: inclusive and equitable, quality education for all.

The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Reinvention of the Spirit of Solidarity and Cooperation

An invisible adversary has thrown the world – Global South and Global North alike – into disarray. The psychosocial and economic consequences of the COVID-19 crisis will remain with us long after it has been overcome. There will be no anti-viral return to the pre-coronavirus status quo, nor can we afford to idly wait for a viral transformation of our world. The future is not inevitable, abstract promise – it will depend on our collective readiness to forge it, or to be forged by it.