On 4 November UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova welcomed the adoption of the Education 2030 Framework for Action in the presence of more than 70 Ministers, heads of Member States delegations, representatives of UN, multilateral and bi-lateral agencies, civil society, regional organizations, the teaching profession, academia, youth and the private sector.

She said: “Today, with the Education 2030 Framework for Action, Governments from across the world have agreed on how to translate a promise on paper to change on the ground.”

On the opening day of the conference Prince Haakon of Norway and Ms Bokova took part in a ceremony to endorse the Safe Schools Declaration which provides governments with the opportunity to express broad political support for the protection and continuation of education in armed conflict.

On the same day a side event was held to launch the Gender Summary of the EFA Global Monitoring Report 2015. In addition the Teacher Policy Development Guide produced by the Teacher Task force for Education for All was also launched.

Also on 4 November a symposium was organised by the Permanent Delegation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to UNESCO on Preventing and addressing violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity/express in and through education.

At a high-level side event on 4 November the Assistant Director-General of Education Mr Qian Tang  was due to attend the launch of the publication “Rethinking Education: Towards a global common good?”

On November 5 a ceremony will be held to award the laureates of the newly established UNESCO-Japan Prize on Education for Sustainable Development. The awards, funded by the Government of Japan, went to Asociacion SERES (Guatemala/El Salvador), the Centre for Development of Early Childhood, Non-formal and informal Education (Indonesia) and rootAbility (Germany).

On the same day a seminar moderated by Sweden’s ambassador to UNESCO, Ms Annika Markovic, will be held on How to achieve a green and gender equal TVET- Challenges In a Post 2015 perspective.  A special high-level event will be held on 6 November on Preventing Violent Extremism through Education. The event is organised by UNESCO, the Permanent Mission of the United States to UNESCO and other UNESCO Member States.

On November 7 the UNESCO Institute for Statistics is organising an event From Goal to Action: UNESCO leads the Agenda to Monitor Education Global which will highlight the importance of data in monitoring the new global education goal.

On the same day a panel discussion will be held on Promoting and enhancing gender-Sensitive STEM Education for Adolescent Girls to support Gender Equality.