Open Letter to Global Leaders on the Role of Education in the Summit of the Future

Education is the Most Important Enabling Human Right

We join the Global Campaign for Education, its members, partners, and allies, on the call on global leaders to embrace educational considerations in all sessions of the Summit of the Future and to include them, substantively, in the Pact for the Future and the Declaration on Future Generations.

In times of uncertainty and social upheaval, the international community, and specifically, the Member States of the United Nations, remain the main actors for leading the urgent changes the world needs to overcome the crises of our days.

Along with seeking immediate solutions to conflicts and disasters, world leaders are called to strengthen the societal foundations essential to advance the realisation of a lasting sustainable development, capable of ensuring peace, justice, democracy and equality.

While we recognise and support the Human Rights International Framework and the Sustainable Development Agenda, we also stress that progress in their realisation cannot be possible without education and lifelong learning.

Due to its enabling nature, education opens the door to realising all human rights since it aims to build people’s learning and capacities needed to transform the world.

Despite its transformative potential, the realisation of the human right to education continues to face dramatic obstacles, such as lack of financing, the exclusion of important populations such as girls and children with disabilities, the attacks against youth, teachers, students and schools, and the utilitarian reduction of the curriculum, among many others.

We recognise many States’ efforts to meet the Sustainable Development Goals, including SDG4. We also welcome the Summit of the Future, which, far from being an isolated initiative, aligns with the work of the UN Treaty Bodies, the High-Level Political Forum, and the recently undertaken Transforming Education Summit and SDG Summit.

In these initiatives, it has become clear that whatever the paths of sustainable development are, it will be very difficult to transform global governance in the medium and long term, and even more so, to achieve international peace and security if the structural causes are not addressed through education.

Education and lifelong learning are not an end in themselves but the basis of sustainable development.

Despite this, we see with concern that education is not properly addressed in the scope of the Summit of Future and its draft Pact for the Future, lacking the necessary strength to structurally promote, from the bases, the changes the world needs.

A future without education is a return to the past!

If you wish to join us by signing this letter, please  sign it using the form for organizations or individuals.