UN global education envoy urges new funding for ‘lost generation’ of children forced out of classrooms by conflict

A child’s “real passport” to the future – education – should be stamped in the classroom, not at a border checkpoint, UN Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown said. 

Ensuring that the world’s children have a place in a school classroom is essential to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, which calls for quality education for all by 2030.

Speaking to journalists at UN Headquarters in New York, Mr. Brown warned that “99 percent of the world’s young refugees who are now becoming the invisible generation will never get a place in college or higher education, and only 20 percent will get a secondary education. It’s time the world woke up to the horror of so many children devoid of hope.” 

Highlighting the urgency of the situation, Mr. Brown said there are perhaps 75 million children caught in the conflict.

Noting that the Security Council was currently on the difficult circumstances in Yemen affecting millions of children, Mr. Brown, the former British Prime Minister, also highlighted the escalating crisis in Venezuela, the half a million out of school children alone in Central African Republic (CAR), the need to reopen a 1,000 schools in Afghanistan – where there are still 3.7 million out of school children – and the ongoing refugee challenge being driven by situations in, among others, Myanmar, Sudan and Syria.

On a positive note, Mr. Brown announced that the Education Cannot Wait Fund (ECW) – which was set up in 2016 to provide opportunities for displaced children in crisis – will launch on February 21 a programme for safe and reliable education for half a million children in Afghanistan, including more than 320,000 girls.

Original source: UN News
Published on 19 February 2019