Tag: Inclusive Education

A newly published guide from EDC focuses on how various distance education technologies—both traditional and emerging—can support the actual teaching and learning process.

Distance Education for Teacher Training: Modes, Models, and Methods is the new edition of EDC’s popular 2011 guide by the same name. The completely revised guide draws on data from 188 countries and nearly 700 publications, including lessons learned from the move to online learning during the COVID-19 global pandemic. It discusses distance education modes, technology-based models, and the many methods used for distance-based teacher pre-service education, in-service teacher professional development, and ongoing teacher support.

The guide is available in multiple formats to download, either in its entirety or by individual chapter. Take a look!

As we cross the halfway mark of 2023, the world has already been rocked by several major humanitarian crises that have impacted children’s education.

From the devastating earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria, the escalating conflict in Sudan, and the hunger crisis in East Africa, to more localised and targeted situations such as the terrifying school attacks in Western Uganda or the ongoing ban on girls’ education in Afghanistan. These emergencies follow in the wake of protracted war in Ukraine, the residual impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the climate crisis which is impacting us all. Consequently, the education of many of the world’s children is under extreme threat.

So why have the world’s richest countries only mustered just over half of Education Cannot Wait $1.5 billion funding target, leaving the fund grossly under-resourced to tackle a deteriorating problem?

We owe it to children and youth around the world to ensure that they are not overlooked in our crisis responses. Our children’s future, and indeed our world, depends on the urgency and sufficiency of our actions today.

Read more of Takyiwa Danso’s article on the UKFIET webpage.

The Send My Friend to School coalition is calling on the UK Government to support crisis-affected countries to build and invest in inclusive, resilient, and gender-responsive education systems that can withstand all hazards to protect the learning of all children during emergencies. It calls on the UK Government to prepare, protect, invest, and act to secure children’s learning in emergencies.

Download the campaign pack.

There are ten targets in the global education goal, SDG 4, which lay out the steps for providing a quality education for all. They cover children accessing 12 years of quality education with a qualified teacher, learning to read and write and to become active global citizens, and continuing to access education or training throughout their lives.

Now halfway to the deadline for achieving SDG 4, this blog looks at the progress that has been made against each since the goal was set in 2015.

Are we progressing fast enough?

The COVID-19 pandemic created the worst shock to education on record and led to large learning losses that disproportionately affected children from low-income populations. The World Bank’s new “Learning Recovery to Acceleration: A Global Update on Country Efforts” report takes stock of countries’ efforts to overcome the pandemic’s impacts on students and build more resilient education systems.

The report examines what countries are doing to recover and accelerate learning, and how they are doing it, studying over 60 education systems. While many countries largely returned to ‘business as usual,’ others jumped into action—implementing comprehensive, multi-year strategies for improving learning and reducing inequalities. What have we learned from these efforts?

UNICEF Innocenti published a rapid evidence assessment report (REA) examining the impact of educational policies and programs on child work and child labour in low- and middle-income countries.

Insufficient access to school, low school quality, discriminatory practices or equity gaps in class are critical push factors for child labour. In many contexts, school is not seen as a cost-effective alternative to child labour. In these settings, children engage in child labour as their households cannot afford the cost of education.

The REA covered 29 published studies and found that scholarships and educational remittances considerably reduced the likelihood of children working – but it depended on the programme design. Read the full study report for more information.

Higher education leaders in Niger have raised concerns about how the military coup on 26 July 2023 may harm an already fragile higher education system.

Moctar Saïdou, the press secretary for the Union of Nigerien students has commented that Niger’s higher education sector was already struggling with insufficient accommodation, food, transport and care facilities for students, weak courses in public universities, a lack of lecturers and failures to make scholarship payments and release state social assistance for students.  He states ‘the coup has made the situation more worrying’.

Read the full article for more information.