Excellencies, 

Ladies and gentlemen, 

Dear Colleagues,

It is my pleasure to bring this Special Event on Transforming Education to a close.

I want to begin by thanking the President of the General Assembly and the President of ECOSOC for joining the Secretary-General in convening this meeting, demonstrating the full commitment of the three main organs of the United Nations to education transformation.

I also wish to thank each and every one of our speakers, panellists and representatives from Member States whose contributions made this a rich and exciting event.

A special word of appreciation to President Sahle Wok Zewde for her continued leadership and drive for education transformation.

Finally, I wish to thank our moderator, Redi Tlhabi, for guiding us so skillfully and energetically through today’s programme.

Excellencies,

We leave this meeting with a clear to do list.

In his opening address, the Secretary-General put forward a concrete plan to end the global crisis in education and shift the trajectory towards achieving SDG4 by 2030, calling for urgent action in four key areas:

• Closing the access to education gap 
• Supporting teachers to tackle the quality gap.
• Addressing the education financing gap
• And reimagining the broader education system to better prepare societies for the future.

These issues featured prominently right across our deliberations today.

Christina Williams shook up the room, telling us that if we are serious about delivering on the right to education, then we must be serious about partnering and co-creating the future of education with young people. 

ED Catherine Russell of UNICEF told us about the importance of being more strategic in how we support countries on the ground and Minister Cataldo stressed the need to close the global teacher gap.

Our finance panel told us that we need to focus on domestic resources, on public finance efficiency, on tax justice and on tackling debt challenges. 

And our learning societies panel saw a major focus on finding the perfect relationship between two Ts: teachers and technology.

There was also a strong reverberation here from what we heard from last month’s Transforming Education Summit Stocktake in Paris and from the contribution of the SDG4 High-Level Steering Committee.

And I want to pay tribute to our colleagues in UNESCO but also to the Government of Chile – its President and Minister Cataldo – for stepping forward and lending Chile’s substantial leadership to the cause of education.

Looking ahead, it is essential that the SDG4 Steering Committee continue to pave the way and to guide the global education community towards more effective action to achieve SDG4.

This will be the central focus of the UNESCO-convened Global Education Meeting later this year.

These issues will also feature strongly at the Summit of the Future in September, the Financing for Development Conference next June and the World Social Summit next October.

The message today was clear: education is intrinsic to the achievement of our common goals in sustainable development, peace and human rights.

It speaks to the very fabric of our societies, and it has an essential contribution to make to navigating the unprecedented changes and challenges we face in the world today.

We heard clearly from many member states that this reality much be recognized up front by world leaders in the Pact for Future and expanded upon in the twin meetings in Spain and Qatar next year.

We also heard clearly that the international community must step up in its support to developing countries to achieve SDG4 – including the UN system.

Education and skills are a central focus in our push for SDG Acceleration – as an essential ingredient of our effort to grow advance rapid, just and fair transitions in the green and digital economies.

We look forward to continuing this journey to education transformation and to working with you all to make it happen.

Thank you.