On 10 May, UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Education Stefania Giannini and United Kingdom’s Minister for School and College Systems, H.E. Baroness Barran MBE will host a special session to highlight the role of education in addressing the climate crisis and sustainable challenges.

At the centre of the discussions is the recently launched Greening Education Partnership, a global initiative that aims to provide countries with strong, coordinated and comprehensive action to equip learners of all ages with the skills and knowledge needed to cope with climate change and promote sustainable development.

The session provides an opportunity to mobilize political commitment among ministers present at the Education World Forum 2023 to promote the role of education to tackle with climate change, to learn about the latest developments of the Greening Education Partnership, including the expression of interest made by countries, as well as to review evidence on the impact of climate change education on learners

The Partnership was launched at the Transforming Education Summit to facilitate effective and synergetic action at country level. It is an open and inclusive community of practice of Member States, organizations and institutions for promoting, implementing and enabling getting every learner climate-ready.

To date, over 600 organizations and 52 Member States have joined the Partnership with strong commitment to green education systems, around four key areas of transformative education: Greening schools, greening curriculum, greening teacher training and education systems’ capacities, and greening communities.

Recent UNESCO findings reveal that around half of the 100 countries reviewed had no mention of climate change in their national curriculum.

UNESCO will host another side-event on 10 May focusing on the new Digital Transformation Collaborative which was recently formed by some 30 members of the UNESCO’s Global Education Coalition with on-the-ground digital technology resources and expertise, including Google, Microsoft and others.

The session will be attended by Ministers of Education as part of the process to identify in which countries the Collaborative will pilot its work and actions in 2023. The aim is to move towards coordinated partnerships that facilitate long-term and ever-evolving digital transformations, that adapt to specific country contexts and that harness the power of digital learning to close the educational divides through cooperative actions and investments.

The Collaborative is centred on mobilizing resources for country-level actions and impact and leverages the work developed through the Gateways to Public Digital Learning, a global, multi-partner initiative to support countries in securing equitable access to digital learning resources.

• Education World Forum
• Greening Education Partnership
• Gateways to Public Digital Learning