Transforming Education Summit 2022 FAQs

The Summit will take place in New York in September 2022 during high level week of the UN General Assembly. A Pre-Summit took place 29-30 June 2022 at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, to capture the evolving discussions and generate greater momentum in the lead up to the September event.

The timing is critical. In spite of progress made over the past decades, the international community is falling behind on its commitments. Indeed, the world is experiencing a deepening global education crisis, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has left hundreds of millions of children and young people deprived of their right to quality education. Beyond issues of access and inequality, education systems will face major challenges in the years ahead including: dramatic changes in the world of work, the emergence of technical innovations that challenge the purposes of, and modalities for, education provision, the reality of climate emergency and a general loss of trust between people and institutions.

There is an urgent need to reignite international political and financial commitment to education as a global public good and to accelerate progress towards realizing SDG 4: ‘ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote learning opportunity of all’ and radically transform education systems.’ But there is an equally urgent need for collective reflection on how education systems can evolve to accompany and support the transformation of societies by 2030.

The Summit thus takes place at the critical mid-point of the Sustainable Development Agenda and an important juncture in the Global Education Cooperation  Mechanism's roadmap for achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4 (Quality Education).

Member states and stakeholders are central to making the Transforming Education Summit a success and all countries are expected to actively engage in the various Summit work stream activities, namely: convening national and regional consultations, participating in online thematic consultations around the action tracks, contributing good practices, innovative studies and reports, as well as participating in the Pre-Summit and the Summit.

To this end:

• There will be regular briefings to delegations in New York and Paris.
• The Summit Advisory Committee will be co-chaired by the DSG and a Member State representative.
• 11 Member States representatives are invited to serve on the Summit Advisory Committee.
• Member States are centrally involved in the Summit Action Tracks.
• Ministers of Education will be invited to attend the Pre-Summit.

Heads of State and Government will be invited to participate in the Summit and encouraged to report on progress made in addressing pandemic-related learning losses and present their national statement of commitment at the Summit in September which should build on existing plans and capture national commitments and consensus on priority actions.

The preparations for the Summit are supported by a multi-tier governance structure.

• On behalf of the Secretary-General, UN Deputy Secretary-General (DSG) Amina Mohammed, is overseeing the Summit preparations.
• She is supported by Special Adviser, Leonardo Garnier, who is responsible for mobilizing and engaging with key partners and will help place the Summit high on the international political agenda with a view to generating concrete commitments.
• A UN Task Team, chaired by the Executive Director of UNICEF, Catherine Russell, provides a platform for all relevant UN entities to engage and cooperate effectively.
• A Summit Advisory Committee will offer strategic guidance to all actors and stakeholders leading up to the event.
• The Summit Secretariat, hosted and led by the UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Education, Stefania Giannini, provides support to Summit preparations and related activities throughout the whole process.
• Two Member States and a non-state Stakeholder representative act as Co-Leads for each Action Track, backstopped by a UN Support Team to ensure an open and transparent process.

As the UN specialized agency for education, UNESCO is wearing a number of hats. First, UNESCO is hosting the inter-agency Summit Secretariat, which is responsible for the overall coordination of preparatory activities and for taking forward the decisions of the Summit Advisory Committee. The Summit Secretariat is led by UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Education.

In collaboration with other UN organizations and partners, UNESCO is also providing technical inputs and guidance to the overall design of the Summit and its contents. The flagship Report of the International Commission for the Futures of Education, ‘Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education,’ and the ongoing dialogues within the Global Corporation Mechanism for SDG 4, will serve as a basis for national stakeholder consultations that will help to shape outcomes of the Summit.

Finally, UNESCO will channel its technical expertise to the Summit’s Action Tracks which align with the four thematic focus areas identified by the High-Level Steering Committee for SDG 4, together with financing for education. These address key accelerators across the education cycle to achieve SDG 4 in the COVID-19 context and beyond, and integrate an explicit focus on advancing inclusion, equity, and gender equality. The Action Tracks also provide another framework for national and international consultations (at a later date, additional priority areas may be chosen that require greater and urgent actions with Member States playing a lead role in these processes).

For its part, UNICEF will play a key role in the Summit preparations at country level as part of the UN Country Teams. UNICEF Regional Offices also serve as the focal points to coordinate support and monitor progress of the national consultations within their regions in coordination and collaboration with UNESCO regional offices. At the global level, UNICEF serves on the Summit Advisory Committee and the Executive Director serves as the chair of the UN Task Team.

The preparatory process managed by the Summit Secretariat, as well as the pre-Summit and Summit itself, build on several of the existing stakeholder platforms under the umbrella of the Global Education Cooperation Mechanism (GCM). The Summit Secretariat is working alongside the GCM Inter-Agency Secretariat (IAS) to ensure alignment and synergies.

Of note, the Secretariat is placed under the Inter-Agency Secretariat for the SDG 4-Education 2030  High-Level Steering Committee (HLSC), also hosted by UNESCO, which is expected to ensure that commitments, coalitions and initiatives created in the context of the Summit are taken forward and monitored beyond September 2022.

To ignite reflections and mobilize the political commitment and actions necessary, the Summit deliberations will draw on the findings from the review of the progress towards SDG 4 at the 2022 High-Level Political Forum (HLPF).

Pre-Summit Keynote Address

Notably, this year’s HLPF, under the theme “Building back better from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) while advancing the full implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, assessed the impact, progress and lessons learned of the COVID-19 pandemic on the implementation of SDG 4 and other goals. The review generated policy recommendations, commitments, and cooperation measures to be considered for inclusion into the Ministerial Declaration.

Finally, the Summit can help build momentum in advance of the 2023 HLPF under the General Assembly and the outcomes of the TES will further inform the Summit of the Future in 2023.

The Pre-Summit was held in Paris from 28-30 June, with nearly 2,000 participants, including more than 150 ministers and vice-ministers in attendance.

The Pre-Summit kicked off with a Youth Forum that brought together youth activists and representatives whose voices and ideas will be key to the outcome of the Summit. Governments and key stakeholders laid out national pathways to address priority actions to transform education, that will be elaborated at the Summit.

The Summit requires a focused, intensive, and inclusive preparatory process built from the ground up responding to Member State priorities, and ensuring the meaningful engagement of young people and the full set of education stakeholders. A significant emphasis is therefore placed on country level engagement throughout the process via:

• A series of government-led inclusive national consultations aimed at developing a shared vision and commitment to transform education between now and 2030 and ensuring deep and sustained public engagement to align action across constituencies.
• Countries serving as a co-lead for the action tracks, together with key stakeholders, to guide the development of discussion papers and substantive inputs to the Pre-Summit and Summit.
• Participation in public online consultations around the Action Tracks, to provide constructive inputs to the discussion paper, identifying and contributing good practices and innovations for curation, and advocating for the Action Track and the work thereunder at local, national, and global levels.
• Participating in the Pre-Summit (Ministerial level) and the Summit (Heads of State and Government level,) and announcing national commitments to transform education.

Deep and sustained public support and engagement from all stakeholders, particularly young people and civil society, is essential, given the speed and scale of change needed to achieve SDG 4 targets and to reimagine education. 

One of the main Summit work streams is public engagement through two main approaches:

• engaging youth and children from the outset through the Summit preparations and
• increasing public support both at the global and country levels through inclusive, youth-led mobilization efforts.

To ensure their engagement, civil society representatives have been invited based on their ability to represent their group, their capacity to engage in high-level policy discussions and decision-making, and their pro-activeness in leading on the development of their groups. With the support from the Summit Secretariat, Member States will also be able to suggest and vet invited representatives during the whole Summit process.

Youth engagement is at the heart of the Transforming Education Summit, as the voices of young people are essential to forging a path to transforming education.

A Youth Declaration has been developed in the lead-up to the Summit. It is a collective process facilitated by the Office of the Secretary-General's Envoy on Youth together with the Summit Secretariat and a number of partners to gather young people’s inputs on what transforming education should look like, outline a set of recommendations to policymakers, and highlight young people’s collective commitments and actions. The Youth Declaration will be presented to the Secretary-General at the Transforming Education Summit. Young people all over the world are encouraged to shape and influence this crucial document.

At the Summit, a youth-led and youth-organized Mobilization Day will kickstart the Summit proceedings on Friday, 16 September 2022. On this day young people will share their commitments and views on transforming education with decision-makers through meaningful intergenerational dialogues including with education champions and education authorities.

You can reach out to the Summit Secretariat through e-mail:

• For general inquiries to the Secretariat: tes@unesco.org
• For information on the National Consultations:  tes.nationalconsultations@unesco.org
• For information on the Action Tracks: tes.actiontracks@unesco.org
• For media relations and communication: TES.communications@unesco.org