A decade of stalled progress 

The story of early childhood education in the 21st century is one of progress and stagnation. Globally, the net enrolment rate of children in the year before primary school increased by almost one percentage point per year, from 64% in 2003 to 74% in 2015. But since then, it has increased by just one percentage point over nearly a decade, largely affected by the disruption of the pandemic. Participation rates for all children of pre-primary age tell a similar story.

This could be seen as puzzling given that, over the same period, there have been efforts to remove cost barriers to early childhood education: the number of countries offering at least one year of free pre-primary education rose from 46 to 69 between 1999 and 2023. More countries have also made attendance compulsory. However, stagnating enrolment figures tell us this isn’t enough. 

Looking at changes in participation over time shows where the focus should lie. In Africa and Asia, enrolment in early childhood education has risen, but the absolute gap in participation rates between the richest and poorest children has barely moved in 20 years. 

A public spending gap 

One fundamental obstacle to equitable early childhood education is underfunding. Only 10 of more than 100 countries with data spend at least 1% of GDP on pre-primary education. Among 61 countries with comparable data, median public spending rose from 0.29% to 0.43% of GDP over two decades.  

The data do, however, offer a compelling case for investment. Roughly doubling public spending from around 0.25% to 0.5% of GDP is associated with approximately tripling participation rates in the year before primary school. When public provision falls short, families must pay, and those who cannot simply go without pre-primary education. Few other policy levers offer returns like that.  

With limited funding, targeting financing becomes essential. Alongside expanding infrastructure to improve access, one of the core messages to emerge from the analysis in the 2026 GEM Report is that equitable access to education requires equitable finance. Across-the-board allocations that treat all schools and all families equally will not close participation gaps. What is needed are redistribution mechanisms that deliberately direct resources toward those who need them most. 

Some countries that have made this connection are seeing the results. Latin America has some of the best designed equitable finance mechanisms globally. No doubt partly as a result of this, in eight countries, children from the poorest quintile managed to close the participation gap with their wealthier peers between 2000 and 2024.  

Targeted transfers and smart incentives 

A closer look at how countries are financing equitable access reveals a varied toolkit. 

Analysis for the 2026 GEM Report, which is featured on the PEER website, found that in addition to making it free, countries use three other mechanisms to make pre-primary education more affordable: transfers to institutions serving disadvantaged children (54%) and transfers to families either by the education ministry (26%) or some other ministry, usually social protection (55%).  While transfers to institutions are mainly aimed at assisting children with disabilities (59%), transfers to students and households focus primarily on poverty (92%). 

The argument for using cash transfers is backed by evidence. In rural Karnataka, India, scholarships that covered preschool fees raised participation by 20 percentage points, and saw cognitive gains persist into primary school. In El Salvador, children exposed to a conditional cash transfer programme from birth to age five or six were 12 percentage points more likely to be enrolled in preschool and 9 percentage points more likely to have completed at least one year. In France, Germany, and Norway, income-indexed fees, tax relief, and cash bonuses have helped bring low-income and immigrant families into the system. 

Lithuania offers a model worth examining more closely. The government funds 20 hours a week of pre-primary education for every child, regardless of which type of institution they attend. Where children attend for longer hours, the additional cost falls to the institution’s owner. Since 2020, free lunches have also been provided to all children in pre-primary education, regardless of family income. The result is a system that distributes public support broadly while maintaining flexibility. 

Some other promising tools remain massively underused. Preschool feeding programmes, for example, reach only around 2% of children in low-income countries and 13% in high-income countries. They are also rarely subject to systematic evaluation. 

A question about the private sector 

As demand for early childhood education has grown and public provision has struggled to keep pace, private providers have expanded their role. In one third of countries, private provision now accounts for more than half of total enrolment.  

The challenge is not private provision per se, but the terms on which it operates. The GEM Report’s mapping of country profiles on its PEER website in 2021 found that while around 81% of countries offer incentives to non-state actors and 58% subsidize private institutions, regulation often focuses on administrative compliance rather than equity outcomes. Only about half of countries regulate fees charged by private providers, and just 15% regulate profit making. Without stronger accountability frameworks, public subsidies for private providers risk expanding access for those who already have it, rather than reaching those who do not. 

The picture that emerges from the 2026 GEM Report is that countries which made the political and financial commitment to build comprehensive early childhood education systems have seen real results. 

What is needed is coherence. Legislation aligned with financing and financing aligned with equity goals. Isolated programmes can demonstrate what is possible. But only systemic, sustained investment that is directed deliberately toward those who have been left out the longest will make universal, high-quality early childhood education a reality rather than an aspiration. 

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My name is Joshua Opey, and I chair the Commonwealth Youth Council, the official youth organisation of the Commonwealth. I am from Ghana. The Youth Council was established in 2013 and is endorsed by the Heads of Government of the Commonwealth. Since then, it has represented young people across the 56 member states, working with national youth councils and youth representative mechanisms to ensure that young people’s views are reflected in decision-making. 

Our work takes place at different levels. We represent young people in ministerial and pan-Commonwealth processes, but we are also closely involved at the grassroots level. In countries where national youth councils exist, we support them to strengthen their work. Where they do not exist, we support young people and governments to establish them. This combination of high-level advocacy and practical engagement is central to our role. 

My own experience in youth and student representation began early. In high school, I was part of a regional student representative council in Ghana, representing more than 50,000 students in the Greater Accra Region. At that time, we were consulted on education policy reforms that later led to free senior high school education. At university, I served as General Secretary of the University of Ghana Students’ Union and later of the National Union of Ghana Students. During this period, we supported the development of Ghana’s National Youth Policy and worked on reforms to the student loan system. 

One of the most important lessons I have learned is that meaningful youth engagement goes beyond consultation. For us, it means integrating young people throughout decision-making processes and into implementation. Young people are often excluded through assumptions about experience or expertise. Yet, time and again, young people with limited formal experience bring new ideas that challenge long-standing practices that have failed to deliver results, including on education outcomes and the Sustainable Development Goals. 

Resistance often comes from discomfort with the energy young people bring. Youth engagement can feel disruptive. In the past, this disruption took the form of activism. Today, many young people are seeking something different: a seat at the table as equal partners, where they can co-design solutions rather than push from the outside. Recognising young people as equal partners remains one of the biggest barriers. 

A clear example of successful youth engagement is the reform of the student loan scheme in Ghana. Although access to basic and secondary education had expanded significantly, tertiary enrolment remained low, largely due to financing barriers. The loan system required guarantors from the formal economy, automatically excluding the majority of young people. Student unions analysed the data, proposed alternatives, and advocated for change. The guarantor requirement was removed and replaced with a system based on national identification, making access to loans significantly easier. Students were also involved in implementation, outreach, and monitoring. 

Looking ahead, the question is not whether to involve young people, but how. Engagement must be adapted to young people, not the other way around. Traditional consultation tools are often insufficient. Youth-friendly and innovative approaches—including creative, digital, and participatory methods—can unlock insights that formal processes miss. At the same time, young people must be part of implementation. In countries where young people make up the majority of the population, treating them only as beneficiaries rather than drivers of solutions limits progress. 

In education, young people are the central stakeholders. Without them, education has no purpose. Integrating young people into decision-making and implementation is not optional; it is essential for improving access, quality, and relevance. When young people are given real mandates and real responsibility, education systems are stronger and more responsive. 

** 

The Commonwealth Youth Council (CYC) is the official representative voice of the more than 1.2 billion young people in the Commonwealth. The CYC was first established in 2013 with the support of the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Commonwealth Youth Programme. It was endorsed by Commonwealth Heads of Government at their biennial summit in Sri Lanka as an ‘autonomous, youth-led organization 

• Read the report
• Download the illustration on meaningful youth engagement and use your creativity to express youth voices, ideas and aspirations through colour
• Consult the global mapping of youth and student organizations
• Share the social media resources

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By 2050, nearly every child will face more frequent heatwaves — threatening their health, disrupting their education, and putting their future at risk.

Heat does not affect all children equally. Cruelly, and like so many climate impacts, it will be those with the fewest resources who will be worst affected. Heat could therefore further stratify classrooms and communities along economic, gender, and disability lines.

Children in cooler parts of the community, country, or world, or those able to move to these places, could have more school days. Children in schools with cooling systems and the right infrastructure could learn more in class. Children who are able to sit exams in cooler buildings could have better results. Children who have access to cooling at home could get more out of their homework. These children all have one thing in common: they are likely to be better off.

This reality is true both between countries and within communities. At the macro level, countries facing the worst heatwaves – very often those who are least responsible for climate change – may not have access to resources to keep schools open, keep children learning, and ensure children sit high stakes exams in heat-resilient infrastructure.

At the micro level, children who have access – either financially or geographically – to schools with climate control could have more schooling, be better able to focus, and ultimately secure better learning outcomes.

This is as true in Lusaka as it is in London. But it is also not an inevitability. If the global community is serious about realizing every child’s right to learn, it is time to move heat from a climate issue to an education issue.

A global promise to children

In less than five years’ time, all children should be on a path to complete free, equitable, and quality primary and secondary education leading to learning outcomes. All youth should be literate, and gender disparities in education should be eliminated. These were among the promises made through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Progress has been made towards these goals. As the Sustainable Development Goals Report 2025 shows, since 2015 109 million more children are now in school. Yet still, 272 million children, adolescents and youth are out of school and 58% of students achieve minimum proficiency in reading by the end of primary school. A lot needs to be done to make progress towards the SDGs. But heat resilience is key to this conversation.

Every disruption to schooling can affect learning outcomes and set children back

Heat is the most significant climate hazard impacting learning. In 2024, 171 million students saw their education disrupted by extreme heat. Nationwide school closures caused by heat affected children in Bangladesh, Cambodia, and the Philippines. In South Sudan, schools were shut for two weeks in February 2025 as temperatures soared. Even in temperate countries like the United Kingdom, schools have closed early due to extreme heat.

Even if children stay in school, extreme heat can affect their learning. Research has shown a 2.28% drop in exam performance with just 10 additional hot days during a school year. Evidence from the United States ties heat directly to weakened productivity of learning inputs.

Heat also has significant health impacts for children, such as neurological impacts, respiratory problems, and gastrointestinal issues, all of which can further impact learning. This can also be coupled with hunger, as periods of heat are linked to higher levels of household food insecurity. When children face both heat and hunger, their right to learn and their overall wellbeing is put at risk.

Heat also has compounding impacts for girls. In Zambia and Zimbabwe, girls reported lower school attendance during their menstrual cycles due to extreme heat and inadequate access to water and sanitation facilities. The combination of high temperatures and limited resources made it difficult for girls to manage menstrual hygiene, leading to increased absenteeism.

In the worst cases, long periods of extreme heat will lead to children and their families being forced to leave their homes. This presents yet another possible disruption to learning – and more worryingly, could lead children to leave school forever.

“The extreme high temperatures totally disturbed our focus on studying because there is no fan in our classroom. I hadn’t realized before that hot weather could make us lose our concentration this much. If this extreme hot weather continues in the next few years, it could affect our overall academic performance and wellbeing.” Boy, 13, Laos

It’s only getting worse. The world is warming. 2024 was reported as the hottest year on record. A record number of children – one-third of the global population – experienced a heatwave between July 2023 and June 2024. In 2025, temperatures reached as high as 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) in parts of Iran and Iraq, leading to disruptions to education. As the climate crisis deepens, more and more children will be affected, putting their education at risk.

CDRI’s Community of Practice on Extreme Heat Management in Urban Schools brought together 150+ experts across various sectors from 70+ organisations to create a practical guidance document for school administrators on managing extreme heat which will be launched at COP30. Grounded in evidence and field practice, the document ‘Heat Smart Schools’, distils the community’s findings into actionable steps to build heat resilience in schools. It also contains best practices, and recommendations for teachers, parents, students and officials from education departments, municipalities, disaster management agencies and finance authorities.

If we are serious about education equality, we must be serious about heat resilience.

The global community made a promise to all children, everywhere, that they would have the opportunity to learn by 2030. This opportunity is slipping away as quickly as the sand falls through the hourglass.

Extreme heat pushes educational equality further out of reach. But while we cannot change the already warmed world, we can mitigate its impact through heat resilience. Strategies suggested by CDRI and GADRRRES include:

• Investing in heat-resilient infrastructure, mobilising finance from education, health and climate and disaster management budgets to retrofit, design and green schools.
• Harnessing all available information, including forecasts, local data and indigenous knowledge, and school-level diagnostics, to guide action.
• Addressing underlying risks to ensure access to clean and safe water, sanitation, nutrition and health services.
• Developing standard operating procedures and learning continuity plans for extreme heat scenarios.
• Developing lessons on staying safe and cool during heat emergencies, and ensuring teachers have the proper training and support to implement these.
• Shifting the school calendar and adjusting daily schedules, and in particular exam times, to align with cooler temperatures.
• Using the Comprehensive School Safety Framework to develop an education strategy that encompasses all of the above as part of an all-hazards approach to resilience and disaster management.

It is time to take heat resilience seriously. Anything less will leave millions of children behind.

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Participation levels have stagnated except for tertiary education

The first experience young children should have of the promises in SDG 4 would be to attend preschool. Yet the participation rate of children age one year before entering primary school has flatlined at around 75% since 2015. This is the level of education that has been most affected by COVID-19. Moreover, adjusting for the fact that one fifth of these children were attending primary school, the true preschool attendance rate is closer to 60%.

“I don’t want my children to suffer the way I did because I couldn’t go to school,” a mother told us in Ghana. But the world is progressing extremely slowly in helping more children access education.

Since 2015, the global out-of-school rate has fallen by a mere half a percentage point to 17% as of 2023. In absolute numbers, while 101 million more children are now in school, the out-of-school population has grown by 8 million, reaching a total of 272 million according to the latest estimates published by the GEM Report and the UIS earlier this year. This number rises to 285 million, when supplementary data are used to account for the impact of armed conflict in the 10 countries with the most severe conflicts, notably Myanmar, Somalia and Sudan.

The number of children out of school in sub-Saharan Africa has barely fallen since 1990

The upper secondary education completion rate has increased from 53% in 2015 to 59% in 2023, or to 62% if those completing that level of education much later tha the official graduation age are also included. This corresponds to an annual increase of about 0.8 percentage points, which suggests that while attendance has stagnated, education systems have been improving their ability to ensure that those who are in school graduate. But the richest children are 5 times as likely as the poorest to complete secondary school.

The opposite phenomenon is observed in tertiary education. Enrolment has increased from 37% in 2015 to 44% in 2024 but graduation rates have been growing at half the annual rate, by just 0.4 percentage points, reaching 27%.

Learning outcomes are highly unequal but also declining in the world’s richer countries

A trademark emphasis in the international education agenda since 2015 has been the shift of attention to monitoring a comparable measure of learning achievement. There is more data on learning outcomes than before 2015 but the evidence far from sufficient to help draw robust global conclusions.

In early primary grades, we have very little data, but the evidence we do have suggests that only about 10% of children in low-income countries are proficient in reading. But there is also some limited evidence that levels are improving from those very low levels.

At the end of primary, we have a clear global estimate on learning levels: 58% of students globally are proficient, with a stark disparity between low-income countries (17%) and high-income countries (93%). Taking into account those children who do not reach the end of primary school, 53% of children were achieving minimum proficiency before COVID-19.

At the end lower secondary, there is no global estimate on learning levels, but there is a robust estimate on learning trends in middle- and high-income countries – and a highly concerning one. Since 2012, the percentage of students achieving minimum proficiency in reading has dropped from 59% to 47% in 2022. This unprecedented decline of one percentage point per year began before the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting deeper systemic issues.

The record on quality indicators is mixed

A definition of quality in education is made up of many components. In terms of access to the internet, the percentage of connected primary schools, for example, has increased from 61% in 2015 to 72% in 2023. In terms of content, there is some evidence that curricula increasingly cover topics relevant to sustainable development, but coverage of climate change and biodiversity, as captured in a recent extension of SDG global indicator 4.7.1, is too low and unbalanced: it is lower in social science than in science subjects and lower in primary than in secondary education.

The SDG 4 HLSC meeting in Chile was followed by the World Summit on Teachers. Without a clear international standard for what constitutes a ‘trained’ teacher, it is very difficult to compare countries with each other over time. Even the concept of a teacher ‘shortage’ can be misleading, as it confuses the lack of supply of teachers in richer countries with the lack of demand for teachers in poorer countries.

On the financial front, public education spending has fallen from 4.3% of GDP in 2015 to 4.1% in 2023. This trend is even more pronounced when viewed as a share of total public expenditure, which dropped from 13.8% to 12.6% in this period. This reflects increasing fiscal pressure, especially in indebted middle-income countries.

What next?

Many of these numbers paint a bleak picture but also provide a clear roadmap for action. There are four key areas of action that the HLSC included in its decisions:

• Data gaps on learning need to be addressed. External support must be much better focused on developing countries’ national assessment system capacity. Political support was given to the proposal for a vetting mechanism to help countries identify the areas in which learning assessments need to improve, and for a virtual fund to better coordinate external support to countries to make these improvements.
• There is a need for teacher policy indicators – on their status, career, professional development, working conditions and voice. This was among the decisions of the last Education Data and Statistics Commission meeting, to which the HLSC has lent its political support.
• Countries need to continue setting, updating, sharing and monitoring national SDG 4 targets – or benchmarks. A huge success is that 80% of countries have already set such national SDG 4 targets for 2025 and 2030. The annual invitation to Member States to review their benchmarks for the 2026 SDG 4 Scorecard will be shared in October.
• We need to understand the reasons of progress and stagnation to plan a better agenda. Our next series of GEM Reports, Countdown to 2030, will analyse country experiences on access and equity in 2026, quality and learning in 2027, and relevance in 2028.

The data show that countries stand further than where they want to be. But they also give clear directions to collect better data and to link this information to effective actions.

The post A message for education leaders about the unfinished promise of Education for All appeared first on World Education Blog.

Legally speaking, children already had a right to go to school, pregnant or not, according to the Constitution and the fact that the country is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. But cultural and moral resistance was stronger than any piece of paper: girls continued to be turned away from school if they showed signs of being pregnant. And those concerns are not going away if another piece of paper is added to the pile.

Cultural concerns

Over half of the population in the country is Catholic. It was the location for an Apostolic visit by pope Francis in 2023. Catholic schools in the country make up 25% of education institutions. These schools’ opposition to the new directive has been outlined in a statement, in which they asked that girls who are pregnant be ‘charitably moved to other schools‘ in order to maintain their ethics. ‘What would Jesus do?‘, some papers asked, tongue in cheek.

The opposition was further supported in a video provided by Donatien Nshole, general secretary of the National Episcopal Conference of Congo.  ‘One of the characteristics of our schools is discipline, in terms of morals’, he says.  ‘But if a girl falls pregnant in your school, isn’t it in some sense a fault of the church and its education?’ the interviewer asked. ‘By the same logic, that would mean that, if a child punches a teacher, they could not be expelled’, he replied.

Des élèves enceintes dans les écoles catholiques en #RDC: C’est inacceptable, c’est non négociable … l’Eglise catholique congolaise a le monopole dans la conduite des écoles sous sa gestion en vertu de l’accord entre Kinshasa et Vatican. Les précisions obtenues de Mgr Donatien… pic.twitter.com/6RSHWlMSCB

— Pascal Mulegwa (@pascal_mulegwa) July 17, 2025

The DRC is not alone in finding that a directive may not be sufficient to bring about change on this issue. Uganda introduced a policy to prevent pregnant girls’ exclusion from school in 2020, but that too seems to be faltering, with forced pregnancy tests in schools ongoing. In Tanzania, meanwhile, when the school ban was announced against pregnant girls, it seemed cursory, and no legal or policy reforms followed. At the end of last year, the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Wellbeing of the Child repeated its calls for Tanzania to lift the ban. Its recommendations included calls for mandatory pregnancy testing in schools to be stopped.

Adolescent pregnancies happen. Far too much.

Globally, nearly a third of all women in developing countries start having children at the age of 19 or younger, which means that 21 million children are born to girls aged 15-19 years every year. If all those girls were in school and had to drop out , it would mean 57,000 girls being excluded each day.

Around two-thirds of the DRC population is under the age of 25 years of age. The country has also shockingly been described as ‘the rape capital of the world‘, with horrific stories of sexual violence linked to its past and ongoing armed conflicts.

This has implications for the place that education might have in society. In the country, there are 9 girls enrolled for every 10 boys, and this has been the case for a while. Ensuring that the new directive is correctly enforced will help close this gap.

The longer adolescent girls spend out of school, the more likely they are to never go back at all. This is because, once out of school, girls with young babies are at high risk of child marriage. In the DRC, at present, almost 1 in 10 girls are married by the age of 15 years.

Being excluded from school for pregnancy comes with stigma; it comes with financial worries linked to the lack of education; and, it is often accompanied by a lack of access to information and health support due to the discrimination and exclusion they face from their schools and communities. This stigma is reserved for the girls. The boys or men who are the fathers are not mentioned.

‘If this policy had existed before, I wouldn’t have lost so much time’, said Rita, who had to drop out of school aged 16, only to work out a way to return to school years later.

If those arguments do not suffice, remember that making schools more inclusive may actually bring down teenage pregnancies as well. Educated girls are more likely to use contraception as well.

With sexual violence so high in the country, inclusive education could help. It could encourage young girls and boys to learn to treat each other with respect and dignity from an early age and to understand how the decisions they make can affect them and others.

As we see with the stories from Uganda and Tanzania, passing a law is only the beginning. The real work lies in consistent enforcement and challenging the societal attitudes that stand in the way of progress. Excluding pregnant adolescents from school is not a solution; it is a social and economic stain that perpetuates a cycle of poverty, stigma and violence. Ultimately, allowing a pregnant girl to remain in the classroom is not just an act of mercy, it is a strategic investment in the future of the DRC.

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Schools on Indian reservations such as mine are asking a simple request and that is autonomy so that we can develop and we can tailor Indian education and design it as to the unique needs of our communities. – Ryan Chee, Principal of a school in an Indian reserve, USA.

Autonomy can unlock leaders’ potential. Top-performing education systems tend to grant greater autonomy to principals over decisions on human and financial resources. But in richer countries, less than half of principals are responsible for course content or teacher salary levels. And almost 40% of countries do not recognize higher education institutions’ autonomy by law.

What then for decision-making? This blog explores why  trusting school leaders is a  key recommendation from the 2024/5 GEM Report, Lead for Learning.

There is no leadership without opportunities to make decisions. Autonomy can lead to better education outcomes, but only when it is paired with adequate resources. A school principal’s ability to lead effectively depends on how much authority they wield: more autonomy sparks innovation and allows schools to adapt to their specific needs; less stifles it and can hinder progress.

The 2018 TALIS survey showed wide variation in autonomy worldwide. Principals had significant decision-making power over admissions (73%), discipline (70%), and staff hiring (69%).  But barely 4 in 10 could select learning materials (44%), determine course content (37%), or teacher salaries (28%).

Efforts to expand autonomy in low- and middle-income countries have seen mixed results. Bhutan’s 2014 Central School initiative boosted autonomy and exam scores within four years. In Kazakhstan, reforms such as capitation grants left principals still feeling constrained.

In high-income countries, the gains are clearer. For instance, Chicago’s 2016 Independent School Principal programme, freed successful leaders from network oversight, and raised mathematics and English pass rates by 4%, demonstrating the potential of targeted autonomy when combined with accountability.

Autonomy  however also requires support. Principals in high-autonomy systems, such as those in England under recent reforms, often face significant stress due to heavy accountability demands. These pressures can lead to burnout and limit their ability to focus on broader educational goals. A study of PISA data from 40 education systems revealed that higher accountability correlates with increased stress among principals, with a ripple effect on teachers. Therefore, for autonomy to drive improvements school leaders need the decision-making power and the support to manage their expanded responsibilities effectively.

Governments must set the stage for school principals to improve education. Increased decision-making power must be matched with resources, training, and support so principals can lead effectively and sustainably.

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By the end of 2023, 60 education systems (or 30%) had bans on smartphone use in schools in their laws or policies. By the end of 2024, an update that the GEM Report has prepared for the International Day of Education finds that 19 more education systems were banning the use of smartphones in school, bringing the total to 79 (or 40%). These regulations are described in the GEM Report’s Profiles Enhancing Education Reviews (PEER) website, which monitors the laws and policies on technology in education around the world. 

Percentage of education systems with laws and policies banning smartphone use in school, by SDG region, end of 2024 

Source: GEM Report PEER profiles, www.education-profiles.org 

In some cases, some bans have become more stringent in the last year. In China, the city of Zhengzhou further restricted the use of phones in primary and secondary schools, demanding that parents provide written consent that a phone was really needed for pedagogical reasons. In France, a ‘digital break‘ was suggested in lower secondary schools as an add-on to the already existing phone ban at other education levels. At the opposite end, Saudi Arabia reversed its ban due to the opposition by disability groups for medical purposes. 

This mapping did not include all sub-national jurisdictions in federal countries, although four were assessed in detail. For example, In Australia, two of the nine territories (New South Wales and South Australia) have introduced bans, while in Spain, all but 3 of the 17 autonomous communities (Basque Country, La Rioja, Navarre) have introduced bans. in the United States, 20 out of its 50 states have regulations now in place, from the Phone-Free School Act in California to the phone ban for K-12 classrooms in Florida, the ban on students using portable wireless device in Indiana and another ban in Ohio.   

In some of these new regulations in the United States, however, one approach is to issue guidelines, but leave it to schools to define the precise policies on usage in class. In Indiana, for example, school boards have to draft and publicly post specific policies for their schools saying whether students can access their phones during lunch and what consequences the students may face for using prohibited devices. In addition, sometimes there are exceptions, such as for learners who require learning accommodations in the Louisiana ban, and for anyone with a health condition that requires monitoring in Ohio.   

State education systems with laws and policies banning smartphone use in school in the United States, end of 2024 

Outside of full bans, some countries have also, or instead, banned the use of specific applications from education settings because of privacy concerns. Denmark and France have both banned Google Workspace, while some states in Germany have banned Microsoft products.  

Bans also vary by education level. Most countries focus on primary schools, and some, such as Israel, on kindergartens. Others, such as Turkmenistan, have extended the ban to secondary school.  

Brain rot?  

Among the new words added to the Oxford Dictionary in 2024 were ‘doomscrolling’ and ‘brain-rot’. Both are symbols of the omnipresence of unhealthy social media usage driven by artificial intelligence algorithms. The 2023 GEM Report showed that some technology can support some learning in some contexts, but not when it is overused or inappropriately used. Having a smartphone in class can disrupt learning. One study which looked at pre-primary through to higher education in 14 countries found that it distracted students from learning. Even just having a mobile phone nearby with notifications coming through is enough to result in students losing their attention from the task at hand.  Another study found that it can take students up to 20 minutes to refocus on what they were learning once distracted.  Removing smartphones from schools in Belgium, Spain and the United Kingdom was found to improve learning outcomes, according to a study cited in the report, especially for students that were not performing as well as their peers. 

Risks to children’s privacy and well-being 

In addition to the impact on learning, there are also privacy concerns when specific applications collect user data unnecessary for these applications to work. As of 2023, only 16% of countries explicitly guaranteed data privacy in education by law, however. One analysis found that 89% of 163 education technology products recommended during the pandemic could survey children. Further, 39 of 42 governments providing online education during the pandemic fostered uses that risked or infringed on children’s rights.  

The 2024 Gender version of our report, Technology on her terms, also laid out the way that technology in practice often exacerbates negative gender norms or stereotypes. Social media use in particular impacts girls’ well-being and self-esteem. The ease with which cyberbullying can be magnified through the use of online devices in the school environment is a cause of concern, as is the biased design of artificial intelligence algorithms.  

The GEM Report calls for decisions about technology in education to prioritize the needs of the learner, making sure that any uses of technology are appropriate, equitable, scalable and sustainable. 

Students need to learn the risks and opportunities that come with technology and not be shielded from them entirely.  But countries need to give better guidance on what technology is allowed in school and what is not, and on its responsible use. Only technology that has a clear role in supporting learning should be allowed in school.  

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There is some progress but more causes for concern. The report shows that 110 million more children and youth have entered school since SDG 4 was set in 2015, with more children in school today than ever before. Completion rates are also rising: 40 million more children are completing uper secondary today than in 2015. However, during the same period, the out-of-school population has fallen by only 1% global and has risen by 12 million in Africa. Today, the VIEW website, jointly managed by the GEM Report and the UIS, shows that 251 million children and youth are not in school worldwide. Even when they enter, 650 million will still leave without a secondary school certificate.

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While digital technology offers new opportunities for teaching and learning, it also comes with risks related to privacy, safety and well-being.  The internet – including its use as part of education – exposes users to misuse of their personal data, invasion of privacy, abuse, theft of identity, offensive messages and images, cyberbullying, scams, fake news and misinformation.  

The 2024 GEM Gender Report shows that girls are particularly vulnerable to some of these risks which can lead to decreased self-esteem, anxiety, and depression, negatively impacting their well-being. And the latter is important for learning, with consistent evidence showing the causal relationship between higher levels of emotional, behavioural, social and school well-being and academic achievement. 

Digital media strains mental health and well-being 

A growing body of research underscores the impact of digital media on the mental health of girls. The 2021/22 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study by the World Health Organization reveals a concerning trend: girls are twice as likely as boys to feel frequently lonely, with 28% reporting this experience. 

Digital platforms, particularly social media, have become central to the lives of many. However, the impact on adolescents, especially girls, can be profound and distressing, exacerbating well-being issues. Platforms, like Instagram and TikTok, with their algorithm- and image-based content, often expose girls to harmful materials that promote unrealistic body images and unhealthy behaviours, negatively affecting their self-esteem and body image. For example, according to the 2019 Global Burden of Disease study, girls are twice as likely as boys to suffer an eating disorder in their lives. A review of young people aged 10 to 24 years in 17 countries has highlighted the association between the use of social media and body image concerns, eating disorders and poor mental health.  The Center for Countering Digital Hate reports that TikTok’s algorithm targets teenagers with body image and mental health content every 39 seconds, with content related to suicide every 2 minutes and 36 seconds, and with content related to eating disorders every 8 minutes, potentially exacerbating mental health issues among impressionable viewers.  Amnesty International highlights that one in two videos displayed after spending 5 to 6 hours on the platform are ‘mental health–related and potentially harmful’. 

Studies also indicate that social media can reinforce harmful gender norms as they do not only reflect but also amplify inequalities shaping user experiences in ways that often perpetuate negative stereotypes and behaviours. Moreover, the addictive nature of platforms like TikTok has been criticized for distracting students, making concentration more challenging.  

Technology and school-related gender-based violence: A significant global issue 

Because of the increasing presence of digital technology in schools, digital environments can become arenas for gender-based violence also in educational settings. The rise of digital technology has facilitated several forms of sexual violence such as online solicitation, coercive sexting, and cyberdating violence – often making it easier to perpetrate such abuses without immediate consequences. Notably, image-based sexual abuse, significantly impacts girls and LGBTQ youth, undermining their safety and educational rights. 

Cyberflashing where individuals receive unsolicited explicit images via digital devices, is also a prevalent form of harassment. Studies indicate that a disturbing number of school-aged girls are victims. In Canada, one-third of undergraduate females reported exposure to some sort of digital violence. Image-based sexual abuse and cyberflashing were prevalent, with significant psychological impacts on the victims. In the UK, 88% of girls in schools reported receiving unwanted explicit images. And in Belgium, more than half of the girls aged 15 to 25 in a survey reported being victims of cyberflashing. This form of abuse extends to AI-generated harassment, like the creation and distribution of deepfake pornographic images, which has seen a dramatic increase. Notable incidents in Brazil and Spain involved deepfake images of female students being circulated among peers.  

Cyberbullying is another significant concern disproportionately affecting girls. OECD data reveals that 12% of 15-year-old girls reported being cyberbullied compared to 8% of boys. In Saudi Arabia, nearly half of the female university students experienced digital harassment. Boys, while also victims, are more frequently the perpetrators of cyberbullying. Studies in India and China echo this gender disparity, with boys more likely to engage in cyberbullying.  

Strong and effective legal frameworks and education responses are needed  

The need to protect children and youth against online digital risks is gaining momentum worldwide. International conventions, such as the 2011 Istanbul Convention, provide foundational legal instruments for combating cyberbullying and online violence, emphasizing the need for comprehensive policies to protect women and girls online and criminalizing offensive actions and behaviour.  

In response to these growing concerns, countries are also developing legal frameworks and educational programs to protect students, particularly girls. Initiatives range from the comprehensive guidelines in Portugal on teaching about gender and internet safety to the Kids Online Safety Act in the United States, which demands safer online environments for children and adolescents. In Italy, a 2017 law stipulated preventive actions and a strategy of attention, protection and education for children considering both their situation as victims and perpetrators. Slovenia has run projects to raise awareness about online dating violence among youth for the successful prevention of and protection from online violence and harassment of girls and women. 

About 1 in 4 countries have banned mobile phones in school with laws or policies. Some countries ban phones for younger students (e.g. Finland and France) and others for their older peers (e.g. the Netherlands). Some have blocked the access to specific social media or software in schools. 

Education systems worldwide are evolving to integrate digital safety into their curricula and implementing comprehensive cybersecurity training. The aim is to create safer educational environments educating students and educators about the risks and responsibilities associated with digital technology. For example, Cambodia and Viet Nam have included lessons on preventing sexual abuse in their school programs.  

Parental guidance is also essential 

The World Health Organization and various educational policies advocate for reduced screen time and increased monitoring of digital engagement by young users. Parents and educators need to be equipped to guide children in understanding and managing their interactions with the digital space. This includes setting boundaries on screen time, discussing the content they encounter online, and fostering skills in critical thinking and digital literacy to help them discern and manage online risks and to combat misinformation and potential online harm.  

The call to action is clear 

Empowering young girls with the knowledge, tools, and support they need to thrive both online and offline is essential.  

As the 2024 GEM Gender Report  recommendation argues, it has become urgent to protect education from these negative influences of technology. Addressing the intersection of gender violence and digital technology in schools is crucial for ensuring safe educational environments for all students, especially girls. Educators, parents, policymakers, and students must work together to develop effective strategies to mitigate these risks. Strengthening legal protections, enhancing educational curricula and fostering supportive school communities are essential steps toward combating digital gender violence. Informed policies, engaged parenting, and responsive education systems can help to make digital environments in and outside schools safer and more inclusive. By understanding the impacts of digital technology on well-being and taking active steps to mitigate risks, we can help to build a better future for all students.  

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A year ago, the Transforming Education Summit (TES) was the highest-level education meeting in history, convening Heads of States on an unprecedented scale to talk about the education crisis. I was the Stakeholder Convenor for the finance track of the summit, helping to draft and edit the TES Discussion Paper on Financing, which was developed with input from 193 UN Member States. The paper led to the development of a Call to Action on Financing Education endorsed by the UN Secretary General, that was launched at the Summit on 19^th September 2022.

One year on, it is clear that delivering on this transformative finance agenda will be key to achieving the Sustainable Development Goal on Education by 2030. But to make the necessary breakthroughs, the education community, at national and international levels, must break out of its bubble and engage in much more strategic dialogue and action around tax justice, debt justice and ending the  default use of austerity measures.

The Global Partnership for Education (GPE) is the most influential global actor on education, linking ministries of education from across lower-income countries in a partnership with bilateral and multilateral donors, civil society representatives, teacher unions, private sector partners and foundations. New research published today, shows the scale of transformation that could be achieved through action on the TES recommendations on tax, debt and austerity in 89 partner and eligible countries of GPE.

Taking action to increase tax revenues

On tax, the TES finance agenda called for action nationally to ‘increase the fiscal space for education’ and ‘to reach an adequate tax-to-GDP ratio.’ TES also called for international support to ‘prioritize global actions on taxes supporting international reforms.’

Our new research shows that GPE partner countries are losing over $47 billion every year in potential tax revenue, largely owing to tax avoidance by the wealthiest companies and individuals. It also reveals that 70% of GPE partner countries have a low tax-to-GDP ratio (under 20%), meaning that they struggle to raise enough revenue to provide universal education.

If these countries increased their tax-to-GDP ratios by five percentage points (as deemed realistic in a key IMF paper on financing sustainable development), they could raise an additional $455 billion. Moreover, if a fair share of this sum was earmarked for education, they could mobilize over $93 billion for education every year. This would be enough to transform the financing of public education, for example covering the costs of primary education for over 88 million children.

Reducing the debt burden to allocate more funds to education

On debt, the TES Finance Paper called for urgent action, observing: ‘It is clear that action on debt renegotiations and even debt write-offs for countries in debt crisis urgently needs to be accelerated. Any country that spends more on debt servicing than on education ought to be prioritized.’

The new research shows that 90% of the countries studied are at significant risk of debt distress (either they are in debt distress or at high or moderate risk of distress), seriously limiting the funds available for education. Indeed, shockingly, 25 countries are spending more on servicing their external debts than they are on education. Yet even in these countries, education is still not being factored into national negotiations on debt – and education still has little voice in global discussions on the debt crisis. GPE has started to acknowledge the importance of action on debt through its Debt2Ed modality but a much greater strategic engagement is needed in every country where the scale of debt servicing is limiting spending on education.

Cutting public spending reduces education budgets

On austerity, the TES Call to Action on Finance urged ‘the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international financial institutions to remove existing obstacles, such as public sector wage constraints, that prevent increased spending on education; and champion policies that will allow significant new recruitment of professional teachers wherever there are shortages.’

But the latest data shows that 75% of countries are planning to cut overall public spending as a percentage of GDP over the coming three years. Moreover, in 36 countries where intensive studies have been conducted to look at the IMF policy steer on public sector wage bills, 67% of countries have been advised to cut wage bills and 28% have been advised to freeze them. This directly blocks recruitment of new teachers, even in countries where there are serious teacher shortages; and squeezes teacher salaries even where teachers are on low pay. Yet the IMF still does not engage in a systematic dialogue with education actors to discuss the impact of its advice on education.

Bold action is needed by all education stakeholders

All this must change! A year on from TES, our new research (published in the policy brief: Breaking Out of the Education Bubble) has exposed clearly that strategic action on tax, debt and public spending policies is essential for any government committed to achieving education goals. Governments should use all the tools at their disposal to act on progressive tax reforms, debt justice, and moving away from austerity policies.

But national action needs to be reinforced internationally. We urge all GPE partners, in line with GPE’s ambitious strategy, to leverage the power of its partnership for system transformation, to think out of the box and move in the bold directions proposed at TES. GPE, as the largest partnership for education, should support both national action and international reforms to deliver on this transformative agenda.

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Over the past 15 years that I have been in education, technology has transformed classrooms into digital landscapes, opening new avenues for learning and engagement. While it offers incredible opportunities, this influx of technology brings forth a host of challenges, leaving many teachers like me feeling burnt out and overwhelmed.

The drowning effect

Gone are the days when a chalkboard and textbooks were the primary tools in our arsenal. (When I started teaching, I was still using an overhead projector!). Today, teachers are expected to be tech-savvy, integrating various devices, platforms, and apps into their lessons. Keeping up with the innovations in artificial intelligence, the plagiarism checkers, the constant updates and mastering new software can feel like trying to swim against a relentless tide.

In its latest report, “Technology in Education: A tool on whose terms”? , the 2023 GEM Report highlights the dizzying speed of change, with EdTech products changing every 36 months on average, and teachers training under pressure. The need to stay relevant and deliver engaging content while juggling the demands of a fast-paced digital environment can be suffocating. As we struggle to keep up with technological innovations, we need to remember that, whilst technology can support education, it cannot supplant it. Nothing should ever replace the human face in the education we give our children. In the United States where I work, an analysis of over 2 million students found that learning gaps widened with remote instruction exclusively. Teachers, in other words, are critical no matter the technology you put in.

The battle for attention

The allure of smartphones and tablets has captured the attention of our students, making it challenging to maintain their focus during class. Today, despite the distraction they cause, less than a quarter of countries ban smartphone use in schools. With social media, games, and a plethora of distractions at their fingertips, our students’ attention spans have suffered. The GEM report found that even just the presence of a mobile device in the near vicinity was enough to distract children and impact their learning. It often feels like a never-ending battle, trying to compete with the enticing world of digital entertainment.

The digital divide

While technology promises to bridge gaps and enhance inclusivity, it also exposes a stark reality — the digital divide. This became particularly clear during the COVID-19 pandemic. A rapid shift to online learning almost overnight left out at least half a billion students worldwide. Most of the students affected came from disadvantaged backgrounds, and those in rural areas, who lacked access to reliable internet connections or personal devices. As a result, teachers must navigate the delicate balance of incorporating technology into their classrooms while ensuring no student is left behind. Bridging this gap requires creative thinking and collaborative efforts, which can add further strain to an already overwhelmed teacher.

The erosion of human connection

Technology has undeniably transformed the way we communicate and interact. The rise of online education options has changed the way the teacher-student connection happens. And while online education has its benefits, it can also erode the vital human connection between teachers and students. The personal touch, the subtle nuances, and the empathy that can only be conveyed through face-to-face interaction often get lost in the virtual realm. Building relationships with students becomes a challenge when much of our communication is reduced to emails and virtual meetings.

Finding the silver lining

Amidst the chaos and burnout, it is crucial to remember that technology is a tool, not the ultimate goal of education. As teachers, we must adapt and find ways to harness its potential without compromising the core values that underpin our profession. Here are a few strategies to help navigate the challenges:

1. Embrace professional development: Seek out workshops, conferences, and online courses that focus on integrating technology effectively. Building your digital skills will not only boost your confidence but also make you better equipped to support your students. As the new GEM Report shows, governments need to ensure that the teaching community is offered appropriate training to use the tools being bought.
2. Collaborate with colleagues: Share your experiences, challenges, and triumphs with fellow teachers. Collaboration fosters a sense of camaraderie and helps discover innovative ways to tackle common obstacles. Teachers often feel unprepared and lack confidence teaching with technology, they need support yet only half of countries have ICT standards for developing their skills.
3. Set boundaries: Establish clear boundaries between work and personal life. It’s easy to get consumed by the demands of technology, but remember that self-care is essential to prevent burnout. Dedicate time to recharge and unplug from the digital world. One simple way to practice self-care and set a technology boundary is to take your work email off of your phone. We must also remember that screen time weighs heavily on children’s wellbeing including lower well-being, less curiosity, self-control, and emotional stability, higher anxiety or depression diagnosis.
4. Focus on pedagogy: Instead of getting caught up in the latest trends and gadgets, concentrate on the pedagogical aspects of teaching. Identify how technology can enhance learning outcomes and use it purposefully, rather than for the sake of novelty. This can be a difficult task as there is a lack of good quality evidence on which technology to use. As illustrated in the GEM report, a survey of teachers and administrators in 17 US states showed that only 11% requested peer-reviewed evidence prior to adoption.
5. Tailor instruction to student needs: Recognize the diversity of your students’ backgrounds and ensure that technology integration is inclusive. Provide alternative methods of learning for students without access, so no one is left behind. We need to remember that technology improves access for millions of students but excludes millions more.

Closing Thoughts:

The diary of a burned-out teacher may be filled with frustration and exhaustion, but it also holds glimpses of hope and resilience. By examining the risks and opportunities that technology presents in education and adopting proactive strategies, teachers can harness the benefits of technology, limit its downfall and overcome burnout to continue to inspire their students. Let us remember that technology should enhance education, not replace the human touch that makes teaching truly impactful.

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Together with Restless Development, the GEM Report is launching this short survey as the start of a global youth consultation we are running to hear youth voices on how technology should be used in education.

1. What should the priorities be?
2. What are the core challenges?
3. How should we protect learners when learning through technology?
4. What one message do you want to give policy makers on this issue that we can elevate together?

Your voices will be part of a global movement we are building with Restless Development to feed into a youth version of the 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report to be published by UNESCO this July on technology and education.

The discussions have already begun, with a first gathering of youth activists in New York during the ECOSOC youth forum in May. We heard your voices about making sure that girls access digital devices, and that many devices cannot be accessible for children with a disability. You spoke out about the need for a more critical take over the way that children’s data is being used by technology firms. And we heard your call for more attention to be paid on making sure that digital skills are taught in even the most hard-to-reach areas and to the most marginalized students.

The SDG 4 Youth Network and Global Students Forum have also joined the movement, helping to spread the word on the opportunity this platform provides for youth voices. Starting soon, we will be holding several more youth-led regional consultations aiming to better understand the challenges and opportunities young people from around the world face when using technology in education and to hear their recommendations for policymakers.

A call for expressions of interest for youth organizations to organize these consultations and take part in associated advocacy activities will be launched in July.

Take the survey here and stay in touch to find out more!

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