The 5th Meeting of Equitable Education Alliance: Identify Opportunities for EEA Activities
Bangkok, Thailand (21 October 2022) – The Equitable Education Fund (EEF) of Thailand and UNESCO Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for Education (UNESCO Bangkok) as the Equitable Education Alliance (EEA) secretariat organized the 5th Meeting of Equitable Education Alliance: Identify Opportunities for EEA Activities on 21 October 2022 at Centara Grand at Central World, Bangkok, Thailand, to continue the equitable education alliance development and further grow the network in a global scale.
Lead discussant by Dr Supakorn Buasai, EEF’s former Managing Director
The EEA is an international network aiming to promote equitable education and form a community of practitioners, policymakers, and other related equitable education agencies. The Alliance came together to share their approaches to promoting and fostering equity in their education systems through:
1) Legal frameworks and policy development;
2) Budgeting and financing mechanisms;
3) Service delivery;
4) Monitoring and evaluation.
The 5th Meeting of Equitable Education Alliance: Identify Opportunities for EEA Activities
The efforts were made as an implementation of SDG4 and SDG17, to strengthen the alliance of partnership for equitable education goals. This 5th meeting was held using a hybrid approach with participants attending both online and offline. EEA members are working in unity to promote equitable education, including member states, countries and organization representatives, practitioners, technical experts, and international agencies – a total of 12 countries and 10 international organizations participating. The meeting attempted to identify the main obstacles in implementing equitable education, and explore initiatives on assessment and analysis of challenges in order to support members, explore collaboration opportunities, and introduce new organizations and members.
Dr Kraiyos Patrawart, Managing Director, Equitable Education Fund (EEF) Thailand
The meeting started with Welcoming Remarks from Dr Kraiyos Patrawart, Managing Director, EEFThailand. Dr Kraiyos stated that even with our differences, we work together as one with the same goal and passion, which is to make equitable education materialize. The affirmative opening statement was followed by an introductory round of sharing participants’ expertise, the action that could be jointly taken, and discussion on supporting members sessions.
The alliance had raised awareness on the importance of collecting data to ensure allocation of funding to vulnerable communities, encouraging evidence-based practices, uncovering the proper strategic approaches to move equitable education agenda, supporting the out-of-school children and youth program which gathered a majority of learner population including promoting lifelong learning opportunities for marginalized adults, and discovering the valid indicators which reflect barriers of equitable education in practice. In addition, the necessity of recovery and acceleration of education plans is crucially and urgently required due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
EquityEdHub – www.equity-ed.net
To further the collaboration on equity education, the Equitable Education Hub: EquityEdHub was presented; moreover, the site is accessible online as equity-ed.net, aiming to achieve equity in education, to reach the remaining and most vulnerable groups with no access to education, and to support quality improvements in learning for all people.
In closing remarks, Dr Kraiyos stated that challenges to equity-focused policy shall be overcome with the unique efforts of network members. The unconventional approaches, high-quality data analytics, and research-based and evidence-based policy advocacy can be significant contributors to success. He also highlighted further collaboration on sharing; focused agenda, challenges, and lessons learned with the possibility of meeting again in 2023. Ultimately, trust and solid partnership lie at the core of this EEA, with decisive actions toward the success of All for Education.
The 5th Meeting of Equitable Education Alliance: Identify Opportunities for EEA Activities
