NORRAG

In this week’s blog post, Bede Sheppard explores a historic UN push to turn children’s right to free education into stronger, binding international law.

Three main highlights:

🔹 A new Optional Protocol would explicitly recognise early childhood care and education, guarantee at least one year of free public pre-primary education, and ensure free public secondary education for all.

🔹 Children are helping draft the treaty: five child representatives, drawing on input from 8,100+ children worldwide, participated directly in the Geneva session—the first time children have shaped a UN human rights treaty.

🔹 Support is growing: Guatemala became the 62nd country to publicly back the initiative, with more consultations planned before the next official meeting in October 2027.

Read more: https://www.norrageducation.org/un-talks-on-free-education-advance-as-states-weigh-next-steps/

On the Day of Science, Technology and Innovation for the South, we invite you to read our Policy Insight, “AI and Digital Inequities.”

Some key insights:

🔹 How AI can reflect and reinforce existing inequalities.

🔹 The ethical challenges of using AI in education.

🔹 Ways to promote more equitable and inclusive AI design and deployment.

Read more: https://resources.norrageducation.org/resource/845/policy-insights-ai-and-digital-inequities

On , we highlight NORRAG’s project “Academic Freedoms Under Threat.” Education is essential to protecting academic freedom and academic freedom is essential to sustaining democracy.

Read more about our project: https://www.norrageducation.org/academic-freedom-under-threat/

Today we celebrate UN Day for South-South Cooperation.

At NORRAG, provides:

🔹 A network for experts from the Global South.

🔹 A searchable database for decision-makers and others seeking expertise from and on the Global South.

🔹 A campaign to address the under-representation of Global South experts in international education policy discussions.

Reflecting on this day, we take our megaphone to amplify under-represented expert knowledge from the South to audiences globally, including in the North.

🔗 Learn more about our project: https://www.norrageducation.org/the-south-also-knows/

️▶️ Check out our YouTube series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQazh0ZTDc4&list=PLjlXf48lxa_JNY2dgrsDC19kEdWDSCrq-

Lebanon’s children and educators are facing the combined impacts of conflict, displacement, economic crisis and violence.

In our latest blog post, Layal Assaad and Ruth Simpson explore how a Humanitarian-Development-Peace (HDP) Nexus approach can support teachers to create safer, more inclusive learning environments.

The lesson from Lebanon is clear: education can be an anchor for safety, resilience and social cohesion — even in times of crisis.

📖 Read the full blog: https://www.norrageducation.org/when-schools-become-shelters-bridging-gaps-in-the-hdp-nexus-through-conflict-sensitive-peace-education-in-lebanon/

What happens when the teachers keeping education going in times of crisis are themselves overlooked?

On the , we highlight NORRAG’s Policy Insights on Refugee Teachers: The Heart of the Global Refugee Response. Bringing together 48 authors and 27 papers, this publication puts refugee teachers at the centre of the conversation and offers policy directions to recognise, support, and protect this vital workforce.

Refugee teachers and teachers of refugees are essential to keeping education alive for children and young people affected by displacement. Yet, they remain largely invisible in education and refugee policies—and face major challenges around recognition, recruitment, compensation, and professional development.

📖 Read more: https://resources.norrageducation.org/resource/827/policy-insights-refugee-teachers-the-heart-of-the-global-refugee-response

On the day of , we highlight NORRAG’s special Issue 10: Education for Societal Transformation: Alternatives for a Just Future. 🌍

This publication explores the critical role of education in shaping a more just and equitable world and is now available in five languages with the latest translation in Arabic.

📖 Read more: https://resources.norrageducation.org/resource/900/education-for-societal-transformation-alternatives-for-a-just-future

In this week’s blog post, Sreehari Ravindranath asks a critical question: when a crisis emerges, why is the first response so often to create a new curriculum for children?

The blog explores:

🔹 How structural crises are reframed as individual learning needs?

🔹 Why adding new priorities can increase pressure on teachers without changing system conditions?

🔹 Why curriculum reform alone cannot address deeper issues of governance, power and accountability?

🔹 What does it mean to shift responsibility back to the systems that shape children’s educational experiences?

At a time when education is expected to respond to increasingly complex global challenges, this piece invites us to rethink where responsibility for change really lies.

📖 Read more: https://www.norrageducation.org/crisis-as-curriculum-the-politics-of-shifting-responsibility-onto-children/

What We Know About Innovative Financing for Education.

The Innovative Financing for Education to Leave No One Behind project has launched a new webinar series to present findings from five years of applied research! This series will bring together researchers, practitioners, policymakers, funders, and corporate and philanthropic actors to discuss how IFE contributes to more and better funding for education.

Webinar 1: Fostering Scalable Solutions and Systemic Change with Outcomes-Based Financing: Evidence from the Haryana Early Literacy Development Impact Bond.

🗓 8th September | ⏰ 13:00–15:00 CEST | 📍 Online

How can outcomes-based financing foster scalable solutions and systemic change? Join us to discuss the report’s findings on:

🔵 Government engagement
🔵 Domestic resource mobilisation using corporate social responsibility
🔵 Lessons learned from the Haryana DIB

🔗 Register for the webinar: https://buff.ly/Qh7B6tJ
📄 Read the report: https://buff.ly/Ia8Xee6

Is Pakistan’s teacher education preparing teachers to teach or education professionals to work across the wider education sector?

In this week’s blog post, Aisha Naz Ansari examines Pakistan’s revised teacher education curriculum and explores:

🔹 The shift towards 29 specialisation areas and what this means for the focus of teacher preparation.

🔹 The balance between subject knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, educational theory, and classroom practice.

🔹 How limited and uneven teaching practicum requirements may affect the development of practical instructional expertise.

🔹 The potential impact of these reforms on teachers’ professional identity, particularly the balance between becoming an “education specialist” and a skilled classroom teacher.

📖 Read more: https://www.norrageducation.org/teacher-education-in-transition-what-are-we-preparing-teachers-for/