Resources
Explore a wide range of valuable resources on GCED to deepen your understanding and enhance your research, advocacy, teaching, and learning.
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Why the World Needs Happy Schools: Global Report on Happiness In and For Learning Year of publication: 2024 Corporate author: UNESCO Seeing a teacher smile. Hearing students laugh. Feeling a hug from a friend. Smelling fresh air. Tasting a nutritious school meal. These five senses can stimulate happiness at school and improve the learning experiences, outcomes and well-being of students. Through the ‘Happy Schools’ initiative, UNESCO is placing happiness at the core of the transformation of education. It encourages education systems to recognize happiness as both a means to and a goal of quality learning. The initiative is informed by a growing evidence base linking happiness with better learning, teaching, well-being and overall system resilience. This report presents the UNESCO global Happy Schools framework consisting of 4 pillars – people, process, place and principles – and 12 high-level criteria to guide the transformation of learning. It offers a holistic model for embedding happiness into education policies and cultivating it in schools through systemic changes. The report illustrates how the ‘Happy Schools’ initiative aims to create top-down and bottom-up transformation, encouraging governments to recognize happiness as a core objective of education. It supports the scaling of promising practices of joyful learning from the school to the policy level. 
Earth Network Project: Connecting UNESCO-Designated Sites With Experts to Boost Biodiversity Year of publication: 2024 Corporate author: UNESCO The Earth Network project was launched in 2021 with the support of the Government of Italy. It brings together over 380 experts from more than 60 countries, encompassing diverse biodiversity-related fields that include land restoration, environmental management and environmental law. The specialists volunteer to put their unique skillsets and knowledge at the disposal of sites designated by UNESCO which request their assistance. The Earth Network covers all scientific domains and proudly combines different forms of knowledge: scientific, practitioner, local and indigenous. On the ground, these experts provide technical advice, collect data, build partnerships, and provide training tailored to the specific needs and priorities of each UNESCO-designated site. 
Transforming Education Towards SDG4: Report of a Global Survey on Country Actions to Transform Education; Highlights Year of publication: 2024 Corporate author: UNESCO In 2022, the United Nations Transforming Education Summit responded decisively to mobilize action, ambition and solidarity as well as to elevate education to the top of the political agenda. This powerful mobilization led to 143 countries presenting national statements of commitment, demonstrating their political resolve to reimagine and transform their education systems. On the Summit’s fi rst anniversary, UNESCO invited its Member States to participate in the Survey on Country Actions to Transform Education and report on how they have translated their commitments into actions. This document presents highlights from the Transforming Education Towards SDG 4: Report of a global survey on country actions to transform education. It showcases transformative actions that countries have undertaken to accelerate progress towards SDG 4. The report emphasizes that education must adopt a holistic, lifelong and comprehensive approach that addresses the development and well-being of individual learners and society. Transforming education requires placing inclusion, equity and gender equality at the core of policies and interventions. It also requires more and better education fi nancing, and investments in the teaching profession. 
SDG-Education 2030 Steering Committee: Making Higher Education More Inclusive, July 2020 Year of publication: 2020 Corporate author: UNESCO The rapid expansion of higher education in the past two decades, as well as the growing diversity of providers and technological models for delivering education, have made higher education accessible to more students globally. Yet significant barriers remain for many vulnerable groups, and women still lag behind in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. A better understanding of inequality as well as new paradigms, strategies and a renewed political will for ‘leaving no one behind’ are required. Structural equity policies at all levels throughout the education system, as well as extraordinary measures when needed, should ensure that students from any background with the potential to succeed are fully integrated with equal opportunities into higher education. This policy paper reviews the current literature and sets out findings and recommendations to increase and strengthen equity and inclusion in higher education in a lifelong learning perspective. It provides a conceptual framework for equity and inclusion, analyses the urgent need to improve funding and its efficiency, provides insight into the challenges for teaching and teachers, and recommends policy measures for establishing higher education systems that are more equitable and more inclusive. 
Global Inclusive Schools’ Forum Report: Celebrating Inclusion in Education, 14-15 March 2024 Year of publication: 2024 Corporate author: UNESCO | International Forums of Inclusion Practitioners This report summarizes UNESCO’s Global Inclusive School’s Forum, co-organized with International Forums of Inclusion Practitioners (IFIP) at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France on 14-15 March 2024. The forum convened practitioners from different regions around the world to share experiences and highlight promising and innovative practices to be channeled to policy-makers and key stakeholders. The forum further encouraged synergies between practitioners, schools and communities at local, regional and global levels for greater impact. 
Quality Physical Education Policies and Practice: The Global State of Play Year of publication: 2023 Corporate author: UNESCO With the majority of countries around the world investing less than 2% of their education budgets into physical education, the well-being of our future generations is at risk. Quality physical education (QPE) can deliver broad physical, social, emotional, and academic benefits. However, QPE is often under-prioritized and poorly implemented, suffering from deficiencies in funding, inclusivity, allocated time, and well-trained staff. UNESCO’s sport flagship, Fit for Life, aims to address this by working with governments to develop quality PE policies and building the capacities of teachers and coaches to deliver inclusive lessons as part of a well-rounded curricula. UNESCO’s work in QPE is directly informed by data collected via a unique global survey, gathering insights on PE policy and provision. Key data highlights from the most recent survey demonstrate the urgent need to increase the status of this subject in our schools. This requires collective action to establish and implement standards, promote knowledge-sharing, and foster inclusive participation for all youth. 
Multilingualism and Language Diversity for Inclusion in Education: Brief on Inclusion in Education Year of publication: 2024 Author: Piet Van Avermart Corporate author: UNESCO Language is a fundamental factor for inclusion in education. From a monolingual point of view, acquiring the language of instruction has long been regarded as the key to inclusion. However, multilingualism can be a valuable resource for all: inclusive school policies and multilingual practices recognize and foster linguistic diversity, benefit learning and create cohesion. 
Enhancing TVET through Digital Transformation in Developing Countries Year of publication: 2023 Corporate author: UNESCO Technological advancements and digitalization are profoundly reshaping our work and lifestyle, business models and operations, and government policy choices. Digital transformation in technical and vocational education and training (TVET) is the planned and structured introduction of automated and streamlined processes within institutions and national technical and vocational education and training (TVET) systems through digital technology, with the goal of enhancing their scope, scale, efficiency and effectiveness and ultimately, driving their more sustainable development. This document provides overall perspective and five country case studies on digital transformation in TVET. Most countries studied face similar enabling factors: the digital infrastructure available; legal and policy frameworks; focused institutional change to improve the acquisition of digital skills; and the promotion of equality and inclusivity. To understand how digital transformation in TVET is occurring, the report analyses it at four levels: technical and technological development; curriculum and qualifications; teaching and learning using technology; and its contribution to the sustainability and resilience of societies. 
High Level Ministerial Dialogue on Education for Peace Year of publication: 2023 Corporate author: UNESCO This High-level event brought together voices from around the world to discuss what quality and relevant education needs to look like today to bring about real and lasting peace. 
Chile: Artificial Intelligence Readiness Assessment Report Year of publication: 2023 Corporate author: UNESCO The Readiness Assessment Methodology (RAM) is a diagnostic tool intended to assist Member States in upholding their commitment to the Recommendation by helping them understand how prepared they are to implement AI ethically and responsibly for all their citizens. The RAM questionnaire forms the basis for the first section of this readiness assessment report, providing a comprehensive but detailed overview of laws, institutions, and the cultural, social, and human capital landscape shaping AI. This is then complemented in the second section by a summary of concerns and priorities raised during a national multistakeholder consultation that was conducted in 2023. Finally, the third section presents a roadmap and recommendations for building capacities across national institutions, laws and policies, and human capital, to achieve a responsible AI ecosystem aligned with the UNESCO Recommendation. As the very first country to complete the RAM and the country report, Chile is blazing the trail not only for Latin America but the world. We applaud the initiative the Chilean government has taken to update its AI strategy putting ethics and governance front and centre, and thank them for inviting UNESCO to assist in this endeavour. The report presented here reveals a complex and rapidly-changing landscape. In the legal and regulatory dimension, the 2021 National Artificial Intelligence Policy (NAIP) represents a substantive and wide-ranging commitment to developing AI. One of the key recommendations of this report is to fully integrate the UNESCO Recommendation into the NAIP’s axis of Ethics, Regulation, and Socioeconomic Impacts. Notably, the RAM reveals the pressing need to update legislation around data protection and cybersecurity to meet the challenges of AI. It also highlights several areas the Chilean government is actively working to develop. [...] Overall, this report presents a fundamentally optimistic vision that we at UNESCO share: that ethical governance and responsible regulation of AI is entirely consistent with innovation and economic growth, and is essential for ensuring a technological ecosystem that benefits the public good. In drawing a clear line from the RAM data through to the multistakeholder consultations and the recommendations, Chile has a clear roadmap for how to get there. (This text has been extracted from the Foreword of the publication)