September 10, 2020

DAI recently celebrated International Literacy Day 2020 by facilitating a webinar—Inclusion and Education: All Means All—co-hosted by UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report and the Comparative and International Education Society’s Inclusive Education Special Interest Group (SIG).

The webinar offered a platform for attendees to discuss the 2020 GEM Report’s findings and recommendations with the larger international education community. The event featured insights from two of the GEM Report’s Senior Policy Analysts, as well as inclusive education specialists working across the fields of policy, practice, and research to reach the most marginalized, including DAI’s Craig Geddes and Sakil Malik, respectively, CIES’s SIG Chairs for Literacy and Inclusive Education.

Watch the full webinar.

The key recommendation from the report is that learner diversity is a strength to be celebrated. “Inclusive education is the foundation of a high-quality education system that enables every child, youth, and adult to learn and fulfill their potential, no matter their background, identity, or gender,” said Malik.

The GEM Report provides policymakers with 10 recommendations for the 10 years left before the 2030 deadline of the Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals. These recommendations provide governments with a roadmap and an opportunity for the international community to shift the needle on the discourse around inclusion and education.

“It is a commitment that we cannot afford to lose sight of. It is about adapting to learners and making a commitment, not about learners adapting to the system,” said Anna D’Addio, Senior Policy Analyst for the GEM Report team at UNESCO and panelist.

Other webinar panelists included UNESCO GEM Report’s Bilal Barakat, the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Joshua Josa, Leonard Cheshire International’s Marie Schoeman, and Inclusion International’s Sue Swenson.