ESD beyond 2030 builds on the established strengths of ESD in preparing learners for changing realities and shared futures, while making its transformation logic more explicit. It connects individual learning directly with collective action, institutional change, and wider sustainability transitions.

ESD for 2030 was organised around five priority action areas: advancing policy, transformative learning environments, educators, youth, and local action. ESD beyond 2030 shifts the emphasis from where ESD happens to how ESD produces change  - organised instead around five domains of transformation, each explicitly linking three levels: individual learning, collective action, and institutional or systemic change.

OMEP will be represented by OMEP World President, Adrijana Višnjić-Jevtić, in the role of expert.

Goals of the symposium. The resulting vision identifies high-impact pathways for implementation and concludes with calls for policy and action - providing the basis for planning the next phase of ESD.

OMEP's Contribution & Focus

OMEP brings a proposal for Action on ESD in Education beyond 2030, developed through roundtable and working sessions addressing four guiding questions:

• What is ESD's unique contribution to the Education Beyond 2030 dialogue?
• What forms of research, policy, practice, and partnership at local, national, or global levels are needed to strengthen ESD's future impact?
• What competencies are needed for navigating sustainability challenges in a digital and AI-driven world?
• How can ESD support reskilling and upskilling for a green and just transition?

Education for Sustainable Development is integral to the future of quality education. It positions sustainability - including peace, human rights and social justice - as a purpose of education, and connects that purpose to learning, collective action, and institutional and societal change.

Beyond 2030, ESD becomes a prerequisite for sustainability transitions, jointly addressing learning, collective action, and institutional and societal change across the five domains of transformation.

OMEP is pleased to announce its active participation in the upcoming Second Session of the Open-ended Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG), mandated to explore a draft optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on early childhood education, free pre-primary education, and free secondary education.

OMEP will be officially represented by UNOG representatives: Professor Cate Carroll, OMEP Vice President for Europe; Klara Bahtić, OMEP World Secretary; and Gilles Pétreault, President of OMEP France.

Our Contribution & Focus

As part of the official program of work, OMEP has been invited to deliver a 10-minute intervention under Cluster 2, addressing draft Key Principles 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.

Our delegates, Carroll and Bahtić, will address the substantive elements of the proposed Optional Protocol, focusing specifically on:

• Clarifying the terminology and vital distinctions between early childhood care and education (ECCE) and pre-primary education.
• Explaining why it is critical from an early childhood perspective for the future Optional Protocol to explicitly recognise ECCE as a fundamental part of the right to education.
• Defining how the relationship between ECCE and free public pre-primary education should be structurally understood and implemented.

We invite all members and partners to follow the sessions live via UN Web TV and stay tuned for updates on our advocacy efforts.