Youth Declaration Process

TES Moderator
TES Moderator • 19 July 2022
49 comments

Youth Declaration consultation process

Welcome!

Welcome to the discussion on the Youth Declaration consultation process. The discussion ensures engagement and is open to all. To get involved in the discussion, sign up, create your log in and share your thoughts below ⬇

Explanation about the process

Transforming education can only be achieved if we, young people, are included in the processes of implementing policy and systematic changes to education stakeholders and governments. This is why youth must be engaged in critical events that will shape education’s future, such as the Transforming Education Summit (TES) (September 2022).

Developed by the Office of the Secretary-General's Envoy on Youth together with the Summit Secretariat hosted by UNESCO and a number of partners, the Youth Declaration has:

  • gathered young people’s collective views on what transforming education should look like
  • outlined young people’s collective recommendations to decision and policymakers, including governments, civil society, international organizations, the United Nations, and others on transforming education
  • highlighted young people’s collective commitments and actions towards transforming education

Watch a video on the process

Remote video URL

 

The Youth Declaration was presented, on 16 September 2022, to the Secretary-General as young people’s inputs to the Chair's Summary of the Transforming Education Summit. 

Young people all over the world were encouraged to shape and influence this crucial document.

Watch the introduction to the Youth Declaration by Jayathma Wickramanayake, United Nations Secretary-General's Envoy on Youth and SDG4Youth members Doris Mwikali and Sofia Bermudez at the Pre-Summit 28-30 June at UNESCO HQ Paris

Remote video URL

Process

The Declaration heard from youth around the world with different backgrounds and contexts. To this end, several public consultations took place between June and September 2022. In addition, the Youth Declaration took into account outcomes of past consultations and various calls to action and other resources that have been developed in relation to the Transforming Education Summit. An independent consultant was responsible for bringing all these resources together and ensuring that young people in all their diversity and worldwide were engaged in a meaningful, diverse, and effective manner throughout this process.

Desk review of key resources and consultations

The Youth Declaration was informed by the following key consultations:

  • World Largest Lesson’s Transforming Education Survey (Transforming Education Survey | The World's Largest Lesson - globalgoals.org)
  • UNESCO’s “Three questions to Transform Education” Survey - the survey can be found on the Futures of Education website in English | French | Spanish
  • UNICEF U-Report poll calling on all young people to share their views on Transforming Education: Messenger https://bit.ly/TEducationFB | WhatsApp https://bit.ly/TEducationWA | Viber https://bit.ly/TEducationVR 

Other key resources include:

Youth Declaration Consultations

During the Pre-Summit, a Youth Consultation was held on June 29th 2022. The following takeaways can be highlighted:

  • To ensure youth can keep track of the commitments made by governments to transform education,  an accountability mechanism must be established. This is critical to create structural changes and ensure countries put education on the agenda.
  • Young people not only need to be heard by stakeholders and governments, but if we really want to achieve SDG4 and transform education, they also need to be included in the process and play an active role.
  • Any proposal, action, or change we want for education in any field demands more financing. Countries must commit to transforming education not only by words but by concrete actions and funding. Otherwise, we will never be able to create structural changes and ensure access to quality education for everyone.

A second consultation was held online in July and a third in August.

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Youth

Comments (49)

TES team
TES team • 1 week ago

Follow live today! Transforming Education Summit starts at 10am New York time https://media.un.org/en/webtv/schedule/2022-09-16

16 September is the Mobilization Day. It will be youth-led and youth-organized and will involve the full participation of a wide range of stakeholders. It will serve to convey the collective recommendations of youth on transforming education to decision and policymakers, informed by the Summit Youth Declaration. It will also focus on mobilizing the global public, youth, teachers, civil society and others to support the transformation of education across the world. Ministers and Member State delegations are actively encouraged to participate in these engagements. Further details will be provided in due course.

Programme: https://www.un.org/en/transforming-education-summit/programme

Niger Youth
Niger Youth • 2 weeks ago

Priorities of Youth of Niger regarding Education ahead of #TES. It was this afternoon 13th September during the meeting between the Government of Niger the UN Agencies. The meeting has been led y the President of the Republic, His Excellency Mohamed BAZOUM. More details? Click on the link https://tinyurl.com/ym4yn8ry

Brooke Blanchard
Brooke Blanchard • 3 weeks ago

IF YOU STRUGGLE TO SEE, YOU STRUGGLE TO LEARN

450 million children around the world have a vision impairment that requires treatment. 80% of what young children learn is processed through their sight. Therefore, if a child struggles to see, they will struggle to learn. Children with unaddressed vision impairments are up to five times less likely to be in formal education, have poorer educational outcomes, and risk future earning potential and well-being. Studies now show that children are experiencing worsening vision at a faster-than-expected rate, with 50% of the world’s population expected to be myopic by 2050.

While there are many barriers to education, vision loss should not be one. Unlike some protracted public health challenges, avoidable sight loss is a global issue that is realistically within our grasp to solve by 2030. Uncorrected refractive error (including myopia) is the leading cause of vision impairment in children, but it is 100% correctable with glasses – a 700-year-old invention. Unless action is taken now, future need will exceed our capacity and children and nations will be left behind.

The WHO and the World Bank recommend prioritizing the implementation of school eye health programs, including screenings for eye and vision problems to ensure critical early diagnosis, treatment and prevention, to ensure inclusive education systems and improve education outcomes. School eye health programmes are highly cost-effective to administer, and their benefits can be large – with potentially more than 700 million children throughout the world gaining access to crucial services. Providing eyeglasses to those who need them can reduce the odds of failing a class by 44%.

In support of national efforts to implement the UN resolution on vision and in order to reimagine education systems for the world of today and tomorrow, revitalize national and global efforts to achieve SDG-4, and acknowledge the impact and rapid growth of vision impairment amongst children, we are calling on member states to urge the Secretary-General to:

1. Acknowledge the critical role vision plays in our education systems to deliver the knowledge, skills and outlooks needed for children, young people and adults to excel in today’s world and contribute to sustainable, healthy and peaceful futures.
2. Commit to addressing the inequity around access to education and health services by providing sight tests, affordable glasses, and other treatments for all children by 2030, guaranteeing increased school attendance, educational attainment and enabling long term social and economic opportunity by delivering clear vision.

We encourage everyone to learn more about this critical global health and development issue: https://www.iapb.org/learn/knowledge-hub/elevate/child-eye-health/

Evangelos Vlachakis
Evangelos Vlachakis • 1 month ago

To the UNESCO INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION FOR THE FUTURES OF EDUCATION
Dear Commissioners,
This is a covering letter for our attached response to your reports ‘Education in a Post-Covid World’ of
June 2020 and ‘Progress Update’ of March 2021. (Please reply to [email protected])
We are an international group which includes the director of a major national educational innovation
programme, vice-chair of a European wide democratic education organisation, a school inspector,
teachers who have created innovations in their schools in Canada, Israel, Spain and the UK, and a
human rights expert who is also a parent.

Response to UNESCO 261021.pdf358.29 KBpdf
Evangelos Vlachakis
Evangelos Vlachakis • 1 month ago

Attached hereunder 159 interesting memes extracted from the UNESCO report. Everything is there to claim the support of an education that makes sense, that truly enables to thrive, so to demand the realization of the right to education. It is now up to us to require participation and acknowledgement AND RADICAL CHANGE !

159 memes full report(1).docx39.9 KBdocument
Evangelos Vlachakis
Evangelos Vlachakis • 1 month ago

Can education help reinforce democracy and bridge growing inequalities? The 2016 World Forum for Democracy focused on the co-relation and co-dependence between education and democracy. It examined whether they can reinforce each other and together address the risks of new social divides. Specifically, the forum explored how education and democracy can nurture active citizens with critical and analytical skills, and how through fostering grassroots innovation and bottom-up democratic reform, it can help develop civic engagement and improve opportunities for all.

Gunchaa Shandilya
Gunchaa Shandilya • 1 month ago

Gunchaa audaciously asks the world leaders to look at what has been made of education and the deadly implications it has. we need to transform education and the way we see it. we need to come forward and scrutinise our system. this will make sure we are living in a world that guarantees sustainable and educational equality. it's time we came together to fight for this cause.
-GUNCHAA SHANDILYA, GLOBAL YOUTH AMBASSADOR.

Jihan Zeidan
Jihan Zeidan • 1 month ago

Yazan is sending us all a message about the importance of inclusion in the educational system in the mainstream school. His message is to promote inclusion within regular schools for students with visual impairments by presenting challenges and difficulties and trying to overcome them. I recommend you to look at Yazan's video below.
https://youtu.be/-t8Cf5aQh9k

Youth Declaration
Youth Declaration • 1 month ago

The Millennials Movement Recommendations on the Transforming Education Summit - These recommendations are made on behalf of The Millennials Movement, a youth lead organization that mobilizes youth in 16 countries of the Latin American and Caribbean Region and reflect the voices of youth in the region who demand an inclusive and quality education that allows them to transform their lives and the communities present and futures, responding to the global crisis while pursuing their dreams and aspirations.

The Millennials Movement Recommendations TES.pdf341.37 KBpdf
Youth Declaration
Youth Declaration • 1 month ago

The report, 'Meaningful Inclusion of Youth: A Promising Future' was prepared by the Youth Sounding Board for EU International Partnerships. In this report, young people from around the world voice their opinions, share thoughts about the challenges they face and discuss their solutions and efforts to make a difference. The information presented is the consolidated result of comprehensive consultations with youth, youth-led organisations and youth-focused organisations, as well as subject-matter experts from over 50 countries.

Meaningful inclusion of youth - a promising future_0.pdf988.48 KBpdf
Fatima Derby
Fatima Derby • 1 month ago

The 2022 Global AIDS update Report shows that every two minutes, an adolescent girl or young woman was newly infected with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa in 2021. The SDGs promise that no one would be left behind. That means all women and girls, groups living in marginalized situations, and affected by the HIV epidemic.

Education is a right of all children. Educating girls is a must. Secondary education, including comprehensive sexuality education, helps adolescent girls prevent teenage pregnancy, child marriage, gender-based violence, including Intimate Partner Violence. Getting girls through at least a secondary education is a key strategy to enable AGYW to prevent HIV—with impressive drops in new HIV infections by as much as one-third to one-half in high-prevalence countries.

Recommendations for the Youth Declaration_0.docx14.58 KBdocument
Muska Ehsan
Muska Ehsan • 1 month ago

It feels like the world has forgotten about girls' education in Afghanistan. It should be considered a top priority in each nation. Since this has been harmful to our generation it is our responsibility to take action and be heard. I believe if the girls in Afghanistan cannot go to school we should bring the school to their homes. Thus, I have started an organization called Youth For Youth community which connects Afghan students with young tutors worldwide.

The awareness about such issues must spread and action must be taken by asking a simple question ourselves, what is my part?

Katia Alexandra Ruiz
Katia Alexandra Ruiz • 1 month ago

Las escuelas necesitan de docentes apasionados por enseñar y por aprender, que reten a los estudiantes y faciliten su aprendizaje. Un profesor es un agente de cambio y en realidad, el único objetivo de nuestro trabajo es que los estudiantes aprendan.

Pankaj Prabhu
Pankaj Prabhu • 1 month ago

We should work for free education, and ask the government of nations that took part in the UN to add education as rights of human right for everyone.

Faatiha Aayat
Faatiha Aayat • 2 months ago

It is the high time for today's youth to raise their voice for Education Equality and Learning Justice. Otherwise none but them should swallow the bitter pill.

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