Report on ‘Rewiring Education for People and Planet’
This sweeping Education Commission report discusses the critical need for the global community to transform access to education in order to meet UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030:
We are at an inflection point. We have a choice. A lost decade with more than 800 million young people left without opportunity, or a decade in which children and young people come of age well-educated, healthy, and equipped with the skills they need to navigate the complexities of an unknown future and have a full, productive, and happy life. It is a choice. A choice between the status quo or a new approach that reimagines education in a win-win partnership with the entire 2030 Agenda.
This report is a call to action to work across sectors, levels, and stakeholders to transform education together with a wider development transformation. Amid competing priorities and limited resources, we need to stop thinking in silos and recognize the powerful benefits of linking education investments to investments in other sectors to fuel a virtuous cycle of progress. Education is not just the birthright of every child; it is a powerful co-creator with efforts to reduce poverty, improve health, and develop sustainable economies and societies. This call to action builds on RewirEd 2021 – a summit convened by Dubai Cares to redefine education for a prosperous and sustainable future.
This transformation can only happen if we make a deliberate and concerted effort to stop talking about education alone. The report identifies six win-win solutions that can align action for an education transformation across sectors and stakeholders, three critical drivers that can sustain action over the long-term, and new strategies for mobilizing necessary financing. Taken together, these elements provide an actionable strategy to forge meaningful partnerships for transformative results.
The report also quotes Wendy Kopp, CEO of our education partner Teach for All:
I think we often tend to think that system change is government change, but what we’ve seen in communities is many people exerting what we would call “collective leadership.” What we see is students and teachers and school leaders and system leaders and folks around the whole ecosystem, around kids and policymakers and government – we see leadership exerted at every one of those levels and we see where things are happening the fastest, people rowing in the same direction.
I think what we haven’t done enough of in education is really intentionally invest in cultivating that leadership, and I hope that will come out of this pandemic era with a new recognition about the importance of local leadership.
In her forward for the report, our board member Liesbet Steer, president and CEO of the Education Development Center and former CEO of The Education Commission, had this to say:
The 17 Global Goals are intimately linked and their achievement profoundly interdependent. No country can deliver high-quality education where children are not able to learn because they are hungry, required to work, take care of their families, or even when schools are shut due to environmental disasters or conflict. No country can make progress toward good health and well-being without access to nutritious food, safe and inclusive schools, and clean water. No country can attain sustainable economic growth where entrenched poverty and inequalities in learning and skills undermine human capital.