Every child deserves the opportunities and agency that access to a quality education brings. Education is a springboard to our greatest hopes and dreams. It is key to human development and plays a foundational role for the achievement of a more peaceful, prosperous, sustainable and resilient future as envisioned in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The importance of 12 years of free, publicly funded education is captured in SDG 4: “to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”.

In pursuit of our vision of a quality education for every child and our mission to mobilize partnerships and investments that transform education systems in developing countries, leaving no one behind, the GPE’ unique model helps partner countries make major strides in improving access, learning and equity in education, therefore achieving better outcomes for hundreds of millions of girls and boys.

Education faces unparalleled challenges

However, while the world has made considerable progress for children, we continue to face profound challenges to enabling every child to fulfill their fundamental right to an education.

Before the pandemic, close to 260 million children were out of school. Millions more were in classrooms but not learning the essential skills they need to thrive in the 21^st century. Children from the poorest families, girls and children with disabilities still face huge barriers to learning in a safe and healthy environment. Even before COVID-19, the world was off track to achieve SDG 4.

The unprecedented disruptions and enduring economic and social impacts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic threaten to further exacerbate and widen these inequalities. Malala Fund’s Girls’ Education and COVID-19 report estimates up to 10 million more girls could be out of secondary school when this pandemic is over.

Girls living in low-income households, rural areas and refugee contexts are among the most at risk. Teenage pregnancy across sub-Saharan Africa could increase by as much as 65% as a result of school closures because of the pandemic. Business as usual will not suffice if we are to realize the promise and aspirations of the 2030 agenda.

Call for transformative change and seismic shifts

GPE recognizes that global education is at a crossroads and this moment calls for disruption and transformative change to overcome long-standing inequities and to achieve improved education outcomes at scale.

That is exactly what GPE 2025 sets out to accomplish - to accelerate access, learning outcomes and gender equality through equitable, inclusive and resilient education systems fit for the 21^st century.

GPE 2025 is a result of a robust multi-step consultative process across the partnership, including dedicated conversations with stakeholders and surveys designed to solicit broad input on the strategy.

Based on these consultations and evidence collected during the past 5 years, including country level and summative evaluations, a new strategic framework was built to guide GPE’s work over the coming five years.

GPE 2025 is also deeply anchored in feedback from partner countries and education ministers, who have called for unprecedented collective efforts to transform learning and propel nations forward. To this end, GPE’s 2025 strategic framework will drive funding and partnerships to catalyze the kind of seismic shifts that they urge.

Over the next five years, GPE will accelerate children’s access to school, improve learning and catalyze greater equity and gender equality. At the heart of GPE 2025 is a new operating model with potential to support countries transform education systems in the pursuit of key policy priorities.

“Dynamic and robust education systems are built on data and evidence, seek constant improvement through innovation and learning, and secure and support coherence by many actors in order to deliver results” (GPE 2025).

The GPE 2025 strategy and new operating model positions GPE to identify obstacles to change at scale, obtain knowledge and evidence to identify potential solutions, align actors behind transformative solutions, and gather timely evidence to drive implementation, highlight important lessons and enable course correction.

Fundamentally this means accepting that not every country will take the same pathway to reform – and that all actors in education need to do a better job at aligning behind government led reform efforts.

It also means that prioritization – alongside a deep understanding of multiple implementation challenges – of a specific challenge that government and local education groups can get behind – becomes a powerful opportunity to drive system transformation.

As the strategic plan lays out, “education is the embodiment of our greatest hopes and dreams.” GPE 2025 is a commitment to children that their hopes for a better future can be realized.

Read the GPE 2025 strategy