19 September: Leaders Day

• Opening segment

1.     Introductory film
2.     Opening remarks
3.     Youth Segment: The imperative for education transformation

• Setting the Scene panel discussion: Towards Education Transformation

The Transforming Education Summit was being convened in response to a global crisis in education – one of equity and inclusion, quality and relevance. Often slow and unseen, this crisis is having a devastating impact on the futures of children and youth worldwide. The Summit provided a unique opportunity to elevate education to the top of the global political agenda and to mobilize action, ambition, solidarity and solutions to recover pandemic-related learning losses and sow the seeds to transform education in a rapidly changing world.

The world is witnessing an alarming increase in the number of people affected by armed conflict, forced displacement (including large-scale refugee displacement), environmental/climate-induced disasters, and other crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the Spotlight Session 1, Member States and partner co-convenors (ECW, GPE, UNESCO, UNHCR and UNICEF) seized the momentum of the United Nations Secretary-General-convened Transforming Education Summit to galvanize collective commitments and launch a renewed partnership for concrete transformative actions in crisis situations.

The Spotlight Session 1 was co-hosted by: The State of Qatar ECW, GPE, UNESCO, UNHCR and UNICEF

The Spotlight Session 2 on Foundational Learning is an opportunity to share and celebrate exemplary practices and mobilize strong leadership and action with the speed, focus and scale which the learning crisis demands.

More specifically, Spotlight Session 2 on Foundational learning of the Transforming Education Summit aims to:

• Share key actions being advanced to improve foundational skills for all, including national strategies for learning recovery and acceleration, improvements in access to and use of technology, and school and community-led practices;
• Learn from leaders of governments on national commitments being made to reduce learning poverty; and,
• Call on other national leaders and leaders of organizations and companies to take further action to reduce learning poverty.

The event was co-organized by a coalition of partners including the Government of the Republic of Sierra Leone, UNICEF, UNESCO, USAID, The World Bank, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the United Kingdom's Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO).

The Spotlight Session 3 concretely aims to mobilize strong political commitment and partnership for action at the highest level to transform education to harness its full potential for transforming society towards a just, peaceful, healthy and sustainable world, in particular by strengthening a focus on two interlinked areas:

•     Tackling climate and environmental crisis
•     Fostering ethical and socially responsible global citizens.

The two areas of action are closely interlinked and mutually reinforcing. Empowered, equal global citizens, contribute to global efforts to promote social justice, to tackle climate change, gender inequality and other sustainability challenges; at the same time, greening education would include learning and engagement on issues such as climate justice, human rights to healthy environments, gendered-impact of climate change, climate denial and misinformation, climate-induced conflict which are closely intertwined with global citizenship education. Given the urgency of global sustainability challenges, this high-level dialogue will create a critical momentum to transform the quality and relevance of education in today's world.

Bolder action and investments are needed to harness the power of digital technology to advance national and international aspirations for education and lifelong learning. We must seize the power of digital revolution to ensure education is provided as a public good and a human right.

Such action will help catalyze beneficial transformations to various aspects of education, including pedagogy, curriculum, assessment, and the organization of learning, both in and outside of formal educational institutions. In parallel, we must galvanize efforts to achieve universal and meaningful connectivity for learning, to ensure productive, affordable and safe online experience.

The Spotlight Session 4 is an opportunity to mobilize strong political commitment and leadership for action to ensure that every learner can find a public space for public education on the internet. The session called upon the Head of States to endorse a Call to Action and commit to advance work in three specific areas of implementation - content, capacity and connectivity - to make digital teaching and learning a universally accessible and reliable pillar of holistic educational experiences. The session also launched the Gateways to Public Digital Learning to support an international movement to ensure that every learner, teacher, and family can easily access, find, and use high-quality and curriculum-aligned digital education content to advance their learning.

The Spotlight Session 4 was co-hosted by: UNESCO, UNICEF and ITU

While progress has been made in recent decades, gender inequalities persist in education. Gains are also fragile as COVID-19, armed conflict, refugee and internal displacement, climate-induced disasters, and a growing backlash against gender equality and women's and girls' rights are reversing progress and widening inequalities in many contexts.

Education systems must make more explicit and active commitment to addressing the gender-based barriers, stigma and discrimination that hold learners back from fulfilling their right to education and future life, work and leadership opportunities. But action is also needed to harness education's power to unlock the potential of learners in all their diversity, end harmful gender norms, attitudes and practices, and transform institutions to achieve just, equal and inclusive societies.

The Spotlight Session 5 offered a space for a high-level dialogue among heads of state, leaders and key influencers to commit to accelerating progress on gender equality and girls' and women's empowerment in and through education.

More specifically, the Spotlight Session 5 aims to advance gender equality and girls' and women's empowerment in and through education by:

• Sharing innovative catalytic and transformative actions undertaken through grassroots and national programmes to end harmful gender norms, attitudes and practices so that all learners can fulfil their right to education.
• Learning from world leaders and partners on the commitments they are making through the Transforming Education Summit to advance gender equality and girls' and women's empowerment in and through education. Calling on world leaders and partners to commit to advancing gender equality and girls' and women's empowerment in and through education, and to join a global platform to review progress towards gender equality and girls' education commitments annually
• and to confront setbacks
• to drive transformative leadership, accountability and action

The Spotlight Session 5 of the Transforming Education Summit launched a call to action to catalyze cooperation and transformative action to advance gender equality and girls' and women's empowerment in and through education.

The Spotlight Session 5 was co-hosted by: UNESCO, UNICEF and UN Women

We must invest more in education: It is important to protect and increase the real amount every country invests in education –as reflected by the portion of GDP and national budgets going to education – but this is not enough. We must aim to increase the actual investment countries make per student and per person.

We must invest more equitably in education: we must make sure that educational investment reaches especially those who have been traditionally excluded from this opportunity.

We must invest more efficiently in education: the objective of educational investment goes beyond that of providing mere access to the educational system; to be truly an investment, the resources we allocate to education must be efficiently used to guarantee effective access to learning.

The Spotlight Session 6 on Financing Education provides an opportunity for Heads of State and Government as well as Principals of international financial institutions, development partners and others to discuss some of the key elements of the Call to Action, to demonstrate their individual commitment to increase financing for education and to generate new impetus for action that can be taken forward after the Summit.

The session also provides an opportunity to launch the International Financing Facility for Education - an education financing engine that multiplies donor resources to give lower-middle income countries the opportunity to make urgent investments in quality education and skills. The Facility has the potential to mobilize at least $10 billion in new financing for education in the next 5 to 7 years.

•     Introduction of the Secretary-General's Vision Statement
•     Strengthening a movement for education transformation
•     Cultural performance