The education that UNRWA offers is an invaluable resource for the region’s displaced and marginalized. However, Palestinian children may not be able to remain in school for the rest of the fall semester unless UNRWA is able to fill the significant gap left by the U.S. funding cuts.

On Friday September 14th, The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) released of the first-ever U.S. Government Strategy on International Basic Education. The Strategy demonstrates the U.S. Government's commitment to international education and presents an opportunity to advance global diplomatic and development leadership on pressing international education challenges, as called for in the READ Act.

The 2018 theme of International Literacy Day was ‘Literacy and skills development’, focusing on youth and adults within the lifelong learning framework. To celebrate International Literacy Day 2018, BEC co-hosted a #LiteracyChat with FHI 360 about evidence for literacy and skills development.

On July 17, 2018 USAID released a draft U.S. Strategy on International Basic Education for public comment, as required by the Reinforcing Education Accountability in Development (READ) Act. The READ Act stipulates that USAID must produce a whole-of-government international basic education strategy by September 8th, 2018. The draft strategy was open for public comment from July 17th through July 22nd, 2018.

Beyond Access is the third in a series of reports from Save the Children that uses IDELA data to inform knowledge, policy and programming in early childhood education.

This report builds upon the initial progress report released in 2016 by highlighting ongoing achievements and progress.

This event brought together practitioners, researchers, and policymakers to discuss the current evidence, implementation challenges, promising approaches, and innovative SEL interventions. These discussions helped inform the U.S. government’s policy priorities and implementation guidance on how to best improve SEL outcomes for children in crisis.

Room to Read (Christine Beggs and Ryan Hebert) recently shared their experience with developing a comprehensive life skills assessment with the BEC M&E Working Group. The presentation outlined a multi-country process to develop and refine an assessment that measures knowledge, attitudes and skills across nine discrete life skills.

Basic Education Coalition (BEC) members are following the recommendations of the World Bank's 2018 World Development Report to strengthen and diversify the education workforce. BEC was pleased to engage in dialogue about lessons learned with a panel at the World Bank's Civil Society Policy Forum (CSPF) on April 18th.

Check out the fun video CIES made of the conference: "A Look Back".