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Our time
Global Education Coalition
A multi-sector Coalition to protect the right to education during unprecedented disruption from response to recovery #LearningNeverStops
Members of the Coalition represent a wide range of expertise and competencies
Currently involved in 233 projects across 112 countries impacting 400 million learners and 12 million teachers
New actors are essential to respond to the multifaceted challenges of the education sector
A new model
As the pandemic revealed and amplified inequalities in education, UNESCO quickly mobilized support to ensure the continuity of learning around the world by establishing the Global Education Coalition in March 2020. This multi-sector Coalition brings together 175 institutional partners from the UN family, civil society, academia, and the private sector working around three central flagships: Connectivity, Teachers and Gender Equality. The Coalition uses a mission approach to achieve large-scale targets and as a way to operationalize actions: Global Skills Academy, Global Teacher Campus, and Global Learning House.
Flagships
Making universal connectivity a reality
https://globaleducationcoalition.unesco.org/home/flagships/connectivity
Empowering teachers and protect their status
https://globaleducationcoalition.unesco.org/home/flagships/teachers
Missions
Latest story
Creating local educational resources
Imaginecole initiative awarded best creators accross Western and Central Africa
Earlier this year, teaching professionals across Western and Central Africa participated in an online challenge to design digital education modules for use in teaching in the region.
UNESCO, in collaboration with Réseau Canopé, hosted the online “Créathon” event as part of the wider Imaginecole programme, which was launched in March 2021 to strengthen the capacity of digital learning in ten targeted countries in Francophone Africa.
Hosted for the first time this year, the “Créathon” event facilitated the creation of quality educational resources which will be turned into a digital modules and hosted on the Imaginecole platform.
Following the announcement of the online in December 2021, participating teachers worked for two months, with step-by-step expert guidance via a series of online webinars, to develop pedagogical scenarios. Over 170 designs were submitted by participating teachers from Benin, Cameroon, Guinea, Niger, Chad, Togo, Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire.
For Ayabavi Aubierge Glonou, a kindergarten teacher from Benin, the webinars were helpful in better understanding the design process to create digital educational modules, including animations.
“The [Créathon] experience was wonderful [and] allowed me to discover what is happening [in education] elsewhere, to know colleagues from other countries,” Glonou added.
Among the winning submissions were multimedia resources to help learners understand gendered nouns or learn about the human cardiovascular system with the help of diagrams and videos.
Another participant, Ahmadou BA, a secondary school teacher from Senegal, said that one of the main challenges in education on the African continent is the lack of contextualized resources that are adapted to the realities there. But by participating in the Créathon challenge, he felt able to contribute to the revolution of education in the region using new technologies.
“This project allowed me to explore new ways of teaching, and [hone] new pedagogical practices by producing pedagogical resources that will allow students to be actors in their own learning,” he explained. “The educational paths that will be designed thanks to these scenarios will be more motivating and will better meet the needs of students, BA added.
The winning submissions, as selected by a jury, were recognized at award ceremonies held in March in Porto-Novo, Benin, and in Diamniadio, Senegal, in April. Representatives from the respective Ministries of Education, UNESCO’s regional offices, and other education stakeholders were among those in attendance. Winners of the Créathon challenge, as well as core trainers, were also awarded laptops to facilitate their ongoing contribution of resources and expertise to the platform.
The Imaginecole initiative, headed by UNESCO, the International Organization of La Francophonie, CONFEMEN and the French Government, and with funding from the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), aims to ensure educational continuity by building a pool of digital educational resources for primary and secondary school students. The initiative stems from a response to the education crisis due to COVID-19 and aims to strengthen the capacities and resilience of education systems in Africa.
During the first phase of the programme, the platform was developed, making accessible some 600 learning resources, including country-specific Open Educational Resources (OER). This was followed by a cascade training strategy - national technical teams and teachers were supported in getting started with the Imaginecole platform before being trained via virtual classes on digital educational resources. So far, 100 master trainers of trainers have helped reach 6,000 teachers.
Resources
September 2022
Innovation Compendium
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COVID-19 Response Toolkit
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#Learningneverstops
We are at a critical point in the global response to COVID-19 – we need everyone to get involved in this massive effort to keep the world safe and to enhance resilience of every society and every family. School closures are part and parcel of the increasingly stringent measures taken by governments to contain the spread of the virus. Today, 1.2 billion students and youth in 124 countries are affected by school and university closures. The responsibility of education is to keep learning processes for all learners and leave no one behind.
Our mission
We are committed to maintaining educational equity and inclusion as governments seek to provision teaching and learning opportunities to students through alternative means during periods of school closures. School closures have a long history of exacerbating learning inequities and hurting the most vulnerable children and youth disproportionately. This coalition is dedicated to working with governments to find solutions to leave no one behind and elevate the importance of equity and gender equality in educational responses to the COVID-19 crisis.
Our coalition
We are United Nations agencies, international organizations, private sector, civil society representatives actively engaged in advancing COVID-19 Education Response from around the world are joining forces to provide expertise, strategic direction, resources and leadership, and engage at global, regional and countries levels.
Our commitments
We commit collectively to:
- Advocate and mobilize to bring actors and resources on board for an effective and unified response;
- Coordinate among ourselves to maximize impact of interventions and avoid overlap with a view to reaching the most disadvantaged and those at risk of being excluded during this crisis;
- Match national needs and global solutions by brining global and local (national) partners together for effective and immediate solutions addressing connectivity and content challenges;
- Offer free and secure technological solutions to countries by providing radio, television and online digital tools and learning management solutions where national digitalized education
resources can be uploaded and learning processes organized for use by schools, learners, teachers and parents. Such facilities ensure that countries have control over the development of courses, recommended resources, platforms aligned to national curricula and security and privacy of learners and teachers.
How the Coalition Works
step 1
Match
on-the-ground needs with local and global solution
step 2
Mobilize
actors and resources to develop effective and unified responses
step 3
Coordinate
action to maximize impact and avoid overlap and reach the disadvantaged
step 4
Provide
distance education, leveraging hi-tech, low tech and no tech approaches
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the obligations of Coalition members?
Members commit to: (a) supporting one or more of the Coalition’s three objectives, (b) responding to UNESCO requests, and (c) working cooperatively with other Coalition members to ensure impactful and coordinated responses at the global, regional, and country levels.
How does my organization join the Coalition?
If your organization would like to join the Coalition and can make commitments to advance progress toward one or more of the Coalition’s objectives, please send an email to globalEDcoalition@unesco.org. In your message, please explain, in detail, what strengths your organization would bring to the Coalition and what it can do to support the education response to COVID-19, taking account of Coalition priorities.
Can education stakeholders make direct requests to Coalition members?
No, requests should be directed through national authorities to UNESCO. This will help ensure a coordinated response and active engagement of countries and ministries of education.
How does the Coalition decide where to deploy assistance and resources?
Decisions about how and where to deploy assistance are based on three factors: (a) country needs on the ground, (b) the resources of Coalition members, and (c) the potential for impact with a particular focus on disadvantaged groups. UNESCO assesses all requests received from countries and works to match them with commitments and offers of assistance from Coalition members. All deployments are demand-driven.
What is the role of governments in the Coalition?
Governments can request assistance from the Global Coalition via formal correspondence to UNESCO. Governments wishing to support Coalition objectives or flagships should contact the UNESCO Secretariat.
What happens to the Coalition when schools reopen?
The Coalition will remain vibrant and active. Two of the three Coalition objectives are relevant when schools reopen. Coalition members will help ensure a full and equitable return to school and, beyond this, build the resilience of education and training systems for the future. Coalition members, depending on their commitments, will continue helping countries and other stakeholders apply lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as carry forward investments made during the crisis in line with Sustainable Development Goal #4.
What is UNESCO’s relationship to the Global Education Coalition?
UNESCO founded the Coalition and set its objectives and priorities. The Coalition is an agile platform with open coordination methods. UNESCO’s role is to broker and facilitate cooperation, build synergies and match country needs with the contributions and services of Coalition members.
How is the Coalition assuring the security and privacy of student data when shifts to distance learning are required?
All members of the Global Coalition for Education Response to COVID-19 have also committed to an ethic of do no harm in their treatment of data related to learning. UNESCO has also encouraged them to adhere to four principals protect learner information, privacy and security