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“UNESCO’s focus moves beyond equality and equity, to recognize diversity not as a barrier, but as a vital asset to education and to society as a whole,” said Stefania Giannini, UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Education, at the official ceremony held at UNESCO Headquarters with some 700 participants present and another 800 joining online.

Over the past three decades, commitment to inclusive education has grown. In 2015, the international community adopted the Sustainable Development Goals, guided by the promise to leave no one behind, and with an explicit Goal (SDG 4) for inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning. 

This was reinforced by the  in 2019 which calls for education policies and practices that ensure every learner is valued and diversity is celebrated. 

In 2022, at the Transforming Education Summit, over 140 countries committed to improving education systems to address inclusion, quality, and relevance in education. Of these, 87% have committed to ensuring more inclusive education systems.

While the world has made significant progress, 250 million children and youth are out of school and far too many within school walls are not learning. Many barriers to education persist, linked to race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, language, disability, language or gender.

“We have seen that 30 years ago, 30 years ago, the world came together and made commitments on inclusion. Since then, more people have been enrolled in schools. We, in Sierra Leone are proud of what we are doing with radical inclusion. We will stop at nothing until every child, every learner can access the same level of inclusion in education. When you create solutions for radical inclusion, everyone benefits,” said Chief Minister of Sierra Leone, David Moinina Sengeh.

This call was echoed by Mr José Manuel Bar Cendón State Secretary, Ministry of Education, Spain who stated, “in those 30 years we have seen the appearance of new factors, which bring with them certain large risks but also great opportunities. An inclusive model has to go further than dealing with handicap, it must deal with the whole space of vulnerabilities. All of this costs a lot, but let’s think of the alternative, if we lose the richness of diversity, we will lose values as societies, we will lose the talents of a great part of our society, we will lose opportunities and progress and in particular, the quality of our own education systems. To return to optimism we can do this, we are doing this, but we need conviction, we need resources, and we need a great deal of courage.”

“Inclusion is not a policy but a principle. It is everybody’s job. If you make inclusion a policy it is just one person’s job,” said Mel Ainscow, Emeritus Professor, Education, University of Manchester, United Kingdom, who reminded participants, “that the most difficult barriers to inclusion are the barriers in our mind.” 

Championing inclusive education, musician, songwriter, and neurodiversity advocate J Grange said, “strength lies in difference and not in similarity. We need to move away from this one size fits all education system.” 

With the deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals rapidly approaching, the official ceremony and ensuing two-day Global Inclusive Schools’ Forum, concentrated on the need for transformative, bold, and ambitious system change - reimagining physical spaces, teacher training, curricula, assessments, and beyond.

Xueli Abbing, Chairperson for the Open Eyes Foundation and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for the Fight Against Racism and Discrimination, called for the meaningful engagement of young people. “The most important thing we have to do is to involve youth. Young people have to be their own advocate and we, as adults, need to make sure that children get a high level of education no matter what their disability.” 

Teachers also need support, but around 40% of countries do not provide teacher training on inclusion. 

Ignas Gaižiūnas, Advisor to the Minister of Education, Science and Sports of the Republic of Lithuania, “We need to have specific measures to support teachers to work with children with particular needs. To help teachers develop a mindset that inclusion is possible, provide possibilities to work collaboratively with education specialists in schools, parents, NGO experts who are present in our institutions. Mindset and teamwork.”

During the celebrations UNESCO also called on all the champions for girls’ and women’s education to be nominated for the 2024 UNESCO Prize for Girls’ and Women’s Education which is now open and accepting nominations until 24 May 2024. 

The Salamanca anniversary celebration closed with an inspiring performance by Roxane Butterfly, international tap-dance choreographer and her daughter Zuly who make their artistic expertise accessible to all.

• Inclusion in education
• Q&A: How inclusion in education has evolved
• Salamanca anniversary celebrations at UNESCO on 13 March
• Global Inclusive Schools’ Forum at UNESCO 14 – 15 March
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• Podcast  hosted by Richard Ingram (views are not those of UNESCO)