In a recent post, UNESCO reminded us of the similarity between the learning challenges that fourteenth century societies confronted during the Black Death and the current COVID-19 pandemic. Back then, as William Courtenay remembers, the plague helped develop new ways of teaching and the beginning of the substitution of Latin with popular languages as vehicles to communicate science.

In the midst of this global health crisis that threatens lives and containment measures that threaten our ways of living, we are faced with the stark reality that the world we return to will be forever altered. The far-reaching consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic may also jeopardize the hard won gains made in improving global education. 

On the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, you could be forgiven for asking: just where are all these women and girls? They are there if you look but they remain the exception at the very highest echelons in science and research. Their rarity may even – on occasion – obscure the critical value of their work. From Marie Curie to Rosalind Franklin, women scientists have often been viewed in terms of their relationships to their male counterparts.  

In a recent blog, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) and the Global Education Monitoring Report explored how benchmarks can be used to accelerate progress towards SDG 4.

The countdown has begun, with just a decade to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal on education (SDG 4): a quality education for all. After so many years devoted to education at the national and international levels, my resolution for 2020 is simple: Let data be your guide.