News

Five years of impact: UNESCO's Global Education Coalition highlights key milestones

Ahead of its 2025 annual member meeting and in celebration of its fifth anniversary, UNESCO’s Global Education Coalition has launched a new report spotlighting its key milestones.
Cover of Global Education Coalition Annual Report

Established in 2020 to respond to the historic disruption of global education caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Coalition has since evolved into a dynamic platform with 232 members bringing expertise and resources from a diverse range of sectors. Active in 112 countries, the Coalition leverages digital transformation and partner cooperation to advance Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, focusing on inclusive, equitable, and quality education for all.

The Coalition’s key achievements

The new report,  highlights the success of the Coalition's missions – four action-orientated flagship initiatives that aim to support learners and teachers. 

The Global Skills Academy, Global Teacher Campus, and Global Learning Houseeach surpassed their target of reaching 1 million impact recipients by 2025. Meanwhile, the Gender Equality mission exceeded expectations by reaching more than 7.5 million learners.

The Digital Transformation Collaborative (DTC), launched during the 2022 Transforming Education Summit, is a tech-focused subgroup of Coalition partners set up to support governments in leveraging sustainable digital transformation in education to achieve SDG 4. DTC partners co-developed its  launched in New York in September 2024. Following this, Egypt, Morrocco and DTC partners lead a series of digital transformation in education workshops using this framework as a foundation.

Celebrating five years of impact and driving action for SDG 4: the Global Education Coalition
UNESCO
2025
0000393086

Crisis response

While the Coalition’s scope has evolved since its establishment during the COVID-19 pandemic, it continues to prioritize crisis response and resilience building.  

One major effort has been supporting learning continuity in Ukraine. In February 2022, when war broke out in Ukraine, displacing teachers and learners and hindering access to education for many, the Coalition effectively mobilized its network to address the crisis. 25 members responded to the call to action of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, including KPMG which deployed two full-time staff secondments to UNESCO to support the implementation. Then, in 2023, UNESCO, with support from Google and facilitation through the Global Partnership for Education's Multiplier innovative finance instrument, distributed over 50,000 devices to teachers across Ukraine and more than 8,500 devices to children unable to attend in-person education due to the ongoing war. 

Additionally, UNESCO’s Digital Teacher training course, with funding from Google.org, is supporting teachers in Ukraine to develop digital skills and deliver quality distance and hybrid education. To date, more than 77,400 teachers have enrolled in the course, representing over 1 in 4 teachers in Ukraine. This self-paced training and suite of resources are designed to strengthen teachers' skills and ability to leverage digital tools, while a Community of Practice and mentoring network offers additional support to teachers in developing these competencies. 

Public-private partnerships to bridge gaps in education continuity in times of crises: the Ukraine case study
UNESCO
2025
0000393207

Looking ahead

During the Coalition’s upcoming annual meeting of its members at UNESCO’s Headquarters in Paris, partners will collaborate on co-designing bold new targets for the 2030 missions and beyond. Meanwhile, the Digital Transformation Collaborative will prepare for further country engagements in the year ahead.