The World Education Forum in Korea

Last week (19th - 22nd May) The World Education Forum – convened by UNESCO - took place in Incheon, the Republic of Korea. The Forum gathered together key educational stakeholders - country ministers from UN member states, as well as civil society actors and the private sector, to discuss and set course for education for the next 15 years.

Prior to the World Education Forum, the Civil Society Forum took place, bringing together non-governmental organisations from around the world to create a joint vision on education for the period 2016-2030, calling upon governments to, among other things “reaffirm education as a public good and reject calls for increased privatisation or commercialisation in education, including any support for low fee private schools and for-profit universities", as well as to make a "particular emphasis on out of-school children and youth in providing education opportunities."

At the World Education Forum, ministers of education made commitments to ensure everyone gets quality education with a broad set of knowledge, skills and values, by fostering critical thinking, creativity, solidarity, dialogue and problem solving. The country delegates worked on a joint Declaration and the Framework for action which will help countries reach the 2030 educational goal of the Sustainable Development Agenda, as well as its set targets and indicators. Amid concerns that some countries will not have enough capacity to fulfill the set achievements, the Declaration will be re-discussed after the adoption of the Sustainable Development Agenda in Autumn 2015.

The European Youth Forum took part in both the Civil Society Forum and the World Education Forum. We were pleased to also use the chance to meet with the delegations of the European Union and the Council of Europe, the ministers and State Secretaries from European countries, as well as civil society organisations from the continent. Finally, we used to chance to talk with local young people in the Republic of Korea, as well as to show our support for initiatives which were a part of a fair parallel to the WEF, and which promoted youth participation and equitable, quality inclusive education.

Whilst we were delighted to be part of The World Education Forum, it was disappointing that the Forum failed to meaningfully include youth in the discussions. None of the panels featured a representative of a student or a youth organisation. The only youth event of the WEF was "The vanguard of change: The role of young people in a powerful new education agenda", a side-event organised by the Youth Advocacy Group of the UN Secretary General's Global Education First Initiative. Instead, many young people (mostly student representatives from the Republic of Korea) remained outside the venue of the WEF to express their concerns in a protest against the educational system of the country. We hope that similar future events will seek to meaningfully engage young people in the entire process and event.

The full Civil Society Forum declaration can be found here:

http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/ED/pdf/2015-NGOForum-Declaration-FinalDraft.pdf

The Incheon Declaration can be found here https://en.unesco.org/world-education-forum-2015/incheon-declaration