Mr Young-gon Kim, Secretary-General of the WEF 2015 Host Committee Secretariat in the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea, is working with a core team of 12 people to set the scene for this major forum. While joining the discussions at UNESCO in Paris on 9 and 10 October during the Education for All Steering Committee, Mr Kim said: “At the Forum itself we are expecting heads of states, ministers, NGOs, experts, media and UN agencies. There are numerous side events being organized with the support of the City of Incheon and various government agencies, they include international exhibitions, special sessions on education and social models for development and sessions on best practices for education.”

“The World Education Forum is very important because it will show good performance and shortfalls for the Education for All movement and it will hopefully set the agenda for education for the next 15 years”,  Mr Kim added. “The forum will be a success if all member countries agree on the goal and the targets and if in September 2015 this agreed goal is fuelled into the United Nations post-2015 development agenda.”

To date, consultations co-lead by UNESCO and UNICEF with governments, civil society, the private sector, youth and through the UN survey “The World We Want”, have identified education as a central priority for the post-2015 development agenda.  Education is recognized as an essential condition for human fulfilment, peace, sustainable development, equality and responsible global citizenship.

The Education for All Steering Committee is made up of representatives from UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, World Bank, Global Partnership for Education, OECD, Global Campaign for Education, Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE), Intel, Education International with the Member States represented by Norway for the Western European and North American States, Russia for the Eastern European States, Brazil for the Latin American and the Caribbean States, Japan for the Asian and Pacific States, Benin for the African States, Saudi Arabia and Oman for the Arab States, India for the E-9 Initiative and the Republic of Korea as WEF 2015 host.

“Now the Steering Committee is discussing the main agenda of the WEF and clarifying how discussions will best take into account the Muscat agreement goal and targets, looking back at the EFA movement of the last 15 years and taking this into the post-2015 agenda”, says Mr Kim.