Paris, France · 23 March 2020 — With schools closing rapidly across the globe in the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, UNESCO launched the Global Education Coalition (GEC) — a multi-sector platform designed to ensure the continuity of learning for the more than 1.6 billion learners suddenly locked out of classrooms.
The Coalition, announced on 23 March 2020, brought together partners from the UN family, civil society, academia, and the private sector in what UNESCO described as an "agile, collaborative" response to the biggest learning disruption in history. It was conceived not as a new institution but as a coordination mechanism — matching needs on the ground with the capacities and resources of willing partners.
Three Flagships: Connectivity, Teachers, Gender
The Coalition organised its work around three central themes, or "flagships," chosen to address the most urgent structural barriers exposed by the pandemic:
Connectivity
The Connectivity flagship focused on bridging the digital divide that prevented hundreds of millions of learners from accessing remote education. It worked to expand universal access to the internet for educational purposes, broker partnerships with technology and telecommunications providers — including mobile network operators — and improve digital capacity for teachers and ministry officials.
In several countries, the Coalition facilitated free internet access for distance education, negotiating zero-rating arrangements with telecom companies so that educational platforms would not count against users' data caps.
Teachers
Recognising that teachers were the linchpin of any education system — and that millions were unprepared for the sudden shift to digital pedagogy — the Teachers flagship focused on empowering educators and protecting their professional status.
The Global Teacher Campus became a major initiative under this flagship, providing free online courses and professional development to help teachers gain digital skills and pedagogical competencies for remote and hybrid learning environments. The campus offered modular, self-paced courses covering topics from basic digital literacy to advanced instructional design for online platforms.
Gender
The Gender Equality mission aimed to protect and advance the education of girls, who were disproportionately at risk of permanent dropout during and after school closures. Associated with campaigns such as #LearningNeverStops and the Building Back Equal guide, this flagship worked to address gender-based barriers, tackle harmful norms, and provide targeted support — including STEM education initiatives — to ensure girls were not left behind.
From Crisis Response to Long-Term Transformation
Although the Coalition was born of crisis, it quickly evolved into a broader platform for advancing Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) — the global commitment to inclusive and equitable quality education. Beyond the three original flagships, the Coalition developed additional large-scale missions:
| Mission | Focus |
|---|---|
| Global Skills Academy | Employability and digital skills for youth |
| Global Learning House | Quality, accessible learning resources |
| Digital Transformation Collaborative (DTC) | Government support for large-scale digital transformation |
The Global Skills Academy, launched in partnership with technical and vocational education providers, aimed to equip one million young people with digital and employability skills by 2025. The Digital Transformation Collaborative brought together technology companies and education ministries to plan systemic digital infrastructure investments — moving beyond emergency remote learning toward durable, resilient education systems.
A Model for Multi-Sector Partnership
The Coalition's structure was notable for its inclusiveness. Members included UN agencies (UNICEF, UNHCR, ITU), major technology companies (Microsoft, Google, Amazon), telecommunications providers, civil society organisations, academic institutions, and philanthropic foundations. Each partner committed resources — expertise, platforms, connectivity, funding — rather than simply endorsing a declaration.
This multi-sector model was designed to be replicable. UNESCO positioned the Coalition as a proof of concept for how the international community could mobilise quickly around a shared educational challenge, drawing on the comparative advantages of very different types of organisations.
Africa as a Priority
The Coalition paid particular attention to Africa, where the digital divide was most acute and where school closures threatened to reverse hard-won gains in enrolment and gender parity. UNESCO documented how the Coalition contributed to transforming education across the continent — supporting teacher training in digital pedagogy, brokering connectivity solutions with African telecom operators, and working with ministries to design gender-responsive reopening strategies.
In several African countries, Coalition partners supported the delivery of educational content through radio and television — low-tech but high-reach platforms that could reach learners without internet access. This hybrid approach, combining digital platforms where available and broadcast media where not, became a hallmark of the Coalition's pragmatic, context-driven methodology.
Sources
- UNESCO, Global Education Coalition — unesco.org/en/global-education-coalition
- UNESCO, COVID-19: How UNESCO's Global Education Coalition is tackling the biggest learning disruption in history — unesco.org/en/articles/covid-19-how-unesco-global-education-coalition-tackling-biggest-learning-disruption-history
- UNESCO, Global Education Coalition flagships — unesco.org/en/global-education-coalition/flagships
- UNESCO, Global Teacher Campus — unesco.org/en/global-education-coalition/teacher-campus
- UNESCO, How the Global Education Coalition is contributing to transforming education in Africa — unesco.org/en/articles/how-global-education-coalition-contributing-transforming-education-africa
- ITU, WSIS Forum 2021 Session on Global Education Coalition — itu.int
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