Education

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Ma. Dolores Gallegos Ávila: Climate change education matters: what’s the point of denying what is evident?

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By Ma. Dolores Gallegos Ávila, ASFG Spanish teacher and MS Curriculum Specialist, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico 

According to the 6th National Communication in 2018, efforts in Mexico to promote education and public awareness of climate change are based on the international legal framework and the national education policy. This blog post shows what my school is doing to realize this imperative.

What is the point of denying what is evident? Both the extreme heat with the severe droughts and forest fires that affect crops and livestock in the dry season as well as the low temperatures with cold fronts and icy waves in autumn and winter, are challenging meteorological phenomena. Even floods or the devastating hurricane Otis in Acapulco in October 2023, which left chaos and pain, are symptoms of something bigger calling for our attention. The imperative for us teachers is to promote a high-quality climate change education that includes learning to be (socio-emotional), to know (cognitive), to do (action-oriented), and to live together (justice-focused). This will empower students with knowledge, skills, values, habits and tools that help them be more resilient, responsive and compassionate, so they can see the future with hope.

 

As part of the American School Foundation of Guadalajara in Mexico and as grade 8 Spanish teacher and Spanish curriculum specialist in lower secondary school, I am constantly looking for relevant topics to link climate issues into what I teach in order to create meaningful experiences for students.

I decided to try something new, linking the grade 8 Mexican Spanish curriculum and climate change. From December to January this year, 71 students in my class worked on a political cartoons project. The goal was to create an awareness campaign about climate change, transforming some recent local, national or world news, chosen by them, into political cartoons. The challenge was to select them after consulting different sources, analysing the information to get more width and depth and find a connection between their topic and climate change. They had to define their standpoint, look for a better and creative way to visually synthesise what they wanted to communicate, which had to be humorous. They also had to use at least one of six cartoon rhetorical figures that we saw in class. They knew from the very beginning that they were contributing to an awareness campaign about climate change and that, at the end of the project, they were going to visit other classes to generate dialogue and inspire new actions. 





 

Just as the GEM Report and the MECCE project are collecting data worldwide on the extent of green coverage in education content in curricula and syllabi, my school is currently assessing internally who is embedding what about climate change into the curriculum and how.

In early childhood, we found that efforts tend to work on sensitizing young students to experience love and connection to nature through observing, listening, planting, harvesting or exploring. In primary school, students learn how things are happening, without creating panic, they learn to love nature (‘a ha’ experiences) and about the fact that all our actions have impacts. In lower secondary school, they learn more science, how and why things happen and try to find innovative solutions. In upper secondary school, students are confronted with ethical choices linked to reality: to me and the collective.

As an adult, it is time to bring all these abilities together to stand for climate smart actions. Examples of this are the school garden promoting outdoor activities or the Green Committee consolidating events like the Earth Day celebration. This opens new options to be more conscious about why it is so important to implement sustainability education in our school.

The most significant aspect of this emergent movement is the dynamic generated by the collaboration among all parts of the community: teachers, students, parents, administrators, staff and external institutions. It is like a web that is constantly interweaving and increasing its sphere of influence, depending on the thoughts, feelings, intentions and decisions of people in all levels, focused on common goals. Each time that we find new connections, we become more aware of our role to actively generate positive change. Every colleague who is creating innovative learning situations in class using different approaches or cross-cutting topics (critical thinking, systems thinking, sustainable habits of mind, Sustainable Development Goals, climate change, social and emotional learning, science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics etc.) is contributing to modifying limiting mental models in our society and reshaping the future.

It is our collective responsibility getting schools ready to tackle climate change without delay!

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El último velocista usa el escenario olímpico como el «La voz de las niñas afganas»

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Por:  Antonio Rosique

Para tener una thought de la carrera actual la única mujer de Afganistán En los Juegos Olímpicos de Atletismo, sólo había que mirar la parte trasera de su dorsal.

En él, escrito a mano, estaban las palabras escritas así: “Educción” y “Nuestros Derechos”.

Mujeres y niñas en Afganistán han sufrido enormemente desde que el país natal de Kimia Yousofi fue tomado por el Talibán en agosto de 2021. Un informe de las Naciones Unidas del año pasado dijo que el país se ha convertido en el más represivo del mundo para las mujeres y las niñas, quienes se ven privadas de prácticamente todos sus derechos básicos.

Atletismo en los Juegos Olímpicos de París
Kimia Yousofi, de Afganistán, hace una declaración política después de una eliminatoria en la carrera femenina de 100 metros en los Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 2024, el viernes 2 de agosto de 2024, en Saint-Denis, Francia. Martin Meissner / AP

“Creo que siento una responsabilidad por las chicas afganas porque no pueden hablar”, dijo Yousofi el viernes después de terminar última en su serie preliminar de 100 metros.

Su dash de 13,42 segundos por la pista no fue el objetivo principal de este viaje. La historia de Yousofi es una ilustración vigorizante de cómo estos viajes a la Juegos Olímpicos No siempre se trata de ganar o perder.

“No soy una persona política, sólo hago lo que creo que es verdad”, dijo Yousofi. “Puedo hablar con los medios de comunicación. Puedo ser la voz de las niñas afganas. Puedo decirle a la gente lo que quiere: derechos básicos, educación y deportes”.

Antes de que ella naciera, los padres de Yousofi huyeron de Afganistán durante el anterior régimen talibán. Ella y sus tres hermanos nacieron y crecieron en el vecino Irán.

En 2012, cuando tenía 16 años, Yousofi participó en una búsqueda de talentos para niñas inmigrantes afganas que vivían en Irán. Más tarde regresó a Afganistán para entrenarse con el objetivo de tener la oportunidad de representar al país en los Juegos Olímpicos de 2016. Estos son sus terceros Juegos.

Pero después de los talibanes tomó posesión de su país nuevamente en la época en que comenzaron los Juegos de Tokio, se mudó a Australia con la ayuda de las autoridades de ese país y del Comité Olímpico Internacional. Ha estado viviendo en Sydney, tratando de mejorar su inglés. Cuando regrese, comenzará a buscar trabajo.

Si hubiera buscado uno, casi con certeza se habría ganado un lugar en el Equipo olímpico de refugiados que está diseñado para deportistas desplazados como ella.

Pero ella quería representar a su país, con sus defectos y todo, con la esperanza de que este viaje a los Juegos Olímpicos ayudara a arrojar luz sobre el modo en que se trata a las mujeres allí.

“Esta es mi bandera, este es mi país”, dijo. “Esta es mi tierra”.

El pasado 8 de junio se cumplieron 1.000 días desde que los talibanes prohibieron a las niñas mayores de 12 años asistir a todas las escuelas de Afganistán. Sin embargo, a pesar de los riesgos, muchas niñas afganas han se negó a perder la esperanza y han recurrido a escuelas no oficiales, ocultas a los ojos de los talibanes, para seguir recibiendo educación.

Pero aunque algunas mujeres jóvenes están encontrando formas de evadir la represión talibán, se espera ampliamente que Afganistán siga viendo a muchas de sus mujeres educadas y profesionales huir a países con más oportunidades.

“Afganistán nunca se recuperará del todo de estos 1.000 días”, afirmó en un comunicado en junio la directora adjunta de derechos de la mujer de Human Rights Watch, Heather Barr. “El potencial perdido en este tiempo –los artistas, médicos, poetas e ingenieros que nunca podrán prestar sus habilidades a su país– no se puede reemplazar. Cada día adicional, mueren más sueños”.

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New UIS data show that the share of women in STEM graduates stagnant for 10 years

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By Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics.

Globally, women make up over half of all students who have enrolled in tertiary education, but they remain considerably less likely to choose STEM fields. In 2018–23, new UIS data released for the 2024 GEM Gender Report show that women made up only 35% of STEM graduates, showing no progress over the past ten years.

The data show us that, in 12 out of 122 countries, at most one in four graduates were female. Of those, 5 were in sub-Saharan Africa, but there were also high-income countries, such as Chile and Switzerland. In European and other high-income countries, the share of women in STEM fields of study drops heavily at the end of secondary school. In OECD countries, women make up only 31% of those entering STEM programmes, compared with over 75% in education, health and welfare (OECD, 2024). The proportion of female STEM graduates exceeds 40% in Greece, Iceland and Poland. At the opposite end, there were 9 countries where the majority of STEM graduates were female, notably Arab States, such as the Syrian Arab Republic and Tunisia. High shares of female STEM graduates in Arab countries coincide with lower mathematics anxiety.

For a subset of 50 countries with data for 2010–11 and 2020–21, there has been no change in the share of STEM graduates who are female. There are some notable examples of stagnation, such as Chile where the share has remained constant at 20%. The three countries with the largest fall in the share in this 10-year period were already well above average. The country with the largest fall among those with an initial position below average was Hungary (by five percentage points to 29%). At the opposite end, the three countries with the largest increase were North Macedonia (from 40% to 50%), the Netherlands (from just 21% to 31%) and Morocco (from 39% to 49%)

Bundling all STEM subjects together hides some variation. In 2016–18, women represented 28% of engineering, manufacturing and construction tertiary graduates and 30% of ICT tertiary graduates, but 57% of natural sciences, mathematics and statistics graduates (ranging from less than 20% in Bangladesh, Burkina Faso and Burundi to more than 80% in Bahrain, Maldives and the United Arab Emirates). In Saudi Arabia, 70% of students completing a degree in natural sciences, mathematics and statistics were women in 2019, compared to only 4% in engineering, manufacturing and construction. In Latin America and the Caribbean, women represented at most 40% of the STEM graduates but made up only 31% in engineering, manufacturing and construction and 18% in ICT.

As young women are more likely to graduate from university in the majority of countries, however, the share of females in the total number of STEM graduates is slightly misleading. A closer look at the shares of females and males who are STEM graduates shows that the gender gap in tertiary field choices is starker. Only 15% of young women end up being STEM graduates, compared to 35% of young men. Countries with very large absolute gaps in excess of 30 percentage points include Finland, Germany and Sweden. Countries with very large relative gaps include Belgium, Latvia and Spain. In contrast, Mauritania, Samoa and the United Republic of Tanzania are among the few countries with no gap.

The gender gaps in those studying STEM degrees translate into gender gaps in those pursuing STEM careers, as the 2024 GEM Gender Report, Technology on her terms, describes. It shows that women held less than 25% of science, engineering and ICT jobs in 2022. It has also been estimated that women occupy just over one in five technology positions in companies. Similar disparities are found among STEM teachers. The 2018 Teaching and Learning International Survey results showed that 31% of lower secondary school male teachers teach STEM subjects compared to 25% of female teachers. Large gender gaps were observed in Denmark (14 percentage points), Brazil (10 percentage points) and Slovenia (8 percentage points).

The 2024 GEM Gender report recommends that female leadership in artificial intelligence and technology development be promoted in order to assure gender-sensitive digital transformation and address gender stereotypes in algorithms.  This includes investing in programmes that can empower girls and young women to study in STEM fields and to pursue STEM careers in order to encourage non-discrimination and gender balance in technological design.

 

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What does recent evidence from data and policies say about inclusion in education?

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This week is the 30th anniversary of the Salamanca Declaration, a seminal moment in global education policy that defined the concept of inclusive education. Four years ago, the 2020 GEM Report, All means all, focused on inclusion, at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic was amplifying many of the factors that lead to exclusion in education. This blog looks at some recent quantitative and qualitative trends since our major publication on the issue.

Exclusion is rife for millions

Out of school rates had been declining but at a slow pace but in 2022 the out-of-school population increased for the first time, reaching 250 million. The number out of school has barely changed in sub-Saharan Africa since 1990.  And such numbers are likely to be underestimated, as data are difficult to capture in areas of the world affected by crises, such as Sudan, Palestine, South Sudan, Burkina Faso and Myanmar.

Identity, background and ability continue to dictate education opportunities. The new Her Education Our Future Factsheet showed that, while the world has achieved gender parity in primary and secondary education gross enrolment ratios on average, extreme gender exclusion exists in some corners of the world: 80% of school-aged Afghan females were out of school.

Disadvantages can stack up to exacerbate exclusion, as the WIDE database shows. Girls’ disadvantage is exacerbated due to location, for instance. In Mozambique, there are 73 young women in school for every 100 young men. But while there is gender parity in urban areas, there are 53 young women in school for every 100 young men in rural areas.  Disparity is even more exacerbated in terms of wealth. In Côte d’Ivoire, there are 72 young women in school – but only 22 poor young women – for every 100 young men.  New WIDE data based on the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys shows that children with a disability are 7 percentage points less likely than children without functional difficulties to complete primary school.

Data from the 2021 PIRLS reading assessment show that in upper-middle- and high-income countries, children who speak at home the language they are taught in school are 14% more likely to read with understanding than those who do not at the end of primary. At the end of lower secondary, data from the 2022 PISA show that adolescents speaking the language of instruction at home were over 40% more likely to be able to read with understanding compared to those who did not. In 2023, Slovakia’s parliament failed to adopt an amendment to the School Act, which would take steps to address discrimination against Roma children.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) learners have seen walls rise up in education settings in the United States, where 7 states have introduced ‘don’t say gay’ laws for curricula since our 2020 Report was released. There have been protests against LGBTQ curriculum content in Canada.

During COVD-19 at least half a billion students worldwide (31%) could not be reached by any form of remote learning, rising to 72% of the poorest.

But there are signs of improvement

In the face of these worrying signs, many countries continue to demonstrate commitment to the ‘all means all’ approach outlined in the 2020 GE Report.  Since the release of the 2020 GEM Report, 8 more countries have ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, bringing the total to 164 signatories. Another 36 additional countries have now legally recognized national sign languages since 2020.

The radical inclusion policy in Sierra Leone, is one example, as is the first ever strategy on inclusive and special education introduced in Austria in 2021 and the new guidelines on equitable and inclusive education in line with the New Education Policy in India in 2020. The state of New South Wales in Australia developed an Inclusive Education Policy, which declares that “all students, regardless of disability, ethnicity, socio-economic status, nationality, language, gender, sexual orientation or faith, can access and fully participate in learning, alongside their similar aged peers, supported by reasonable adjustments and teaching strategies tailored to meet their individual needs”.

The PEER country profiles compiled for the 2020 GEM Report showed that a quarter of countries had laws making provisions for educating children with disabilities in separate settings. Some have changed their stance on this front as well. In 2022, a new decree by the government of the Flemish Community in Belgium enabled learners with learning disabilities and special educational needs to be able to follow lessons in mainstream education as far as possible, with extra support.

Denmark began a new special education training programme for teachers in 2022. Uganda began training teachers language resilience in refugee areas in 2023. Japan also tackled language barriers after a survey showed that 19,000 primary or lower secondary school-age children of foreign nationalities in Japan do not attend school at all, introducing a new policy in 2020 to improve Japanese language education.

In the province of Manitoba in Canada, a new policy was introduced in 2022, entitled Mamàhtawisiwin: The wonder we are born with, bringing indigenous elders into the classroom to help indigenous students succeed in school. Bulgaria introduced a new inclusive education strategy for learners, including Roma, who our regional report showed suffered particular exclusion.

The growth of technology has brought opportunities with one hand as it has brought challenges with another, as a new advocacy brief being launched on the subject this week will show. But there is no doubt that inclusive technologies have major advantages in that they support accessibility for students with disability. The 2023 GEM Report found that 87% say that accessible technology devices, including smartphones and tablets, were replacing traditional assistive tools most or all of the time. Digitizing textbooks can also make them more accessible. Over 92 countries have also now ratified the 2013 Marrakech Treaty allowing reproduction of published works in accessible formats for people who are print-disabled.

This is clearly a marathon, not a sprint. Achieving full inclusion and meeting every learner’s needs will take time. We hope you will join us in celebrating countries that have recognized the benefits of an inclusive approach to education and calling on others to follow suit.

 

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One year into the Global Convention on Higher Education – what will it take to make it a gamechanger?

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By Borhene Chakroun, Director of the Division for Policies and Lifelong Learning Systems at UNESCO

This week marks the one year anniversary since the entry into force of the UN’s first Global Treaty on Higher Education, a landmark agreement that establishes universal principles for the recognition of higher education qualifications.

Opening new avenues for further study and employment across borders, the Global Convention promises to be a game changer for higher education – bringing about the fundamental changes needed to make higher education more equitable, accessible and inclusive.

It comes amid a dramatic shifting higher education landscape characterized by expansion, massification, diversification and digitization. More than 250 million students are now enrolled in higher education, up from 100 million in 2000 and 180 million in 2010.

Meanwhile, student mobility has increased more than threefold over the last two decades, with more than 6 million learners now studying abroad -a number that has tripled in the last two decades and is set to do so again. Half of these internationally mobile students are studying outside their region.

The Global Convention promotes fair, transparent and non-discriminatory practices for recognizing higher education qualifications.

This will prove especially important for refugees and displaced persons who often have difficulty providing documentary evidence of their qualifications.

It’s also a sign of how the right to education is evolving towards a vision of lifelong learning, including the right to higher education.

So far, 28 countries have ratified the convention, representing a quarter of the world’s internationally mobile student population. Another 30 countries are at advanced stages of the ratification process.

This week, UNESCO is convening an extraordinary session of the Intergovernmental Conference of the States Parties to examine the Global Convention’s work programme for the next year. The session will also be attended by many observers including key global and regional higher education stakeholders as well as the presidents of the regional convention committees. This is the first meeting since a historic convening of State Parties last July to chart a course for implementation.

What will it take to make the Global Convention a success?

Five key dimensions will determine the effective implementation of the Global Convention – in line with the recommendations of UNESCO’s recent World Conference on Higher Education:

  • Information exchange: Three regional networks of information centres are already in operation – the Asia-Pacific Network of National Information Centres (APNNIC), European ENIC-NARIC and the Regional Network of Information Centres in Latin America and the Caribbean (CINLAC). These must be capitalized upon to create a global network under the Global Convention.
  • Quality assurance: Education systems and institutions must trust each other if education and multilateral cooperation is to truly transform. The Global Convention is the first multilateral agreement which addresses quality assurance and promotes and affirms the role a culture of quality plays in establishing trust between higher education institutions and systems.
  • Inclusion: Higher education systems need to put greater emphasis on inclusion, flexible learning pathways and recognition of prior learning. This is particular important given the diversification of higher education including the increasing role played by private providers and EdTech, as well as the emergence of higher technical and vocational education and training.
  • Technology: The digital transformation of education can increase access to higher education, both through the possibilities of virtual mobility and the enhanced portability of qualifications. At the same, online provision powered by artificial intelligence, virtual mobility and digital credentialing in an era of massification, bring with them their own new challenges both for quality assurance and for the data protection and security of students, all of which need to be addressed in the context of the Global Convention.
  • Data: While there is always a need for more and better data, the number of countries reporting to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) continues to decrease, with the reporting rate in some regions as low as 25%. With this in mind, UIS has just launched the 2024 Survey of Formal Education and countries’ participation in the higher education questionnaire is key for accurate monitoring.

If these key areas are addressed, the Global Convention will indeed live up to its potential as a game changer for higher education. UNESCO is calling on all countries to ratify this important Convention to make our ambitions become a reality to unleash the talent of our youth around the world.

 

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Advancing education with technology: Honouring teachers on their day

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By Daniel April and Anna Cristina D’Addio, GEM Report

Today, on October 5th, we celebrate World Teachers’ Day, a special occasion dedicated to celebrating and honouring the contributions of teachers in our society. It also serves as an opportunity to advocate for better working conditions, training and professional development for teachers.

Teachers are crucial for the successful integration of technology in education as the 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report, Technology in education: A tool on whose terms?, emphasized. Keeping teachers and students at the forefront of education technology is a must but within a student-centred approach. Digital tools should enhance, not replace, the essential teacher-student interaction for better learning outcomes.

Technology is transforming teaching worldwide and could, when mastered, equip teachers with tools to focus on student needs, providing access to various resources and encouraging meaningful interactions in the classroom.

For example, teachers can use technology to support personalized learning with adaptive platforms, flexible schedules, and exciting virtual experiences such as augmented reality. Tech-savvy teachers can also use different communication platforms to build strong connections with students and parents, which has been vital during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, the REDS International Survey revealed that more than two thirds of teachers in the United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan, and more than half of those in Burkina Faso and Ethiopia increased parent communication during the pandemic, relying more on technology.

But technology adoption by teachers is not straightforward. First, inadequate digital infrastructure is a major issue. During the pandemic, only two in five teachers used their personal devices in 165 countries. One-third of schools had only one device for educational use, causing significant disruptions in the learning process. Teachers with disabilities worldwide also face technological challenges. In Ethiopia, the absence of assistive technologies such as screen readers, magnifiers, e-books, and word prediction programmes is a significant barrier to their full participation. In fact, some teachers may not even be aware of the existence of certain assistive technologies.

To take advantage of technology in education, teachers must be prepared to use it. Some educators also lack the necessary training to harness digital tools effectively. The 2018 TALIS shed light on this, indicating that only 43% of lower secondary school teachers felt adequately prepared to use technology for teaching after training, and 78% of teachers lacked confidence in employing technology for assessments. Many countries also face a shortage of science and mathematics teachers because few enter the profession and even fewer stay. In the United States, there were over 30,000 vacancies for physics teachers in 2019. Policies to encourage recruitment, training and retention of teachers in these subjects include bonuses upon signing, salary supplements and the targeting of graduates or professionals who currently have a non teaching career.

Countries are taking steps to help teachers acquire the necessary skills in technology

An analysis of the 211 GEM Report’s PEER country profiles on technology in education suggests that more than half of the countries in four different regions have included ICT standards for teachers in their policies, guidelines, training plans, development strategies, or similar efforts. However, this happens much more often in wealthier countries (62%) compared to less affluent ones (33%) (Figure 1). One in 4 countries globally have laws ensuring training for teachers in education technology, whether during their initial training or later on. Notably, 84% of these systems have strategies for ongoing professional development, while 72% focus on technology in pre-service education. Moreover, by 2022, more than 80% of low- and middle-income countries had introduced digital skills training for teachers from primary to upper secondary education. Although the percentage was lower for pre-primary teachers, it increased from 48% in 2020/21 to 62% in 2021/22.

Teachers are also increasingly taking it into their own hands to enhance their skills and foster collaboration

In the Caribbean, over 80% of surveyed teachers are part of professional WhatsApp groups. Among them, 44% use instant messaging weekly for collaboration. This virtual network enhances in-person collaboration and is now an integral part of teachers’ lives. In Flanders, Belgium, KlasCement, originally a non-profit initiative which is now under the Ministry of Education, has become a hub for teachers, providing a platform for discussions on distance learning. At the start of the pandemic, over 22,000 teachers joined this platform, sharing more than 500 learning resources and initiating over 50 discussions weekly.

On this World Teacher’s Day, let’s thank once again the teachers worldwide for their invaluable contributions and celebrate the strides made to empower teachers to use technology effectively in their classrooms. Increasing their active participation in shaping policies would be crucial to further enhance their impact. This not only brings valuable insights but also fosters a critical attitude toward technology. Together, let’s stand with our teachers, equipping them with the skills and confidence required to thrive in today’s ever-evolving education landscape.

 

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United States: How investing in our youngest children will help them cope with a climate crisis not of their making

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By Justin van Fleet, President of Theirworld, a global children’s charity

Investing in early years care and education might not seem the most obvious way of tackling the climate crisis.

Why would investment in the world’s babies and toddlers aid efforts to mitigate the disastrous effects of climate change unfolding all around us right now? After all, it’s the very definition of a grown-up problem: urgent, life-threatening and riven with complicated political and diplomatic disputes.

The truth, however, is that no matter how great our efforts to address the crisis, the problem is an enduring emergency that is not going away any time soon. The generation that will face both the gravest consequences and the challenge of mitigating those consequences is being born now.

A global analysis showed that young children will face more extreme weather events than their grandparents’ generation: seven times as many heatwaves, twice as many wildfires and three times as many droughts, crop failures and river floods. Despite this stark reality, a recent study on climate spending found that only 2.4 % of finance from key multilateral climate funds supported projects that either addressed the risks posed to children by the climate emergency or empowered them to become agents of change.

But to build climate resilience, leaders need to prioritise investment in the full range of quality early childhood care and education programmes: access to health services, nutrition, clean water and sanitation, and a safe and protective care and learning environment.

The better educated children are, the safer they are, the healthier they and their parents and caregivers are, then the stronger their communities and societies will be. Stronger communities and societies will, in turn, be more resilient and adaptable to climate change.

That’s why as world leaders gather in New York for the UN General Assembly and Climate Week [week of September 18] it is crucial that they it is critical that they act for early years to give children the best possible start in life, and to give the planet we call home a chance of thriving in the future.

The United Nations has identified the potential of Early Childhood Development (ECD) programmes for its potential to be a “building block for climate adaptation, resilience, and sustainable development”, given that ECD cuts across several sectors and, if done properly, has the power to transform lives.

Research has suggested that universal education and health interventions can have a direct impact on climate change. The resulting reductions in emissions globally could be as high as 85.4 gigatons of carbon dioxide between 2020 and 2050, according to Project Drawdown, the equivalent of 19 billion passenger vehicles driven for a year. It was also estimated that educating girls could result in a massive reduction in emissions of 51.48 gigatons by 2050.

Ensuring that all girls and boys from the youngest age can grow, learn, and play in a healthy environment by definition includes clean energy investment in ECD infrastructure and facilities to address poor air quality and creating child-friendly green spaces.

Climate education itself should become a lasting element of early years learning. Children instinctively want to protect the planet, so by teaching them about the connections between humans and their environment, they can be the first to raise awareness about the dangers to it and to bring that knowledge to their families and communities.

Their early lives will shape the adults they become, and that may make all the difference to overcoming the climate crisis. We know that the first five to six years are a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. That is when 90% of brain development occurs and patterns of learning and behaviour are set for the future. This opportunity is being wasted for so many children on a global scale, with just a tiny proportion of international and domestic spending going to the early years.

Five years ago, the G20 members launched a new Initiative for Early Childhood Development but progress has been blown off course due to the Covid-19 pandemic and other global crises.

Giving these children the best chance of facing down the challenges of their present and later lives points to one very clear priority for decisions being debated in New York. It is vital that they push investment in early childcare and education right to the top of the agenda, and include climate financing in programs for children. In doing so, they will be setting the stage for prioritising the right strategies at the G20 talks in 2024, where the incoming chair President Lula of Brazil looks to make tackling the climate crisis a high priority.

We know which interventions and innovations will help give the world’s youngest children achieve the best possible start in life. However, good ideas will amount to nothing without the most essential change that needs to happen – a change of attitude among governments, policy-makers and donors. They must begin to see the early years not as a cost but as an investment, and one of the smartest investments that a society can make.

 

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