Aims to make digital connectivity a reality for all in education

Summit outcomes to be presented to the UN to help drive innovative, radical change needed in education

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DUBAI, UAE / ACCESSWIRE / December 16, 2021 / ubai: The RewirEd Summit, the ground-breaking three-day event at Expo 2020 Dubai aiming to drive the innovative, radical change needed in education, concluded on Tuesday (14th December 2021) with the summit hosts Dubai Cares & UNESCO launching the RewirEd Global Declaration on Connectivity for Education.

The Declaration draws on lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic and aims to make digital connectivity a reality for all in education.

Emphasising the collective responsibility to address the global education crisis, Dr. Tariq Al Gurg, CEO of Dubai Cares urged world leaders to seize this unique opportunity to deliver on their promise to expand their support to education. He said, "While we have reason to celebrate all our achievements from the summit, let us not forget that the road to real success - the road that leads every child to a classroom and every young individual to a decent and dignified job - is still under construction."

The RewirEd Summit took place against a backdrop of COVID-19 threatening to turn a progressively worsening learning crisis into a generational catastrophe. At the height of the pandemic, 1.6 billion students were out of school and tens of millions have yet to go back. Now the Omicron variant threatens to wreak yet more havoc to education in the places that can least afford it.

Driving the debate at the summit were 5 Presidents, 45 ministers from countries all around the world and key leaders in global education including Gordon Brown, the UN's Special Envoy for Education and former UK Prime Minister; Henrietta Fore, Executive Director of UNICEF; Jayathma Wickramanayake, the UN's Special Envoy for Youth; Jaime Saavedra, Global Director, Education, World Bank Group & ex-Education Minister, Peru; Stefania Giannini, UNESCO's Assistant Director-General for Education; Saadia Zahidi, MD at the World Economic Forum; Bob Moritz, Chairman of PwC; and Alan Jope, Unilever's CEO.

Gordon Brown, United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education and former UK Prime Minister said, "We are at a critical turning point. We know the scale of the damage from COVID-19. Millions of pupils' learning time has been lost. Two thirds of countries are cutting education budgets. We are creating an unparalleled crisis. Countries must see education as indispensable. Education spending should be treated as an investment. It is an investment in the future."

The summit featured 450 speakers from 60 countries and over 2,000 participants in all.

The decisions and recommendations from the Summit will be given to the UN, so they can form a core part of their future roadmap to tackle the education crisis.

ENDS

Further information

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SOURCE: RewirEd Summit