We hope you enjoy our curated selection of top reads (and one listening recommendation) for this summer. This collection features newly published and influential global education reports, insightful articles and blogs, tools to support your work, skill-building resources, and our favourite inspiring summer fiction. Enjoy!
Financing Education
The price of inaction: the global private, fiscal and social costs of children and youth not learning
UNESCO, June 2024 – Read here | IFGE Blog about the report
First global report illustrating the monetary costs to economies around the world of leaving children and youth behind in education.
Report
Transforming Education Financing in Africa – A Strategic Agenda for the African Union Year of Education
ActionAid International and TaxEd Alliance, February 2024 – Read here | IFGE Blog about the report
A report outlining how Africa could achieve transformative breakthroughs in education systems during the African Union (AU) Year of Education in 2024, if there is coordinated national and Pan-African action on the key factors influencing education financing: tax, debt, and austerity.
Report
Developing tax rules for a globalised world
Social Europe Blog by Alex Cobham, 31 July 2024 – Read here
The blog outlines the process of finalising the draft terms of reference for a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation and discusses the challenges facing the Ad Hoc Committee, marking what could be the most significant overhaul of international tax rules in a century.
Blog
IFGE Pre-Budget Submission for 2025
Irish Forum for Global Education, July 2024 – Read here
In this submission we outline, how Ireland’s continued significant investment in global education in 2025, would yield essential outcomes for development initiatives and advance the 2030 agenda and all SDGs worldwide.
Submission
Education-Climate Nexus
Crisis-Affected Children and Adolescents in Need of Education Support: New Global Estimates and Thematic Deep Dives
Education Cannot Wait (ECW), 2023 – Read here | IFGE Blog based on report
The report presents global figures of out-of-school children in emergencies and their educational outcomes using an updated three-stage methodology and finds that the number of crisis-affected children in need of quality education is increasing.
Report
Mainstreaming climate change in education: Introducing a tool for policy dialogue
Global Partnership for Education (GPE), June 2024 – Read here
Recognizing the crucial role of education to address climate change, GPE has developed a tool for mainstreaming climate change in education policies and practices and help partners embed climate change considerations within their work.
Tool
Education in Emergencies
Understanding the interplay of fragility, conflict and climate change for education
Global Partnership for Education (GPE), July 2024 – Read Part 1 | Read Part 2
The impacts of climate change in countries affected by fragility and conflict are more severe. Read about the various ways in which fragility, climate change and education intersect. And how to take into account the impacts of climate change in fragile and conflict-affected contexts on education planning and implementation?
Blog
‘Without access to education, children are at risk of losing their futures’
Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO), July 2024 – Read here
Read about how the during Education International’s 10th World Congress in Argentina the British and Irish Group of Teacher Unions (BIGTU) has denounced the fact that 75 million children worldwide will have their education disrupted this year by war, conflicts or natural disasters.
Blog
Safe Learning Model Research
Concern Worldwide, November 2023 – Read here
School Related Gender Based Violence (SRGBV) has been identified as a major barrier to children accessing their right to safe, quality education. In this report, Concern Worldwide presents its Safe Learning Model research.
Report
Gender Equality
A Concerted Stride Towards Gender Equality in Education
NORRAG Blog by Arushi Terway, March 2024 – Read here
Arushi Terway summarises a panel discussion with international experts on the challenges of gender equality in education, held at the GPE KIX EMAP Hub Education Policy and Innovation Conference (EPIC) 2023 and reveals a way towards a holistic approach to gender equality in education.
Blog
Adolescent Girls in Crisis: Voices from Ukraine, Poland and Romania
Plan International, June 2024 – Read here
More than two years since the escalation of the war in Ukraine, Plan International spoke to adolescent girls experiencing this ongoing crisis, including about the impact on their education.
Report
Call to Action – Closing the Gender Gap in Science
UNESCO, February 2024 – Read here | IFGE Blog about report
The UNESCO report calls for early intervention in girl’s lives and education and provides a number of recommended actions to achieve gender equality in science.
Report
Teacher Shortage & Transforming Education Summit
Transforming the Teaching Profession – United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession Recommendations and Summary of Deliberations
UN, March 2024 – Read here | IFGE Blog about the report
This UN report provides a new set of tools with 59 recommendations to tackle the global teacher shortage and support teaching personnel .
Report
What progress has been made since the 2022 Transformative Education Summit?
Save the Children blog by Anja Nielsen, June 2024 – Read here
The blog provides six reflections following the global education community gathering in Paris for a stocktake of what progress has been made since the 2022 TES.
Blog
Children in the Spotlight
Putting Children First for Sustainable Development
World Vision, July 2024 – Read here
The report analyses the economic benefit of Official Development Assistance (ODA) programming that directly or indirectly targets children, including their education.
Report
Global Report on Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE): The right to a strong foundation
UNICEF and UNESCO, June 2024 – Read here
The report provides a comprehensive roadmap for addressing challenges in learning and well-being through an integrated ECCE ecosystem, supporting children and families globally.
Report
Educational Guides & Learning
The Expert Learner: Challenging the myth of ability
Gordon Stobart, 2014 – About the author | ISBN-13 978-0335247301
The Expert Learner looks at what we know about acquiring expertise and seeks to apply it to education, particularly to classroom teaching. Challenging the widely held belief that excellence is the result of innate ability, it shows how ability is developed through applied learning and deliberate practice.
Book Non-Fiction Educational Guide
GCE Learning Hub
Global Campaign for Education – Access here
GCE just launched this learning platform with a rich offer of high-quality free multilingual eLearning courses, resources and professional learning right where you are.
Tool
The Art of Note-Taking – Episode 159
Focused, Productivity Podcast by David Sparks and Mike Smitz – About the podcast
The podcasters consider note-taking and its role in the creative process.
Podcast
Fiction & Novels
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Khaled Hosseini, 2007 – About the author | ISBN-13 978-0747585893
Let’s not allow the world to forget the women and girls in Afghanistan, who are once again enduring fear, brutality, and the denial of their basic right to education. Revisit this powerful classic that vividly portrays the struggles of Mariam and Laila during the Taliban’s brutal takeover in 1996, and let it serve as a reminder of the ongoing fight for their future.
Book Fiction
In the Shadow of the Banyan
Vaddey Ratner, 2012 – About the author – ISBN-13 978-1451657715
The most challenging read in the selection, but a deeply rewarding one, it builds on the authors’ experiences of Cambodia’s civil war, which, in its wake, also devastated the educational sector and continues to shape the country’s challenges today. For seven-year-old Raami, the shattering end of childhood begins with the footsteps of her father returning home in the early dawn hours bringing details of the civil war that has overwhelmed the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital. Over the next four years, as she endures the deaths of family members, starvation, and brutal forced labour, Raami clings to the only remaining vestige of childhood—the mythical legends and poems told to her by her father. A brilliantly wrought tale of human resilience.
Book Fiction
The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World
Laura Imai Messina, 2020 – About the author | ISBN-13 978-1419754302
Nothing to do with global education, but if you are in need for a book that inspires hope, this is your choice. Struck down by grief after loosing her mother and daughter in the 2011 Tsunami in Japan, Yui hears about a man who has an old disused telephone booth in his garden. There, those who have lost loved ones find the strength to speak to them and begin to come to terms with their grief. And so begins Yui’s own pilgrimage and heartwarming journey.
Book Fiction
