<<Print>>

The National Convenor for the 2022 United Nations/UNESCO Transforming Education Summit (TES), Dr. Michael Boakye-Yiadom held a press briefing in Accra to update the media on stakeholder meetings held so far to craft Ghana’s Commitment Statement for the Summit.

The Transforming Education Summit is taking place from the 16th to 19 September 2022 in New York, USA.

It would be recalled that in June 2022, Dr. Michael Boakye-Yiadom, was appointed by the President of the Republic of Ghana, through the Hon. Minister of Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, as the “National Convenor” for the 2022 United Nations/UNESCO Transforming Education Summit (TES).

His responsibilities included supporting the Ministry of Education to provide leadership for the successful planning and implementation of the Transforming Education Summit’s (TES) Pre-Summit in Paris in June and the Main Summit in September 2022 in New York City.
 
The National Convenor mentioned in his address that, the Deputy Minister for Education – Honourable John Ntim Fordjour, led a delegation to attend the TES Pre-Summit in Paris after Ghana had held its first consultative meeting; a pre-requisite for attending the Pre-Summit. After the Pre-Summit in Paris, muti-sectoral national consultations, as well as engagements with stakeholders and the media, were held to help Ghana select a Thematic Action Track which would inform the crafting of Ghana’s commitment statement to the Summit.

The President of Ghana, His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo is one of over 154 countries across the globe that will make a commitment to a Thematic Action Track at the Transforming Education Summit. The five Thematic Action Tracks identified by UNESCO to guide meeting the 2030 Agenda and its education-related goals and targets are Inclusive, equitable, safe and healthy schools; Learning and skills for life, work and sustainable development; Teachers, teaching and the teaching profession; Digital learning and transformation and Financing of education.

The National Convenor explained at the press briefing that four national consultations were organized to gather inputs, contributions and comments from stakeholders and this led to Ghana committing to Thematic Action Track 2 - learning and skills for life, work and sustainable development.

Dr. Boakye-Yiadom stressed that all the other Thematic Action Tracks were inputs whilst Thematic Action Track 2 was an output. He stated that “to what end are inclusive equitable education, the teacher and the teaching profession, digital transformation and financing education if they are not to create graduates who have skills for life, work and sustainable development?”

On the diversity of stakeholders for the national consultations, Dr. Boakye-Yiadom indicated that stakeholders were drawn from these groups:  students; members of youth groups; the differently-abled persons; representatives from rural farming and fishing communities; the private sector, gender advocates; the development partners; representatives from both tertiary and pre-tertiary school; artisans; the unemployed; the media; prisoners enrolled in educational institutions; traders; representatives from government agencies and ministries; among others. He asserted that these stakeholder consultations did not only help craft Ghana’s commitment but also served as a highlight to the importance of inclusive and equitable education and promoting lifelong learning.

The Transforming Education Summit is a key initiative launched by the UN Secretary-General (SG), Antonio Guterres, in September 2021.

Bringing together global, national and local education stakeholders and actors, it offers an opportunity for inclusive, networked and effective global dialogue on the types of coordinated actions needed to reverse the slide on progress toward SDG4, to ensure that lessons are learned from pandemic responses for resilience, social prosperity and environmental sustainability in the post-COVID world, and to think big on how we imagine education systems of the future.