Global education leaders will meet at UNESCO on 17 June 2024 for the event Accelerating progress towards SDG4: Stocktake of Transformative Actions in Education, convened by the SDG4 High-Level Steering Committee (HLSC).
This will open a series of 2024 global meetings which will support the advancement of Sustainable Development Goal 4 on quality education (SDG4), such as the High-Level Political Forum at the United Nations Headquarters in New York in July, the Summit of the Future in September and the Global Education Meeting in October. The day-long event will provide a unique opportunity for global leaders to review country progress towards SDG4, showcase transformative actions undertaken by countries since the September 2022 Transforming Education Summit, and reaffirm education’s position on the global political agenda.

IIEP is launching a new series of four Strategic Debates focusing on evidence-informed policy and planning – from design to implementation. In each session, panelists and audience members will gather to share their experiences, insights, and successful and promising practices to help education actors use the data, evidence, and research, available to them to foster quality education systems for all.

• Debate 1: Using EiE data and evidence to inform crisis sensitive educational planning
  • Thursday, 13 June 2024: Online only from 2:30 pm to 4:00 pm Paris time
• Debate 2: Evidence in situational analysis: How to use evidence to understand the issue at play
  • Thursday, 11 July 2024: Hybrid mode
• Debate 3: Evidence in policy planning: How to use evidence to plan feasible policies for political adoption
  • Thursday, 26 September 2024: Hybrid mode
• Debate 4: Open EMIS and open school data to inform educational policy and planning
  • Thursday, 28 November 2024: Online only
    

Click here to learn more

The INEE Secretariat has published a Statement on Anti-Racism and Racial Equity as well as a a primer on decolonizing EiE and an  Anti-Racism and Decoloniality Collection. Go to this announcement on the INEE web site.

A series of reports on the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment’s (PISA) periodic testing program on student performance. The reports generally compare student (15 year olds) academic performance across countries, or discuss the methodology used to gather the data, Analyses related to school health & development programs include. Go to page listing PISA reports or see these sub-reports

• Student Financial Literacy (part of a comprehensive health & life skills program (e.g.PSHE in England)
• Creative Thinking & Problem Solving (a generic life skill)
• Rationale, Theory, Framework for a new PISA Survey on Technical- Vocational Education (alternative pathways to student success)
• PISA Results During Covid Pandemic (Student learning during closures, resilience and school program, policy responses)
  
• The State of Learning and Equity in Education (gender, economic status and immigrants status)
  

The National Partnership for Student Success focuses on five types of evidence-based student supports that together meet holistic student needs. These include academic tutors, mentors,post-secondary transition coaches, student success coaches and wraparound integrated student support coordinators. The NPSS Support Hub Resources page lists resources on many school success/stay in school topics, including chronic absenteeism, collaborating with community organizations, high imp[act tutoring, engaging corporate volunteers, post-secondary transition coaches, mentors,  and integrated student services coordinators. This map highlights some of the organizations and efforts around the country working in one or more of these five roles to provide students with the academic, social, mental health, and other supports they need. Go to the NPSS web site.

The Canadian government has published a one page infographic explaining Multi-sectoral Collaboration. Go to the infographic.

The compendium has examples from several settings and several issues but they do not include using schools as the hub. The brief analysis of the case studies is very good. For example The four pillars (p11) can be used to update this initial list of WoG good  practices. They cover: Governance and accountability, Leadership at all levels, Ways of Working & Resources and capabilities. The Milestones attributed to multisectoral actions  in the compendium (p12) are also useful. They include Formalization of coordination mechanisms or other governance platforms, Acceleration of policy changes and programme expansion, Creation of new partnerships as a result of multisectoral collaboration, Improved understanding and awareness of NCDs and their determinants. (or of school programs and issues) and Enhanced knowledge collaboration and information sharing as standard practice. The Insights and lessons learnt section (p14) explains these lessons: Institutionalizing multisectoral actions, Sharing knowledge and data, Recognizing windows of opportunity, Leadership at all levels, Ways of Working to Build Trust, Developing capacity, Empowering government sectors. Go to the compendium

UNESCO & UNICEF have launched the "building strong foundations" initiative promoting education for health and well being in primary schools.  The new initiative benefitting learners aged 5-12 in primary school was launched in May 2024 at a symposium in Lusaka, Zambia. It includes four technical briefs that  describe what foundational education for health and well-being is, what to teach and how to design content, how to involve the whole school and how to put this work into practice in the classroom. The two-year process began with a literature review, followed by regional online consultations with around 215 stakeholders. Next, a global meeting was held, attended by 60 experts from diverse countries and sectors. Nine key topics have been identified as particularly vital for FEHW:

1. Skills for health and well-being
2. Social relations
3. Understanding gender
4. Violence prevention and staying safe
5. Values, rights and culture
6. The human body and development
7. Sexual and reproductive health and development
8. Mental health and psycho-social well-being
9. Nutrition and physical activity

* Notably, preventing infectious diseases, vaccine and other basic health literacy concepts are not covered except for an unexplained sub-title called "personal hygiene" on page 22 and two learning objectives on page 34 of Brief Two. 
Other gaps in the list of topics, such as mitigating the human health effects of climate change (e.g. sun safety, recycling), avoiding accidental injury (e.g. road safety), and responding to disasters (e.g. personal & family emergency plan) show the limitations of starting with a list of topics rather than a description of generic skills, knowledge and attitudes in  a curriculum within which topics determined and documented to be relevant to the children in the country can be addressed.
The UNESCO, UNICEF description of education for HWB in Brief One (p11) states that "An enabling policy environment is also important for the success of FEHW. This implies integrating health and well-being into education sector policies, plans, strategies and resource allocations. Positioning health and well-being as a priority within the formal primary school curriculum is critical."  However, we should not confuse a collection of instructional programs with a core curriculum with a mandated set of learning objectives. Examples of such core curricula in health, life skills/personal & social development and/or home economics can be found in the USA, England, and most jurisdictions, including the jurisdictions where the officials and experts contributing to UNESCO-UNICEF initiative (Quebec, Guatemala, Botswana, Finland, & India) are based as well as the two countries (Sweden & Norway) which provided the funding for the initiative

The UNESCO-UNICEF briefs do not call for a core HWB curricula to deliver these topics. Brief One (p9) states clearly that "the term FEHW does not seek to replace the terms used for existing health and well-being education programmes. Rather, the intention is to highlight common goals and objectives across a variety of primary school health and well-being education programmes, with the aim of promoting a more holistic and coordinated approach."
This new UNESCO-UNICEF initiative is welcome but it does not meet its stated policy need to include HWB education as " a priority within the primary school curriculum" as stated in its Brief One. The initiative is a good collection of instructional programs and how they can be woven together but the initiative does not recommend that countries adopt a curriculum with a proper scope and sequence for learning defined HWB competencies which include knowledge, skills & attitudes. The Annex in Brief Two (pp 30-37) presents a list of illustrative learning objectives for the nine topics which could be used curricula, syllabi, teaching manuals, lessons plans or other educational materials. But it does not recommend that countries should develop a core HWB curriculum to address the topics.
Further, the initiative wrongly suggests that complementary (co-curricular) and supplementary (extra-curricular) activities can act as replacement for classroom instruction focused on defined learning objectives in a curriculum. As well, it suggests the unproven strategy of inserting HWB content into other core subjects can also replace core instruction in a defined subject or discipline. (While primary school teachers can and do combine knowledge from various curricula into ad-hoc integrated lesson plans, doing this on a system basis would take extensive teacher planning time and coordination among the relevant education ministry curriculum specialists in order to create inter-disciplinary maps for each grade level that show how the objective of both health and the other subject are being achieved.) Finally, it is important to note that the initiative does not extend to secondary schools, making it even more difficult to define, describe and adapt age-appropriate student learning objectives for the adolescent years that should obviously be considered when planning primary school instruction.
The next step for the UNESCO-UNICEF initiative could be to describe how these instructional programs can be delivered within the already existing curriculum structures used by countries and states. As shown in this complex diagram published by the FRESH Working Group, most countries use core stand-alone or combined subjects defined as Health and/or Life Skills, Home Economics and Physical Education. (These core HWB curricula are shown in red font within the diagram, which also depicts how learning about health, safety, personal, social and sustainable development (HSPSSD) can occur in other subjects, how that learning relates to the UN SDGs and how that teaching and learning can be influenced by a wide variety of conditions and factors.

 For more information about the UNESCO/UNICEF initiative go the FRESH Working Group and Research Agenda on Health & Life Skills education being developed by FRESH Partners

The Center for Implementation has identified these resources to strengthen teamwork within organizations. TeamSTEPPS (Team Strategies & Tools to Enhance Performance & Patient Safety) is an evidence-based framework to optimize team performance across the healthcare delivery system.
While it is focused on healthcare contexts and patient outcomes, it can be useful for implementation support professionals aiming to have more concrete guidance on how to improve communication and teamwork. TeamSTEPPS is based on the premise of having clearly defined teams where team members make use of four skills: Communication – Process through which information can be exchanged among team members, Team Leadership – Ability to ensure that team actions are understood, plan changes are shared, and resources are accessible, Situation Monitoring – Continuous assessment of changes in situational elements, and their influence on planned actions and team functioning and Mutual Support – Anticipating team members’ needs and engaging in team support when needed. The TeamSTEPPS website, developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), offers a comprehensive set of resources that can be helpful for your team, including introductory guides, a self-paced curriculum, videos, and training opportunities.. Go to the TCI Toolbox

The meeting was convened by the SDG4 High-Level Steering Committee (HLSC). This June 17 will open a series of 2024 global meetings which will support the advancement of Sustainable Development Goal 4 on quality education (SDG4), such as the High-Level Political Forum at the United Nations Headquarters in New York in July, the Summit of the Future in September and the Global Education Meeting in October. The meeting launched Phase Two of the Country Dashboard tracking country commitments from the Transforming Education Summit. This phase tracked many but not all of theose commitments. Themes reported included Greening Education and Education in Emergencies. Read more.

A new UNESCO, OECD, Commonwealth of Learning  report analyzes for the first time the economic and societal cost of educational deficiencies. .UNESCO puts the cost to the global economy of school drop-out and education gaps at $10,000 billion a year by 2030, equivalent to more than the annual GDPs of France and Japan combined. Conversely, the report estimates that reducing the proportion of early school leavers or those without basic skills by just 10% would increase annual GDP growth by 1 to 2 percentage points. Social & emotional skills are a big part of the report. Read the full report.

The 2024/5 UNESCO GEM Report due out in November will not only examine the requirements of good leadership in education, but also aims to spotlight the stories of effective education leaders from around the world.UNESCO is calling for nominations of individuals who have shown leadership. You can nominate champions by sending us information to [email protected] or by providing information on this Google form. We want to know why you have nominated them. We are interested to know their background, what inspired them and what has been their key contribution. Hopefully, the GEM report will take a  systems approach surrounding individual stories. The UNESCO web page about the 2025 report notes that The 2024/5 GEM Report will examine the requirements of good leadership in education and how they vary between countries and over time. It will look at the visions and goals that are driving leadership in education, and will examine the extent and through what practices the exercise of leadership contributes to better education outcomes. External factors including social, cultural, governance conditions will be looked at to see how they impact on effective leadership, as well as the policy levers that can be used to develop leadership skills in different contexts.  A set of questions will be formulated alongside the report to guide the collection of information and laws and policies related to the selection, preparation and development of school leaders that will be featured in PEER country profiles and will inform the report. A global group of educator organizations representing principals (ICP), teachers (EI), counselors(IAC), psychologists (IASP), support workers (PSA-I), school system administrators (AASA, CASSA), senior school leaders (ASCD/ISTE) and education deans  (GNDE) will be organizing a series of webinars emphasizing the role of different educators and the need for sustained leadership development within a broader framework of workforce and professional development.

International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank This paper lays out four concrete ways in which governments can protect education systems from climate change so that their positive impacts on economic development, poverty alleviation, and social cohesion can be sustained and boosted. These are: (i) education management for resilience; (ii) school infrastructure for resilience; (iii) ensuring learning continuity in the face of climate shocks; and (iv) leveraging students and teachers as change agents. The paper presents an actionable agenda for each of these with operational examples in different contexts. Go to the report.

Webinar 23 May 2024, Thursday OPTION 1: 10:00-11:30 AM, UK, OPTION 2: 14:00-15:30, UK Zoom link: https://worldvision.zoom.us/j/99186780362 This webinar will provide a thorough overview of the newly improved resources aimed at promoting holistic child development. Our updated resources underscore a strong emphasis on responsive, play-based learning methodologies, with a special focus on the most vulnerable such as children with disabilities. These resources encompass a diverse array of materials developed for children, caregivers, educators, volunteers, and community stakeholders.

Wednesday Webinars for Wellbeing, is a series of seven webinars highlighting diverse approaches for children, youth and families’ mental health and wellbeing in humanitarian settings. The webinars series is planned and presented by the members of the Child and Family Thematic Group under the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) MHPSS Reference Group.The recordings and related resource material will all be made available on this page after each new webinar is completed.

The new INEE Minimum Standards for Education: Preparedness, Response, Recovery, 2024 Edition is now available in English, with Arabic, French, Spanish, and Portuguese translations forthcoming. Since 2004, the INEE Minimum Standards (INEE MS) have provided a framework for quality education in emergencies (EiE). INEE and the Geneva Global Hub for Education in Emergencies held a hybrid launch of the INEE Minimum Standards for Education, 2024 Edition at the Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Weeks (HNPW) in Geneva. Watch the recording of the launch event here, and read more about the launch here.

The report/discussion focused on school meals within the culture and tradition of the indigenous community of Quilombo do Campinho. Brazil. The Brazilian National School Feeding Programme (PNAE) is supported by a federal law that serves the public-school community in Brazil,. Under the national programme, among other important provisions, at least 30 percent of the funds transferred by the federal government to public schools for the implementation of school meals must be spent exclusively on purchases from family farmers, and the closer they are to the school, the better. Go to the report...

nThe Health in All Policies framework is used in the health sector to coordinate with other ministries and agencies. The Canada/Quebec National Collaborating Centre on Public Health Policies facilitates the Global HiAP Coalition and its Canadian counterpart. The Centre recently organized a webinar in five local examples of how the health sector can reach out to others. Go to the recording and slides.

This brief calls attention to the need for dedicated resources and policies that address the unique needs of young children and their families, caregivers, and communities during acute emergencies. By raising awareness and providing evidence-based recommendations, the brief aims to encourage collaboration across different sectors and stakeholders to work together to create fundamental, lasting changes. Go to the brief.

Living in a democratic and always changing world, children have to learn the basic facts about their rights and to acquire the needed democratic life skills. Such democratic life skills can be reinforced through the surrounding environment itself, such schools. A Child Friendly School is a framework designed by UNICEF as the answer to the above needs. A Child Friendly School is a school that recognizes and nurtures the achievement of children's basic rights. A school is considered child friendly when it provides a safe, clean, healthy and protective environment for all children Go to the article

Join KM Gopakumar, legal advisor at Third World Network, and Jyotsna Singh from the People’s Health Movement as they delve into the ongoing negotiations surrounding the Pandemic Treaty. Over the past two years, World Health Organization members have been discussing a new document aimed at strengthening global pandemic response, drawing from lessons learned during the COVID-19 crisis. However, with the deadline for submitting a draft text to the World Health Assembly approaching in May 2024, high-income countries seem poised to obstruct efforts by those in the Global South to foster solidarity and collaboration in pandemic response. Go to the recording.

 The Caribbean Observatory on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and several other organizations have published a policy guide on Towards a better future: Enacting policy and legislation to guarantee comprehensive sexuality education for youth in and out-of school. Go to the resource.

The School Threat Assessment Toolkit is designed to aid schools in employing behavioral threat assessment (TA) and management as part of a comprehensive violence prevention strategy. Authored primarily by Dewey Cornell and Jennifer Maeng, and with input from school safety leaders, experts, government agencies, and the US National Center for School Safety, the toolkit offers guidance on training, implementation, and assessment of school TA teams. It aims to ensure fidelity to student rights while providing practical tools like documents, forms, videos, and additional resources to support schools’ efforts. Go to the resource.