Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps the Government is taking to help ensure a co-ordinated and adequately funded global action plan for getting children back to school following the covid-19 pandemic.

The UK is committed to ensuring a safe return to school for children around the world. We are taking decisive action through our 18 bilateral education programmes, and we are supporting global efforts, including the UNICEF-led campaign 'Opening Up Better', to ensure children return to school when it is safe to do so. We recognise that children already living through emergencies are at a double disadvantage during the COVID-19 pandemic and have provided an additional £5 million to Education Cannot Wait and £5.3 million to UNHCR to support refugee education.

The UK has played a leading role coordinating the global response, and on 20 and 22 October the UK will be co-hosting an extraordinary Global Education Meeting (GEM) with UNESCO. This extraordinary meeting of the GEM will bring together the international education community to agree on a set of global priority actions to be put in place to support the recovery from COVID-19 and strengthening education systems.

The UK, along with Kenya, will host next year's replenishment of the Global Partnership for Education, the major global fund for education. This will be a key moment to mobilise much needed commitments as we build back from COVID-19.