Building Education System Back Better

in the COVID-19 Context

22 September 2020 (Webinar with interactive discussion)

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic has rendered unprecedented, devastating impacts on people’s life in almost all countries around the world. Education for children and youth is no exception. Both nation-wide and localized school closures to contain the pandemic are affecting over 60% of the world’s enrolled student population.[1]This accounts for more than one billion learners across the globe. Schools are trying to overcome the negative impact of school closures by turning to the online distance learning. However, where this solution is not feasible, access to learning is severely denied. Furthermore, lack of access to the internet and computers would push many marginalized students into a more difficult situation. According to the SDG Report 2020 released by the United Nations, remote learning remains out of reach for at least 500 million students.[2]

This has worsened the already vulnerable situations which many marginalized students have been confronting. Their right to quality, safe and inclusive education is being severely disrupted. The pandemic situation is indeed slowing down the progress towards the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal #4, inclusive and equitable quality education. Inequalities in education have been exacerbated by COVID-19. In low-income countries, children’s school completion rate is 79% in richest 20% of households and only 34% in poorest 20% of households.[3]

The pandemic does pose severe threats to those children with little or no access to social protection services. COVID-19 educational disruption has had a profound impact on the most marginalized children suffering from poverty, in particular on children with disabilities and girls in fragile situations. In this context, CIFAL Jeju organizes an online event to explore the COVID-19 impact on education and ways to reduce risks for the health and safety of vulnerable children and to make distance learning readily accessible to them. The event will also provide the potential participants with a platform to discuss and share the key essentials to build education systems back better.

Objectives

ž  To provide a platform for good practices and lessons learned to be shared

ž  To discuss how different strategies and policies by country can be adapted to address the education divide in the COVID-19 context

ž  To share inputs on how to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education in the COVID-19 context  

Target Audience

This program is open to government officials and practitioners from CSOs who have been working in the area related to Sustainable Development Goal #4, inclusive and equitable quality education.

Application and deadline

Send the filled-in application form to cifaljeju.jitc.1@gmail.com by 20 September 2020 (Sunday).

Organizer

UNITAR CIFAL Jeju/Jeju International Training Center

Website

http://cifaljeju.org/

Program Details

ž  The Zoom meeting will begin at 16:00 Korean Time (GMT+9) on 22 September.

*The above program is subject to change.