Private sector calls for greater collaboration to tackle global crisis in education at Transforming Education Summit

The Transforming Education Summit during the 77^th session of the General Assembly was held in response to a growing global crisis in education — one of equity and inclusion, quality and relevance. Often slow and unseen, this crisis is having a devastating impact on the futures of children and youth worldwide and our ability to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

UNITED NATIONS, New York, 22 September 2022 — The United Nations Global Compact and the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) convened business, education and government leaders on solutions day at the Transforming Education Summit at UN Headquarters, to discuss how to elevate education to the top of the global political agenda and mobilize action, ambition, solidarity and solutions to recover pandemic-related learning losses and sow the seeds to transform education in a rapidly changing world.

In a Private Sector Roundtable, hosted by the United Nations Global Compact, UNESCO Global Education Coalition, UNICEF Generation Unlimited, and the Global Business Coalition for Education, ministers of education and business leaders from Google, Microsoft, IBM, Erandi Aprende, Tata Consultancy Services and the Jacobs Foundation discussed how to create effective and sustainable Private-Public Partnerships (PPPs) in an educational context to support individuals, economies and societies. At the individual level, PPPs can support the development of knowledge, skills, and wider competencies that individuals need to learn, work, and live. At the economic level, PPPs grounded in the public good can provide the foundation for inclusive and sustainable economies and at the societal level, the work done by multi-stakeholder, multi-sectoral partnerships can support inclusive and peaceful societies.

During the UN Global Compact and PRME-hosted panel ‘Educate the Educator: Transformative Pedagogies for Innovative Leadership Skills in the Private Sector’, Sanda Ojiambo, Assistant Secretary-General; Executive Director and CEO of the UN Global Compact, called for greater collaboration between the public and private sector to transform the future of education to reach the SDGs:

“There is an urgent need to call for system-level commitment from governments, private sector, and business schools and universities in a mutual bottom-up/top-down approach to change the role of higher education institution educators by developing actionable, rewarded and institutionally supported practices and pedagogies that will scale up innovative global management education towards the SDGs.”

The role of business schools and faculties in creating a more sustainable future for people and the planet was also discussed during the PRME hosted event ‘Leadership Skillsets and Skilling for Sustainable Business’ at the UN Global Compact Office. Traditionally, business schools and business faculties have not been sufficiently equipped with the holistic training necessary to give students the tools to address the world’s systemic problems as future managers and leaders. This issue is being addressed through PRME’s global initiative, the Impactful Five (i5) Project with the Lego Foundation.

Speakers at this year’s Summit included Chris Purifoy, CEO of the Learning Economy Foundation; Daniel Wilson, Director of Project Zero at Harvard Graduate School of Education; Bob Chapman, CEO of Barry-Wehmiller, and Kenisha Arora, the Youth Representative on SDG4 High-Level Steering Committee, Assistant Secretary-General; Executive Director and CEO of the UN Global Compact Sanda Ojiambo; Minister of Education of Costa Rica, H.E. Anna Katharina Muller Castro, and Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Spain to the United Nations, H.E. Agustín Santos Maraver; H.E. Edna Bonilla, Secretary of education in the district of Bogota, Colombia; Andreas Schleicher, Director for Education and Skills, OECD; Simon Sommer, Co-CEO, Jacobs Foundation; Naria Santa Lucia, General Manager, Digital Inclusion and US Community Engagement, Microsoft; William Florance, Government Relations Program Lead, EMEA, Google; Justina Nixon, CSR Vice President, IBM; Andrea Remes, Co-Founder and CEO, Erandi Aprende – Youth representative; Luciano Rodembusch, President, Pandora North America; Balaji Ganapathy, Chief of CSR, Tata Consultancy Services; Ilian Mihov, Dean, INSEAD; John Goodwin, Executive Chairman, The Learning Economy Foundation; Andrew Jack, Global Education Editor, The Financial Times; Sherwat Elwan Ibrahim, Professor, American University of Cairo; and Mette Morsing, Head, PRME.

The Transforming Education Summit is a key initiative of Our Common Agenda launched by UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, in September 2021.

Notes to Editors

About the Principles for Responsible Management Education

The Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) is a United Nations-supported initiative founded in 2007. As a platform to raise the profile of sustainability in schools around the world, PRME equips today's business students with the understanding and ability to deliver change tomorrow. Working through Six Principles, PRME engages business and management schools to ensure they provide future leaders with the skills needed to balance economic and sustainability goals, while drawing attention to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and aligning academic institutions with the work of the UN Global Compact. As a voluntary initiative with over 800 signatories worldwide, PRME has become the largest organised relationship between the United Nations and management-related higher education institutions.

About the United Nations Global Compact

As a special initiative of the UN Secretary-General, the United Nations Global Compact is a call to companies everywhere to align their operations and strategies with Ten Principles in the areas of human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption. Our ambition is to accelerate and scale the global collective impact of business by upholding the Ten Principles and delivering the Sustainable Development Goals through accountable companies and ecosystems that enable change. With more than 15,000 companies and 3,000 non-business signatories based in over 160 countries, and 69 Local Networks, the UN Global Compact is the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative — one Global Compact uniting business for a better world.

For more information, follow @globalcompact on social media and visit our website at www.unglobalcompact.org