Latin America and the Caribbean align their actions to meet global education targets and move forward in their priorities

• • Members of the Regional Steering Committee for Sustainable Development Goal 4-E2030 (quality education) decided during their first meeting that for the next 12 months they will undertake actions that focus on educational inclusion and equity, one of the four regional priorities.
  • The participants urged concrete actions to address the educational challenges associated with intraregional migration such as the recognition, certification and validation of skills and diplomas. Measures to prevent school dropout were also discussed.

VIDEO: Laurette Bristol, Programme Manager of Human Resource Development, CARICOM

21 February -Ensuring regional progress in meeting the targets of Sustainable Development Goal 4 was the main focus at the first meeting of the SDG-E2030 Regional Steering Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean, held in early February in Santiago. In two days of work, the representatives of member countries of this committee and the agencies involved followed up on the progress made in the commitments undertaken at the II Regional Meeting of Ministers of Education of Latin America and the Caribbean, held in Cochabamba in July 2018.

The committee agreed to focus its work on equity and inclusion for the next 12 months. The participants specifically agreed to work towards addressing the educational challenges posed by intraregional migration such as, for example, concrete measures to recognize, certify and validate skills and diplomas and initiatives to prevent school dropout.

As the Director-General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay argues, “Learning is not a luxury. Everyone loses when the education of migrants and refugees is ignored. Education is the key to inclusion and cohesion. It is the best way to make communities stronger and more resilient.

At the meeting, forms of regional cooperation were defined and an action plan was drawn up for 2019-2021, in keeping with the SDG4-E2030 Implementation Roadmap for Latin America and the Caribbean. Agreements were made to initiate the activities of the four regional working groups for articulated and coordinated actions in policies and strategies; funding and governance; communication and advocacy; and monitoring and reporting. All of this in view of the four issues prioritized by the region’s ministers of education: lifelong learning; equity and inclusion; teachers and education personnel, and rethinking educational quality.