Culture and Education

Journalists risk their lives every day to bring facts to light, yet most attacks against them go unpunished.

After two years of war that kept them out of classrooms, Gaza’s children are finally returning to the classroom, surrounded by devastation – but determined to learn.

India’s eastern state of Bengal transformed this week into the world’s largest public art festival - an immersive blend of worship, artistic expression, and social messaging, thanks to an annual Hindu festival known as Durga Puja.

Fifteen-year-old Reyyan Demiriz from Türkiye has been awarded first prize in a UN young writers’ competition which garnered a staggering 1.6 million entries from 65 different countries.

Aid agencies working in war-torn Sudan issued an alert on Friday over the particular harm faced by children there, the longer the conflict goes on.

Attacks on schools in conflict zones around the world have increased by a “staggering 44 per cent” over the past year according to the United Nations, resulting in the death, abduction and trauma of thousands of teachers and students. 

Women make up half of the world’s population but receive only 26 per cent of media coverage, according to the latest UN-backed Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) report, the world’s largest study on gender representation in news media. 

“Instead of studying in school, we’re living in it,” said Diana, summing up the conditions faced by thousands of children in the Gaza Strip whose lives have been turned upside down by war who now face the prospect of a third year without education.

Global education funding is facing sharp reductions that could leave an extra six million children out of school by 2026, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Wednesday.

In every corner of the world, educators are making choices that echo across generations – influencing everything from the preservation of forests to the writing of poetry, the building of bridges to the holding of peaceful elections.