The 77th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA 77) will take place in New York City, from the 13th through the 27th (September 2022). In the middle of the General Assembly, on September 19, the UN Secretary-General will convene the Transforming Education Summit (TES).
The Transforming Education Summit “seeks to mobilize political ambition, action, solutions and solidarity to transform education: to take stock of efforts to recover pandemic-related learning losses; to reimagine education systems for the world of today and tomorrow; and to revitalize national and global efforts to achieve SDG-4.”
SDG-4, or Goal #4 of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), aims to ensure quality education, because access to a good education can allow people to escape poverty and move up on the socioeconomic ladder. “The Transforming Education Summit will seek to renew our collective commitment to education and lifelong learning as a pre-eminent public good,” says António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Goodwall is there
Over the week of September 19 to 23, 2022, Goodwallers will be represented in New York by CEO and co-founder Taha Bawa and Eugenio Donadio, our Chief Impact Officer. Taha will be speaking at the Generation Unlimited Leadership Council meeting, and Eugenio will be presenting at the UNDP’s Youth4Climate event and the Partner Forum on Gender Equality and Girls’ Education.
Goodwall has been working very closely with organizations to bring youth voices to the global stage. As an example, we will be presenting our findings from working with the African Union and Unicef – we gathered over 4 million youth voices from across 13 countries on their desired changes to their education systems and will be presenting a Manifesto – which will reach the highest powers of the UN.
Among the other important points gathered, the youth believe:
- There should be a prioritization of sexual health and mental health education, and to learn more about the environment and diversity and inclusion, as well as online safety.
- 82% of youth consider that the government should provide more support for learning basic reading and math in primary school.
- Almost 3 out of 5 (60%) of youth consider that schools should use their money to have more teachers or pay them better.
Our message is clear: the youth of the world know how they want their education systems to transform; what new subjects they want to learn and, unsurprisingly, they want to see their teachers being better paid.
We started Goodwall in response to the global gap in upskilling youth and we have proven that digital tools are a key ingredient to supporting young people’s dreams for the future.
