Every Child Learns UNICEF Education Strategy 2019–2030
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Every Child Learns UNICEF Education Strategy 2019–2030 STRATEGY Every Child Learns UNICEF Education Strategy 2019–2030 PB 1 Every Child Learns UNICEF Education Strategy 2019–2030 Published by UNICEF 3 United Nations Plaza New York, NY 10017, USA www.unicef.org © United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) September 2019 Photo credits Cover : © UNICEF / Frank Dejongh Page 2: © UNICEF/UN0263646/Herwig Page 7: © UNICEF/UN0263622/Herwig Page 21: © UNICEF/UN0263693/Herwig Page 23: © UNICEF/UN0243372/Pasquall Page 28: © UNICEF/UN0198810/Sokhin Page 30: © UNICEF/UN0238511/ Page 36: © UNICEF/UN0255423/Pasquall Page 39: © UNICEF/UN0308055/Zaidi Page 43: © UNICEF/UN0294703// Frank Dejo Page 49: © UNICEF/UN0259988/Raab Page 51: © UNICEF/UN0312525/Filippov Page 53: © UNICEF/UN0308159/Zaidi Page 59: © UNICEF/UN0225269/Brown Acknowledgements ‘Every Child Learns’ UNICEF Education Strategy 2019–2030 Denmark, the European Commission, Finland, France, was produced by the Education teams at UNICEF Headquarters Germany, Italy, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, Qatar, Spain, and regional offices and is the result of collaboration among Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and many individuals and groups. The team thanks everyone who Northern Ireland, and the United States of America for their gave so willingly of their time, energy, patience and expertise. participation. Your inputs have been invaluable to the process. Special thanks go to our colleagues in UNICEF regional and A very big thank you also to colleagues and experts across country offices, in particular the Global Management Team and multiple institutions who reviewed and enriched this our internal reference group – Aferdita Spahiu, Afshan Khan, document, including colleagues at Education Cannot Wait, Alexandra Yuster, Andres Franco, Cornelius Williams, Debora Global Partnership for Education, International Labour Comini, Ellen van Kalmthout, Geert Cappelaere, Helene Cron, Organization, United Nations Development Programme, Italo Dutra, Manuel Fontaine, Marie- Pierre Poirier, Marita United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Perceval, Megan Gilgan, Nabendra Dahal, Rene Van Dongen, Organization, United Nations High Commissioner for Sagri Singh, Tomoo Hozumi, Valerie Taton, Wongani Grace Taulo Refugees, United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and and their teams. An additional thank you to our extended core the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), World Food development team – Abhiyan Jung Rana, Adriana Vogelaar, Programme, World Bank and many others who shared Francisco Benavides, Gemma Wilson-Clark, Linda Jones, their advice and ideas throughout the development of this Margarete Sachs-Israel, Mark Waltham, Nora Fyles, Parmosivea publication. An additional thank you to Megan Haggerty from Soobrayan, Sherif Yunus Hydara, Urmila Sarkar and their the International Education Funders Group who facilitated teams. A big thank you to the UNICEF Chiefs of Education and consultations with key partners. Education Officers in the UNICEF Country Offices around the world. And a very special thanks to Omar Abdi, Ted Chaiban and We also thankfully acknowledge the work of Peter Colenso, Vidhya Ganesh for their thoughtful guidance and support. who provided thoughtful guidance and led the drafting process throughout the development of the strategy. We are We are grateful for the more than 1,300 people from 86 grateful to the leadership of Jo Bourne and Matt Brossard. countries who participated in the comprehensive consultation Our heartfelt thanks to Robert Jenkins who joined the team at process that was central to the development of this document, a decisive moment and helped sharpen the content and the including over 500 representatives from UNICEF programme vision presented in this report. And a very big thank you to the country governments, close to 200 from civil society strategy core team of Peter de Vries, Nicolas Reuge, Daniel Kelly, organizations and more than 100 youth. Amy Blomme, Hanna Fjellstrom and Vina Barahman. A warm A very big thank you to Norway for chairing the consultation thank you also to Paula Lopez and Guy Manners (Green Ink) for with bilateral donors. Thank you to Australia, Canada, production support. 2 1 Every Child Learns UNICEF Education Strategy 2019–2030 CONTENTS ACRONYMS ................................................................................. 3 SUMMARY .................................................................................... 4 1 I INTRODUCTION ....................................................................... 6 2 I CONTEXT ................................................................................ 8 3 I STRATEGIC FOCUS ................................................................. 24 4 I IMPLEMENTING THE STRATEGY ........................................... 37 5 I RISKS AND RISK MANAGEMENT ........................................... 50 6 I MONITORING, EVALUATION AND LEARNING ....................... 52 ANNEXES ...................................................................................... 54 ENDNOTES ................................................................................... 60 2 1 Every Child Learns UNICEF Education Strategy 2019–2030 2 3 Every Child Learns UNICEF Education Strategy 2019–2030 ACRONYMS ECE Early childhood education UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees EMIS Education Management Information System UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization GDP Gross domestic product UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund GPE Global Partnership for Education UN Women United Nations Entity for Gender Equality HAC Humanitarian Action for Children and the Empowerment of Women HIC High-income country WASH Water, sanitation and hygiene IASC Inter-Agency Standing Committee WFP World Food Programme ICT Information and communications technology WHO World Health Organization INEE Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies IOM International Organization for Migration LIC Low-income country The acronyms of the regions used by UNICEF, and used in this presentation, are: LMIC Lower-middle-income country MICS Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey(s) EAP East Asia and Pacific NGO Non-governmental organization ECA Europe and Central Asia OCHA United Nations Office for the Coordination of ESA Eastern and Southern Africa Humanitarian Affairs LAC Latin America and Caribbean SDG Sustainable Development Goal MENA Middle East and North Africa STEM Science, technology, engineering and mathematics SA South Asia UMIC Upper-middle-income country WCA West and Central Africa UNAIDS Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS UNFPA United Nations Population Fund 2 3 Every Child Learns UNICEF Education Strategy 2019–2030 SUMMARY Every child has the right to learn. Although more children than ever before are enrolled in school, the duty-bearers obligated to realize this right for every child are collectively failing to improve learning, and this failure is deep and broad, and has significant consequences. Many children lack the knowledge and skills to realize their full potential and maximize their contribution to their communities. The gap between the levels of learning that education For “every” child to learn, UNICEF will increasingly promote systems are providing and what children, communities equity and inclusion. This will include focussing particularly and economies need, is growing. The breadth and depth on children excluded on the basis of gender, children with of this learning crisis provides the greatest global challenge disabilities, the poorest, ethnic and linguistic minorities, to preparing children and adolescents for life, work and and children affected by emergencies. There will also be a active citizenship. shift in focus to expand support for reaching children during their early years (3–5 years old) and during adolescence The lesson of the learning crisis is clear: the conventional (10–19 years old). Increased work on pre-primary education assembly of education inputs is not improving learning will enable countries to benefit from the unparalleled positive outcomes. This presents a fundamental challenge to return from investing in this area. Providing multiple learning the way that governments, development partners and pathways, particularly for adolescents, by introducing and communities are managing and supporting education scaling up innovative approaches will enable UNICEF to systems. A new, more radical approach that focusses on respond to the increasingly important and critical period in enhancing learning outcomes is long overdue and forms which children transition to adulthood. the basis for this Strategy. UNICEF will also shift emphasis in implementation, The vision of the Strategy is that ‘every child learns’. on the basis of lessons learned and the organization’s In support of this vision, the Strategy adopts the following comparative advantage, as outlined in the Strategy’s three goals: (1) equitable access to learning opportunities; programmatic approaches. First, systems strengthening (2) improved learning and skills for all; and (3) improved will be (further) enhanced in partnership with governments, learning in emergencies and fragile contexts. The Strategy non-governmental organizations and other non-state outlines the shift towards a greater focus on improving providers. This will include enhanced support to sector-wide learning outcomes, including supporting the development analysis, planning, implementation and accountability, of the breadth of skills