Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to the Save the Children report entitled Save Our Education: Protect every child’s right to learn in the COVID-19 response and recovery, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure the 9.7 million children at risk of not returning to education as a result of the covid-19 pandemic return to school.

The education of over 1.3 billion children in over 150 countries has been disrupted since COVID-19 struck.

The UK is committed to ensuring children around the world return to school when it is safe to do so. We have adapted our bilateral education programmes in 18 countries in response to the pandemic and have stepped up funding for education including a £5 million uplift to the Education Cannot Wait fund for emergency education in fragile contexts, and £5.3 million of new funding to UNHCR to enable over 5500 teachers to provide vital education for children in 10 refugee-hosting countries over the crucial next seven months. As the largest donor to the Global Partnership for Education we have helped set up a dedicated $500 million COVID-19 accelerated funding window to maintain basic education. We are working closely with UNICEF's Reopening Better Campaign, both globally and in country.

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, with UK leadership, to mobilise much needed commitments on this agenda.