International Day of Education: World Celebrates It In Covid-19 Era
The world is celebrating the International Day of Education today to celebrate the role of education in world peace and development. The United Nations had marked January 24 as the International Day of Education in the year 2018. Since then, the UN has been announcing an annual theme to celebrate this day. This year's theme has been kept as ‘Recover and Revitalize Education for the COVID-19 Generation'. The school education has been massively impacted by the COVID-19 situation forcing the students to study online and give exams in the forms of assignments. Many states announced automatic promotion for the students and postponed the annual exams.
The impact of COVID-19 on the education at both the school-level and the college-level has trickled down in 2021 as well as the CBSE Board exams have been postponed to May while there is no certainty around the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET 2021). Various state boards have followed suit and postponed their respective board exams for Classes 10,12 while announcing reopening of the schools in phased manner.
On the other hand, various universities including the Delhi University, JawaharLal Nehru University and Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) launched online courses to benefit the home-bound students and announced phased re-opening of the institutes.
Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank' marked the day as he said, “Celebrating #internationaldayofeducation today. Let us all come together and ensure that no one gets denied the right to education, because education has the power to change the world”
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has shared how different countries had marked the International Day of Education.
China
China celebrated the day on January 20 with China Education Association for International Exchange organising an event co-hosted by Beijing Normal University to call on attention to ‘Education Equality and Sustainable Development in the Post-Pandemic Era'.
Canada
Canada marked the day by organising a two-day conference from January 22-24 to discuss ‘Reorienting Education Towards Sustainability' along with the International Association of Universities (IAU), Canadian Commission for UNESCO (CCU) and Okayama University (Japan).
Egypt
Egypt organised a webinar today named ‘Lets Celebrate' under the global theme to discuss main challenges to education, role of educational technologies, and impact of health crises over access to education. It also focused on the educational innovations brought in due to COVID-19 challenges.
Philippines
The Philippines will be organising an event tomorrow, January 25 on ‘Stories of Revitalization and Excellence: 2021 International Day of Education Virtual Forum'. It will focus on the role of teachers in educating people for spreading peace and encouraging development.