As leaders meet at the Transforming Education Summit, UNICEF is calling on governments to commit to reaching all children with quality education.
Education is the future
This group is meant to represent the estimated one-third of 10-year-olds globally who are able to read and understand a simple written story.
Summit gets underway
The remaining two-thirds of desks are almost invisible and made of clear material to signify the 64 per cent of children estimated to be unable to read and understand a simple written story by age 10.
The much-anticipated Transforming Education Summit begins at UN Headquarters in New York today, Friday, with a day of youth-led mobilization, which includes contributions from the Secretary-General and his deputy, together with the President of the General Assembly.
Simmering crisis
The installation will be displayed at the visitor’s entrance of UN Headquarters in New York between 16 and 26 September. The model will serve as a reminder to government officials, heads of state and everyday visitors of the urgent need for mass global investment in education.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, prolonged school closures and a lack of access to quality learning exposed and exacerbated a pre-existing learning crisis, that has left millions of schoolchildren without foundational numeracy and literacy skills.
A third of the desks in the model classroom are made of wood and are fully functioning with an iconic UNICEF backpack placed on the school chair behind it.To draw attention to the education crisis and the need to transform learning worldwide, UNICEF has created the ‘Learning Crisis Classroom’, a model classroom that represents the scale of children failing to learn critical foundational skills.
