UNESCO and UNICEF have launched the Global Consultation on Education and are inviting young people, civil society, non-governmental organizations, governments, academia, media, the UN system and the private sector to contribute their experiences and ideas on how to improve education around the world. It will help review progress on the Education for All (EFA) goals and the MDGs and discuss how to ensure that the issues around education are effectively addressed and have a central place in a new development framework after 2015.
The Education Consultation will run from now until March 2013, including through online, moderated e-discussions, in four specific areas:
1. Equitable Access to Education;
2. Quality of Learning;
3. Global Citizenship, Skills and Jobs;
4. Governance and Financing of Education.
Each of the four e-discussions will last approximately two weeks. The first discussion on Equitable Access to Education will be held from 10 December to 24 December.
In the public, open-access discussion forum civil society organizations and others are welcome to discuss education-related issues that they think should be priorities for the next development agenda. Views and comments can be posted in any of the 60 languages that the Google translator supports on the web space.
The results of e-discussions will be presented in a synthesis report form at the Education Leadership Meeting in Dakar, Senegal in February 2013. A final summary report will then feed into the High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda (HLP), as well as to the inter-governmental debate on the post-2015 development agenda at the 2013 UN General Assembly.