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Feedback workshop on transforming education summit

- 2022-10-25 00:00:00

A feedback workshop on Transforming Education Summit (TES) and the national education conference took place at Klein Windhoek guest house on 20 October.
Director of the National Institute for Educational Development (NIED) Patrick Simalumba said the background and purpose of the meeting was to reflect on the transformative education pre-summit; share a common understanding on the recommendations made at the national conference on education, arts and culture; update participants on the lessons from TES – which was held in New York - and to reflect on the resolutions of feedback from Cabinet.
United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) education specialist Aune Victor shared a report on TES. The summit, which was held under the auspices of 77th session of the United Nations (UN) general assembly, brought together global leaders, international development partners, philantropists, youth activists and many more to raise awareness on the challenges facing the education system globally.
The summit convened to address the global learning crisis already experienced before the Covid-19 pandemic, compromising nations’ ability to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are well off track.
The objective was to bring together global leaders to commit to reversing the slide on the fourth SDG - reimagine education - and accelerate progress on education and the 2030 Agenda more broadly for the remainder of the Decade of Action.
UN secretary-general António Guterres said TES will only achieve its global goals by mobilising a global movement.
“Governments, young people, civil society, teachers, business leaders and philanthropists are stepping up.”

Five thematic tracks
TES was organised around five thematic tracks: Inclusive, equitable, safe and healthy schools; learning and skills for life, work and sustainable development; teachers, teaching and the teaching profession; digital learning and transformation, and financing of education.
The four-day long summit was accompanied by focal points such as a youth mobilisation day; solutions day; leaders’ day and the high-level side event on transforming education in Africa.
The youth mobilisation day was one of the highlights of the entire summit. Youth advocates and leaders called on the global community and heads of state to prioritise, commit and meaningfully invest in education.
They demanded that leaders put them at the centre of transforming education - from planning, budgeting and implementation to monitoring and evaluation of any programmes.
They further focused on non-discriminatory learning environments, holistic education, the impact of climate, peace and human rights, access to digital technologies and ensuring that the curriculum addresses the needs of all learners.
A youth declaration was presented to Guterres, listing 11 demands, seven calls and seven urges on the transformation they want to see, along with their commitments for action on education, urging global leaders to act now.
Accepting the declaration, the secretary-general announced the plans to open a youth office to lead the process at UN level.

President’s statement
Namibian President Hage Geingob delivered a statement at the general assembly. He said education is a sector that Namibia has consistently been prioritising through the allocation of resources - both human and financial - and the consistent prioritisation of policy development.
In the context of the recently concluded TES, Namibia commits to transformative leadership, ensuring access to inclusive digital technologies and developing a strategy for innovative financing and resource mobilisation, he said.
“In Namibia, the education sector receives the largest share of budgetary support, equivalent to 8% of gross domestic product [GDP] and almost a quarter of the total national budget. The Namibian government offers free primary and secondary education, which demonstrates our commitment to prioritising and expanding access to education for all.”
He added that Namibia’s classification as an upper middle-income country presents challenges in mobilising resources to finance its development goals.
“As I have been saying, taking our GDP and dividing it by the small population, thus deriving a high per capita income, is - without doubt - a flawed formula that requires urgent consideration.”
The formula does not take into account the vast income disparities between the wealthy white and the poor black, which is a consequence of 100 years of colonialism and apartheid occupation, the president said.
However, he added that he is pleased to hear that a number of developing and developed countries are in agreement with this unfair classification, which denies countries like Namibia access to soft loans and grants, which are necessary to fight inequality and to lift many out of poverty.
High-level side event
The high-level side event on transforming education in Africa was a dedicated to African heads of state committing to transforming education on the continent and for education to be the African Union (AU) theme of the year for 2023.
Speakers included: Moussa Faki Mahamat, the chairperson of the AU commission; Julius Maada Bio, the president of Sierra Leone; Audrey Azoulay, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) director general; Catherine Russell, Unicef executive director; David Beasley, World Food Programme executive director, and Nana Akufo-Addo, the president of Ghana.

Commitments
They reiterated their commitments and their call for all AU member states:
To work towards the achievement of the Continental Education Strategy for Africa 2016 to 2025 and education-related targets of the SDGs, in particular SDG four.
To advocate for education to be the AU theme of the year for 2023 and for the implementation of the call by the UN secretary-general to transform education globally.

To take deliberate measures:
To increase sustainable financing and systematic investment in education in line with international and regional benchmarks.
To strengthen mechanisms for education budget transparency, efficiency and accountability.
To allocate more funding to neglected but critical sub-sectors with evidence of high returns on investment, such as early childhood care and education, re-integration of out-of-school girls and boys in the education system and green technical and vocational education and training.
To reform the teaching profession with a focus on quality teacher training, including the use of new technologies in teaching, and development programmes at all levels. This should include teachers’ recruitment and management policies that improve learner outcomes and help to improve teacher retention and fulfilment.
To upscale the implementation of evidence-based innovative feasible and sustainable solutions.

Beyond the summit
Beyond the summit, seven global initiative calls to action - launched at the event - will focus on solutions to transform education, focusing on:
Greening education to get every learner climate-ready;
Connecting every child and young person to digital solutions;
Addressing the crisis in foundational learning among young learners;
Transforming education systems to enable all crisis-affected children and youth to access inclusive, quality, safe learning opportunities and continuity of education;
Advancing gender equality and girls and women’s empowerment;
Transforming the financing of education by investing more, more equitably, more efficiently, and more innovatively;
Empowering young people to be effective leaders in reshaping education.

Cabinet approval
In Namibia, the report on the national conference on education - which took place from 2 to 5 August in Windhoek - was presented to and approved by Cabinet. Among its recommendations are:
That a high-level national conference on education task force be formed, which should identify and prioritise key recommendations (levers of change) from among the rest and propose an implementation plan for consideration by Cabinet.
The task force should oversee the implementation of the levers of change, through respective technical committees.
Four technical committees have been proposed to aid the work of the task force as follows:
Inclusive, equable, safe and healthy schools, chaired by Edda Bohn, deputy executive director of formal education and schools;
Learning and skills for life, work and sustainable development chaired by Gerard Vries, deputy executive director of life-long learning, arts and culture;
Teachers, teaching and the teaching profession and technical vocational education, chaired by Raimo Naanda, the deputy executive director of the ministry of higher education, training and innovation;
Digital learning and transformation, education financing and organisational development, chaired by Knox Imbuwa, the deputy executive director of finance and administration.

Way forward
The ministry of education, arts and culture and the ministry of higher education, technology and innovation jointly committed to establishing a high-level multi-sectoral task force and technical committees to oversee, direct, monitor and report back on the implementation of the recommendations:
Co-chair the high-level multi-sectoral task force;
Host a wide domestic funds mobilisation stakeholder meeting (National Funders’ Forum) and strengthen the Friends of Education Special Initiative (FENSI) with the support of UN agencies and FENSI
Return to Cabinet early in 2023 to present a costed implementation, monitoring and evaluation plan.