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UNESCO’s Global Education Coalition: Partners embark on 2030 mission targets
As it marks its fifth anniversary, UNESCO’s Global Education Coalition sets ambitious new targets to scale impact and reach more teachers and learners by 2030.
The Coalition was formed in 2020 to mitigate the educational disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. As its priorities evolved in the post-pandemic era, it emerged as an accelerator of Sustainable Development Goal 4, advancing the transformation of education through digital skills, resources, and innovative pedagogies in the classroom. It now boasts 233 members, working across 112 countries.
On 24 March, the Coalition's annual Member Meeting at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris brought together over 150 of these members to celebrate its five-year milestone. Opening the event, Stefania Giannini, UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Education, highlighted the importance of collaboration
We have moved beyond traditional forms of cooperation. We have built a multi-stakeholder partnership that acts as glue for action and a lever for impact. [...] Partnership is the new leadership — and that is exactly the kind of leadership we need today.
Co-designing targets for 2030
During the event, the Coalition's four missions — the Global Skills Academy, Global Teacher Campus, Global Learning House and the Gender Equality mission — convened partners to identify priorities, share best practices and co-design strategies to reach the 2030 targets.
A joint session between the Global Skills Academy (GSA) and the Gender Equality mission focused on designing large-scale skills development initiatives for inclusive impact. By 2030, the GSA aims to help 10 million youth develop employability skills through scalable initiatives, with a particular emphasis on the inclusion of women and girls. Meanwhile, the Gender Equality mission will launch targeted STEM education initiatives aimed at reducing gender gaps in technical fields. During the session, mission partners explored opportunities for multi-stakeholder initiatives to drive large-scale impact around four action areas: digital skills, entrepreneurship, leadership, and transversal skills, and green and environmental skills. Discussions focused on scalable implementation models, best practices for GSA training, and immediate actions and partnerships to increase the mission’s impact and scale.
The Global Learning House (GLH) aims to transform education by placing the science of learning at its core and leveraging technology and data analytics. By 2030, it will establish the largest network of learning sciences experts and decision-makers to guide the application of learning sciences in decision-making. During the GLH session, partners highlighted the latest evidence-based solutions that can empower learners globally and foster strategic partnerships through dialogue among policymakers, data analysts, scientists, and practitioners. Discussions also focused on catalyzing collaborative action, using design thinking to propose concrete pathways for partnerships to address global learning challenges.
By 2030, the Global Teachers Campus (GTC) will assist 25 countries in integrating digital and AI competency frameworks into teacher education and professional development, aligned with UNESCO’s AI competency framework for teachers. The mission’s session focused on how the GTC can strengthen collaboration and best support teachers in an evolving digital landscape. A key theme of the discussions was the role of AI in education and its potential to enhance teaching and learning, along with the challenges it poses for the profession. Participants shared their experiences and lessons learned to help identify strategies for supporting teachers over the next five years and beyond.
The Digital Transformation Collaborative’s technical workshop
Following the annual Member Meeting, the Coalition's Digital Transformation Collaborative (DTC), hosted a technical workshop at UNESCO Headquarters on 25 March. The DTC is a tech-focused subgroup of partners, supporting governments in leveraging sustainable digital transformation in education to achieve SDG 4. By 2030, it will help 50 countries design national digital education transformation strategies.
Government education leaders and partners participated in the workshop, engaging in interactive discussions and training sessions around the DTC's , with a particular focus on two key areas: connectivity and infrastructure, as well as data and evidence. The DTC will achieve its five-year goal through capacity-building programs for governments and policymakers and developing case studies from early adopters to share global best practices, among other things.
