G20 education ministers held a virtual extraordinary meeting to emphasize the central role of education in allowing people to seize the opportunities of the 21st century.
They expressed their support in a closing statement for individual and collective efforts to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on education, stressing the importance of ensuring the continuity of the education process for everyone during crises.
The ministers said that education was a human right, a basis for other rights, and a basis for personal development because it equipped people of all ages with the necessary knowledge, skills, values, and direction to reach their full potential.
They referred to the vital role of education and skills development in facing social, cultural, and economic challenges, and urged international cooperation and the sharing of best practices to improve education systems in order to help reduce poverty and inequality, improve access to high-quality education and empower people.
The ministers emphasized the importance of improving access to high-quality early childhood education as a basis for developing the current and future generations, and as a key method for promoting equality and inclusiveness in education and encouraging lifelong learning.
They highlighted the importance of promoting universality in education to improve its quality at all levels and develop a generation that enjoyed global citizenship values and was qualified to deal with an increasingly interconnected world.
Ministers stressed the need to support the exchange of best practices and experiences and explore ways to build strong education systems and ways to enable students to continue education during and after the pandemic.