A new report placing the spotlight on foundational literacy and numeracy in Uganda was published and launched this morning at the Foundations for Learning Conference organised by the Aga Khan University in Kampala. The work was undertaken by the GEM Report in partnership with the Ministry of Education and Sports.  It is part of the second cycle of the Spotlight, or Born to Learn, series on universal primary education completion and foundational learning in Africa, a partnership with ADEA and the African Union. This cycle, ‘Learning counts’ consists of one continental and four country repo ..read more

A new report placing a spotlight on foundational literacy and numeracy in South Africa was published and launched last month at the 2024 Basic Education Sector Lekgotla, the annual gathering on the state of basic education hosted by the Department of Basic Education. The work was undertaken by the Global Education Monitoring Report and the Association for the Development
of Education in Africa (ADEA) in partnership with the Department of Basic Education (DBE) officials and advocacy activities. It is the first country report to be launched as part of the second cycle of the ..read more

By Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics There has been a lot of discussion in recent months on global SDG indicator 4.1.1a on learning outcomes in early grades. As few countries have been able to report on it, its future is at risk ahead of the upcoming comprehensive review of the SDG indicators. We have explained in a recent blog, the technical reasons that have delayed consensus and how we are working to overcome them. This blog attempts to sketch the outline of a sustainable solution. An argument that has been voiced in recent days is that the perfect should not b ..read more

By Natalia Kucirkova, Professor of Early Childhood Education and Development, University of Stavanger; and Professor of Reading and Children’s Development, The Open University The intersection of self and nature, a longstanding focus in sustainability studies, is increasingly becoming a prominent topic in discussions about digital education policy and practice. The shift means looking beyond just test scores and focusing on how education interacts with the wider environment. UNESCO refers to this as the ‘green and digital education connection’, embracing a more interconnected understanding of ..read more

By Manos Antoninis, Director of the GEM Report A blog last week by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics outlined the technical factors that help explain why so few countries have been reporting on SDG indicator 4.1.1a – the percentage of students who achieve minimum proficiency in reading and mathematics by grades 2/3. It was a response to a barrage of interventions by the Global Coalition for Foundational Learning, the Center for Global Development, the People’s Action for Learning (PAL) Network, and the Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel, which questioned the decision of the Inter-agenc ..read more

Thirty years ago, the Statement at the World Conference on Special Needs in Education in Salamanca, made a strong and clear case for inclusive education by arguing that: ‘[Those] with special educational needs must have access to regular schools’, albeit with the proviso ‘unless there are compelling reasons for doing otherwise’. UNESCO is celebrating the anniversary of the Salamanca Statement this month with a high-level event where policy-makers and experts were invited to reflect on the progress that has been achieved in making education truly inclusive in the last decades and the challenges ..read more

By Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, and Luis Crouch, member of the UIS Governing Board Following the approval of the SDG monitoring framework in 2017, two comprehensive reviews were scheduled by the Inter-agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators (IAEG-SDGs), the UN-coordinated group of countries that is charged with indicator development. The first review in 2019/20 focused on indicator methodology. The second, upcoming review in 2024/25 will focus on indicator coverage. Last October, the IAEG-SDGs issued the review criteria: ‘data must be available for at leas ..read more

Today is the first ever International Day for Digital Learning. We are thrilled to be partnering with Restless Development, the Global Student Forum and the SDG 4 Youth and Students Network to mark this day and give a voice to those who are increasingly using digital technology for learning: youth and students from around the globe. A webinar this afternoon will bring together youth leaders in each region with a key representative from a respective organization working on education: ALECSO in the Arab States, ADEA in Africa, the European Commission, and UNICEF in Latin America will b ..read more

This week is the 30th anniversary of the Salamanca Declaration, a seminal moment in global education policy that defined the concept of inclusive education. Four years ago, the 2020 GEM Report, All means all, focused on inclusion, at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic was amplifying many of the factors that lead to exclusion in education. This blog looks at some recent quantitative and qualitative trends since our major publication on the issue. Exclusion is rife for millions Out of school rates had been declining but at a slow pace but in 2022 the out-of-school population increased for the fir ..read more

By Manos Antoninis, Director, GEM Report; Silvia Montoya, Director UNESCO Institute for Statistics; and Christian Stoff, Chief, Monitoring, Evaluation and Global Reporting, Education Cannot Wait In 2022, the UIS and the GEM Report proposed a major improvement in the way out-of-school rates and populations are estimated, making efficient use of different sources of information. Yet, the model has a weakness: when crisis strikes, estimates cannot be updated without new information. Sometimes such new information is collected. For instance, UNICEF carried out a household survey in Afghanistan in ..read more