To mark this year’s International Women’s Day, UIL’s gender focal point, Samah Shalaby, highlights how her colleagues progress gender equality in their work
The UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL), located in Hamburg,
Germany, is one of UNESCO’s eight education institutes. As its name suggests,
UIL’s area of specialization is lifelong learning. Through its capacity-building
activities, knowledge sharing and dissemination of data, the Institute provides
support to UNESCO Member States in the field of lifelong learning with a focus
on learning ecosystems, skills for life and work, and inclusive learning. UIL operates
at regional, national and local levels to facilitate learning across sectors.
Through its partnerships, it works towards helping the global community achieve
the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 on inclusive, equitable and
quality education for all.
Espoo, in Finland, was one of 12 cities to receive the UNESCO Learning City Award at the second International Conference on Learning Cities in Mexico in 2015. Annica Isacsson and Annika Forstén explain what makes Espoo special
In 2015, UNESCO recognized the Finnish city
of Espoo for the outstanding progress it had made
in implementing the ‘Key Features of Learning Cities’ since the first International
Conference on Learning Cities in 2013. The Key Features describe a learning city as one that
effectively mobilizes, creates and reinforces individual empowerment and social
cohesion, and economic and cultural prosperity, in addition to sustainable
development. In fact, the United Nations has invited Espoo to become a pioneer of sustainable development by attaining the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) by 2025, five years ahead of schedule.
Espoo aims to ensure that all citizens can
fulfill their potential, succeed in the uncertain world of the future and
participate in the development of their local communities. Learning, creativity
and innovation are fostered from an early age. For example, in 2019, Tapiola
Sinfonietta, the city’s orchestra, invited all expectant parents in the city to
its regular concerts so that their children could experience the positive
influence of music while still in the womb. And Espoo’s systematic approach to
collaboration between artists and schools has been extended to early education
centres, giving all children the opportunity to interact with professional
artists and foster creative minds. Continue reading →
As we mark International Day of Education, David Atchoarena urges countries to redouble their efforts to ensure no one’s right to education is denied
Today is International
Day of Education, a moment not only to celebrate education’s
powerful contribution to sustainable human prosperity, progress and peace, but
also to assert its wider value – as a human right and as an important public
good.
It is an
opportune time to consider both what we have achieved in realizing the right to
education and how far we have to go to ensure this right is realized for every
woman, man and child, wherever they live in the world, whatever their
background or personal circumstances.
The global
challenges we face are enormous. Some 258 million children and youth still do
not attend school, four million children and youth refugees are out of school,
and 773 million adults around the world cannot read or write, most of them
women. In too many cases, disadvantaged and marginalized groups remain excluded
from participation in adult learning and education, as the new UNESCO
Global Report on Adult Learning and Education points out. Their
right to education is being denied. This is unacceptable. Continue reading →
Last week, the world marked the International
Day for the Eradication of Poverty, an opportunity to reaffirm its commitment
to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 1 – to end poverty in all its forms
everywhere – and to highlight the complex, multidimensional nature of the
challenges we face in achieving it.
Education is not a silver bullet when it comes
to ending poverty, but it has a crucial role to play, both in securing SDG 1
and in fulfilling the commitment made by Member States in signing up to the
2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: to leave no one behind.
UNESCO believes that the fight against poverty
demands the strengthening of individuals’ capacities through education, which
represents a source not only of employment but also of pride, dignity and
agency. As Audrey Azoulay, the Director General of UNESCO, observes, ‘for each
year a girl spends in the classroom, her future income will increase by 10 to
20 per cent’. Continue reading →
World
Refugee Day 2019 is an opportunity to reject the language of hate and express
our solidarity with those living in exile – it is also a chance to think about
how education can support migrants and refugees in making better lives for
themselves, writes Konstantinos Pagratis
World Refugee Day, which falls every year on 20 June, promotes awareness of the plight of refugees and reminds us of our common humanity, of the commitments we have made and of the urgent need to keep them. At UIL, it prompts us to reflect on the kinds of educational opportunities available to refugees and migrants and the best approaches we can take in helping them integrate and flourish in their host societies.
The 2018 Global Compact on Refugees and the 2019 Global Education
Monitoring Report, Building Bridges, Not Walls, highlight relevant international efforts
to integrate migrants and refugees into the formal education system. But there
has been too little action, at the local, national or international level, to
address the educational needs of migrating, displaced and hosting populations,
or to coordinate actions to ensure education supports people in entering the
world of work and participating fully in their host communities. Continue reading →
Lifelong learning has a major contribution to make to helping countries such as Greece rise to the development challenges they face. But, far too often, it is overlooked, writes Christiana Nikolitsa-Winter
In Greece, my native country, high unemployment and the ongoing financial crisis are combining with mass population movements of migrants and refugees to create huge development challenges for the country. Greece is also undergoing major demographic changes, with its ageing population reducing the number of young people entering the labour market and obliging those already in the workforce to work for longer and move between jobs more often.
These facts point to an urgent need for a much stronger investment in lifelong learning, and particularly in adult education. By supporting adult education and adopting lifelong learning as the key educational paradigm for inclusive and sustainable learning societies, nation states can build populations that are resilient, adaptable, creative and highly skilled. Yet, in far too many cases, lifelong learning and adult education continue to be neglected.
A recent report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Getting skills right: Future-ready adult learning systems, shows that Greece’s adult learning system performs poorly across several dimensions of the Priorities of Adult Learning (PAL) dashboard. The PAL dashboard indicates that my country has the weakest overall performance in terms of coverage of job-related adult learning. In addition, according to Eurostat, only a few adults re-skill through adult education courses in Greece. In 2017, less than 5 per cent of 25 to 64 years olds participated in such courses. Where these courses are offered, often they are often under-resourced and ill-equipped to address the challenges faced by these students. Continue reading →
