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Heads of State and Government and Ministers of Education from more than 40 countries adopted the Paris Declaration on Wednesday: a global appeal initiated by UNESCO and France to increase investment in education in the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis.

At the height of the pandemic, 1.6 billion children and adolescents were deprived of tuition in the classroom. Among them, 500 million students, mainly in the South, had no access to distance learning. UNESCO quickly rallied by bringing together States, international organizations and businesses within a Global Coalition for Education, which made it possible to ensure educational continuity in 112 countries.

Despite this unprecedented mobilization, the situation remains worrying. According to UNESCO’s latest count, schools are still totally or partially closed in 65 countries, affecting 750 million students. 

In those countries where schools are reopening, there is concern that some children are not finding their way back to the classroom. This is particularly the case for girls, whose schooling was already precarious in a number of low-income countries. UNESCO estimates that 11 million girls worldwide are at risk of staying out of school after the pandemic.

These risks are observed against a global backdrop of under-investment in education. Since 2015, UNESCO Member States agreed on a level of educational funding of 4 to 6% of GDP or 15 to 20% of public expenditure, but the majority of countries have not yet reached this threshold. Moreover, it appears that low-income countries only allocate 1% of the amount of the post COVID-19 stimulus packages to education, while the richest countries only spend 2.9% of that package on education.

An agreement to boost investment

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