Commitment to action on basic learning and its recovery: Latin America and the Caribbean commit to it!

This event organized by the Colombia Ministry of National Education, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, UNESCO, UNICEF, USAID and the Inter-American Dialogue, Colombia invites the rest of the countries in the region to formally subscribe to the global and regional commitments Commitment to Action on Basic Learning and My Education, Our Future. The meeting will promote the development of national plans to demonstrate the efforts being made in each country to achieve the SDG 4 targets by 2030 and the fulfillment of the agreements reached at the Education Transformation Summit.

Ministries and Secretariats of National Education of Latin America and the Caribbean; ministries and secretariats of subnational entities of federated or decentralized countries; educational quality and evaluation agencies of countries in the region; regional organizations and foundations; academics and research centers; other regional multilateral organizations (Organization of Ibero-American States, Andean Development Corporation, CECC/SICA, etc.) are called to this meeting.

Recognizing that education is a human right and the foundation for peace, tolerance, other human rights and sustainable development, the United Nations Secretary-General convened the Transforming Education Summit on September 19 during the 77th UN General Assembly.

The Summit mobilized political ambition, action, solutions and solidarity to transform education. The summit took stock of efforts to recover pandemic-related learning losses; launched efforts to re-imagine education systems for today's and tomorrow's world; and took action to revitalize national and global efforts to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4 on quality education.

In the framework of the Global Summit, a Summit Leaders' Day on Transforming Education: Spotlight Session 2 was held. During the event, Sierra Leone, the United States, the United Kingdom, the World Bank, UNICEF, UNESCO and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation made an urgent call to countries around the world to endorse the Commitment to Action on Basic Learning. The Commitment seeks to ensure that all children, especially the most marginalized, develop the basic learning (reading, writing, mathematics and social-emotional skills) that will enable them to develop their full potential and achieve their full participation in society.

As indicated during the Conference, basic learning is the cornerstone of educational transformation. Children who cannot read and understand a simple text will have difficulty learning any other subject in school. They are more likely to fail and to repeat or drop out of high school or not finish high school. They are less likely, in turn, to benefit from job training and human development programs. On a national scale, this would lead to poorer health outcomes, higher youth unemployment and deeper levels of poverty. All children deserve the dignity and opportunity that fundamental learning provides.

At the regional level, the World Bank, UNICEF, UNESCO and the Inter-American Dialogue called on the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) to sign the regional declaration My Education, Our Future. This, given that children and youth in the region experienced some of the longest and most constant COVID-19 school closures in the world, with an estimated loss of 1.5 years of learning that, in the future, could cost today's students a 12 percent reduction in their lifetime earnings. On June 2, 2022, the Heads of State of Argentina, Chile, Ecuador and Honduras renewed their commitment to education in their countries and to the recovery of basic learning.

In this context, on December 1 and 2, within the framework of the event A Commitment to Action: Colombia, the country became the first in LAC to sign the Commitment to Action on Basic Learning, while adhering to the regional call My Education, Our Future. The National Government has made a firm commitment to reduce learning poverty in the country. It is estimated that almost half of the children in Colombia, before the pandemic, could not read or understand a simple text at the age of ten, and that this proportion could be affecting today more than 70% of their students, due to the loss of learning caused by the pandemic. This phenomenon also disproportionately affects children from the most vulnerable backgrounds. At this event, the Secretariat of Education of Bogota also signed the Global Commitment.