Athens, 11 December 2020

On the occasion of the International Day for Children and the World Human Rights Day, the “Marianna V. Vardinoyannis Foundation” organized the online presentation of the Greek publication of the Global Education Monitoring Report 2020, titled “Education: When we say all we mean all“, on Friday, December 11^th 2020. The Greek Minister of Education and Religions, Mrs. Niki Kerameos, participated in the event with a welcoming address.

For the second consecutive year, the “Marianna V. Vardinoyannis Foundation”, translates into Greek and publishes the summary of the Global Education Monitoring Report, while supporting the commitment of the United Nations and UNESCO for education for all, to ensure that no one will be left behind.

Mrs. Marianna V. Vardinoyannis stressed in her introductory speech:  “The support that each of us can provide to international education programs is very important. Because only together, by joining our forces, our knowledge and our ideas, and identifying the serious issues that arise worldwide, can we meet these challenges. It is the responsibility of all of us to shed light on where life does not favour children and their gradual integration into the educational community. To support vulnerable groups and help them experience the right to education, equality, dignity and dreams for their future. The pandemic has magnified inequalities between countries, communities and population groups. It threatens to leave behind a lost generation and wounds that will take many years of collective and individual struggle to heal. That is why the United Nations Development Goal 4 to ensure free, equal and quality education for all is once again our goal. The inclusion to education, which is the subject of the Report, underlines the need to respect diversity in classrooms, the role of gradual integration of students and the importance of equal access to education”.

Minister Niki Kerameos said in her address: “The report is a very useful tool, a barometer for the quality of education that tries to highlight both good practices and weaknesses, to help redefine goals and priorities. This year’s report is dedicated to what in our opinion is a major issue: inclusion”. She also spoke in detail about the initiatives undertaken by the Ministry of Education towards inclusion and in particular, the implementation of distance learning due to the pandemic conditions and the creation of a national plan for people with disabilities.

Immediately after the Ministers’ address, the Director of UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report, Mr. Manos Antoninis, presented the main findings of the report. As Mr. Antoninis explained, the term “inclusion” means that “all individuals in a society have value and potential and no student should be rejected from the education system, instead the education system should be adapted to students’ needs.”

Mr. Antoninis spoke in detail and with examples about the problems of inclusion in education worldwide, citing as the most typical example people with disabilities who are 2.5 times more likely to not even go to school, describing it as “the largest form of rejection by the education system in the world”. He also referred to other groups such as teenage refugees or rural women in 20 countries around the world who do not even finish high school. “Unified education is a process that results in a long-term goal. There are many ways to get there and the Report provides material for the dialogue process between the countries“.

The presentation was moderated by Mr. George Kouvaras, journalist. You can watch the presentation of the Greek publication of the Global Education Monitoring Report here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFMPUt0-Njk