The Tony Blair Institute is proud to be working with UNESCO as a partner in the Global Education Coalition. Through our education programme, Generation Global, we will support countries in implementing best distance-learning practices to reach children and young people who have had their education disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
As Tony Blair explains:
“My Institute is directly supporting governments in their fight against COVID19 and helping them face the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic that is sweeping the globe.
“One of those challenges will be ensuring that children continue to receive a quality education. Already 1.5 billion young people have had their schooling disrupted. We must help them have access to education so that they can continue to learn, grow and thrive in the future.
“UNESCO’s Global Coalition brings together expertise and resources from the public and private sector to address this growing demand by scaling up remote learning and figuring out how to adapt education systems both now and during the recovery phase.
“My Institute’s pioneering virtual education programme has, for over 10 years, connected young people in over 30 countries to learn from each other as a means of promoting tolerance and overcoming prejudice in the next generation.
“The need for this global connection and learning will be even more acute as this pandemic gets a grip on communities and countries are closing their borders. Working with coalition partners, my Institute will provide education solutions that support young people to build empathy across boundaries and challenge misinformation and hate speech, in a safe and inclusive environment.
“Using our education platform we will continue to advance opportunities for young people to learn and practice the skills of dialogue and understanding, ensuring the next generation is equipped to face the opportunities and challenges of a global community.
“This coalition will bring together the greatest minds to find innovative solutions to enable widespread distance learning wherever it is needed, especially for low-income communities in both developed and developing countries. Some of these pressing challenges include:
developing low and no-tech remote learning opportunities,
ensuring online safety at a time when cyber-crime is increasing; and
using technology to support educational messaging and behavioural change around social distancing and healthy practices.
“Despite the difficult circumstances we find ourselves in, we must pool our collective resources to overcome these challenges using the technological advances we now have. Educating our young people must continue to be a priority for us all.”
Follow the work of the coalition on Twitter via #LearningNeverStops and on the UNESCO Global Education Coalition homepage.
At the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, we are focusing our efforts to support the fight against coronavirus. Our education programme, Generation Global, is offering existing students a safe space to interact with their global peers using our resources and online student dialogue forum. At the same time, we are hosting virtual dialogue circles for teachers across all the regions we operate in (the Americas, Asia, Middle East and Europe) and will soon be launching a student learning pathway that will complement the Coalition’s education efforts. To find out more visit Generation Global.