Reimagining education for a more just world: Inspire, change, together.

 

 

Background

In the recent Declaration on the commemoration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the United Nations, Member States have highlighted that “growing inequality within and among countries is jeopardizing our efforts to ensure the future we want […] and leads to people's mistrust in institutions of governance”.

Regarding the education sector, this situation has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 outbreak, which created the largest disruption of education systems in history with 1.5 billion learners across the planet affected by school closures and new challenges faced by higher education institutions. With the shifting of a portion of the traditional classroom teaching to the digital realm, a significant part of the population that had limited or no access at all to communication technologies has been left behind and the already existing digital gap has increased. In some contexts, the COVID-19 pandemic has raised fundamental concerns about a potential erosion of human rights and the rule of law, during the current context and post-pandemic.

For all aspects of society, the rule of law is fundamental for forging relationships of mutual accountability, reliability and building trust in public actors and institutions. Acknowledging the role of education to promote the rule of law and to support the advancing of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), UNESCO and UNODC have partnered on a project to promote Global Citizenship Education, which is part of the Education for Justice (E4J) initiative, under the UNODC Global Programme for the Implementation of the Doha Declaration. The E4J initiative promotes an innovative and creative approach to foster the teaching of topics related to the rule of law at schools (primary and secondary levels) and higher education institutions worldwide. E4J is partnering with thousands of educators and academics worldwide, acknowledging the crucial role that schools and higher education institutions play as places where the next generation will be empowered to become the leaders that are needed for tomorrow. Leaders needed to strengthen peace and justice around the world and prioritize the achievement of the SDGs.

Education for Justice Global Dialogue Series

Following the success of the 2019 E4J International High-Level Conference and inspired by the vast array of innovative approaches from around the world to ensure that #LearningNeverStops, UNODC will host from 1-4 December 2020 the E4J Global Dialogue Series, consisting of online discussions on the topics of education for the rule of law, youth voice and the role of schools and higher education institutions in contributing to the SDGs, in particular SDG 16. The discussions will focus on and target primary, secondary and tertiary education levels, with a particular emphasis on how the international education community needs to respond to the growing challenges that education is currently facing.

The online interactive discussions will also provide an avenue to discuss the future of education on issues related to justice, the rule of law, SDGs and social cohesion, from the perspective of the numerous international and distinguished partners, educators and academics that cooperate with E4J, as well as youth representatives and other beneficiaries.

 
Next: Day 1
Back to top