António Guterres is the ninth Secretary-General of the United Nations, who took office on 1 January 2017.
Education is the key to private progress and the future of societies.
It opens and reduces inequalities.
It is the basis of informed and tolerant societies and one of the engines of sustainable development.
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the disruption of registered schooling.
By mid-July, it had been shut down in more than 160 countries, affecting more than a billion students.
At least 40 million young people worldwide have not attended school in their critical preschool year.
And fathers, women, have been forced to bear heavy burdens of care at home.
Despite the broadcast of classes on radio, television and online, and the more productive efforts of teachers and parents, many academics remain out of reach.
Students with disabilities, students from minority or disadvantaged communities, displaced and refugee students, and those from remote spaces are at greatest risk of being left behind.
And even for those who can study remotely, good fortune depends on their living conditions, adding the fair distribution of household chores.
We were already facing a crisis before the pandemic.
More than 250 million school-age youth were out of school.
And a quarter of high school students in emerging countries finished school with fundamental skills.
We now face a generational disaster that can squander untold human potential, undermine decades of progress, and exacerbate entrenched inequalities.
The ripple effects on child nutrition, child marriage and gender equality, among others, are deeply worrying.
This is the backdrop to the policy brief I’m launching today, as a new crusade with school partners and UN agencies titled “Save Our Future. “
We are at a decisive moment for the youth and youth of the world.
The decisions governments and partners make now will have a lasting impact on millions of young people and countries’ growing populations for decades to come.
This guidance note calls for action in 4 key areas:
First, the reopening of schools.
Once local transmission of COVID-19 is under control, returning students to schools and educational establishments in the safest way imaginable will have to be a more sensible priority.
We have issued a third class to lend a hand to governments in this complex effort.
It will be essential to balance the dangers of physical fitness with the dangers to schooling and child protection, and to take into account the effect on women’s participation in the labour market.
Consultation with parents, guardians, teachers and other young people is essential.
Second, prioritize investment decisions.
Before the crisis erupted, low- and middle-income countries already had an education funding gap of $1. 5 trillion a year.
This hole has now widened.
Education budgets will have to be and increase.
Education is at the center of foreign solidarity efforts, from debt control and stimulus packages to global humanitarian appeals and official assistance for progress.
Third, the most difficult to reach.
Education projects deserve to seek success in those who are in danger of staying – others in emergencies and crises; minority teams of all kinds; displaced persons and persons with disabilities.
They will need to be sensitive to the expressive demanding situations faced by girls, boys, women and men, and they will need to urgently seek to bridge the virtual gap.
Fourth, the long term of education is here.
We have a generational to reinvent education.
We can take a leap towards forward-thinking systems that provide quality education for all as a stepping stone to the Sustainable Development Goals.
To do this, we want investments in literacy and virtual infrastructure, a shift towards learning to learn, a rejuvenation of lifelong learning and stronger links between formal and non-formal education.
And we want to build on flexible delivery methods, virtual technologies, and modernized curricula while making sure they are sustained for teachers and communities.
As the world grapples with unsustainable degrees of inequality, we want schooling more than ever: the wonderful equalizer.
We will need to take ambitious action now to create inclusive, resilient and quality education systems that are compatible with the future.
The Manguinhos Ballet, named after its favela in Rio de Janeiro, returns to the level after a long absence due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It has as interpreters 250 young people and adolescents from the favela. The ballet organization provides social assistance in a network where poverty, hunger and teenage pregnancy are ongoing problems.
The pandemic has put many other people to the test, and news hounds are no exception. The coronavirus has waged war not only against the lives and well-being of others, but has also generated countless deceptions and clinical lies.
The pandemic has shown how vital it is that the right of access to data is reliable and that reliable and accurate data is freely available for government and citizen decision-making – a win-win situation.