üChina: OnApril 22, 2026, Chinese Minister of Education Huai Jinpeng attended theSymposium on Top-tier Engineer Training Reform. Henoted that a new nationwide collaborative mechanism has taken initial shape, stressing the need to focus this year on key industrial directions for the 15th Five-Year Plan to drive a paradigm shift in engineer training toward intelligent creation.
üMiddle East and North Africa: A high-level webinar co-organized by the UNESCO Regional Office for the Gulf States and Yemen, the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, and UNICEF has highlighted that ongoing conflicts across the Middle East and North Africa are severely endangering children's education and protection. Multiple countries have called for placing emergency education at the core of humanitarian response and for significantly increasing investment in child protection and education programmes.
üUnited States: On April 16, the U.S. Department of Education and the Department of Labor jointly announced a new round of competitive elementary and secondary education grants, focusing on teacher professional development and the expansion of charter schools, aiming to support educators, expand family school choice, and promote the alignment between education and employment needs.
üInternational Organization: To explore the core of teaching quality, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development conducted the Teacher Knowledge Survey for the first time in 2024 and recently released the "Results from the Teacher Knowledge Survey: What Teachers Know About General Pedagogy", aiming to position pedagogical knowledge as the core of teacher workforce development and optimize teacher training and resource allocation.
China: The Ministry of Education Convenes Symposium on Top-tier Engineer Training Reform, Focusing on Talent Cultivation for Key Industrial Directions of the 15th Five-Year Plan
On April 22, 2026, the Symposium on Top-tier Engineer Training Reformconvened in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. Chinese Minister of Education Huai Jinpeng attended and addressed the gathering.
The symposium aimed to deepen the reform of engineer training programs. Huai pointed out that initial progress has been made, highlighted by the establishment of a nationwide collaborative mechanism and an industry-education integrated training model, as well as the release of the world's first industry standard dedicated to engineering master's and doctoral education.He stressed that this year's efforts must align with the key industrial directions of the 15th Five-Year Plan to serve national strategies and the development of new quality productive forces. Furthermore, he called for driving a paradigm shift in training from knowledge transmission to intelligent creation, while actively expanding international cooperation.
Source: the Ministry of Educationof China
http://www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_xwfb/gzdt_gzdt/moe_1485/202604/t20260423_1434558.html
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/df7oDhHzz7oNFULXrMAYVg
Compiler:HE Yale, UNESCO-TEC
Middle East and North Africa: Conflict Engulfs 45 Million Children, Nations and International Bodies Call for Strengthened Child Protection and Education Safeguards
On April14, 2026, the UNESCO Regional Office for the Gulf States and Yemen, together with the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict and UNICEF, convened a high-level webinar focusing on the impact of conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa on children's education.
Data presented at the webinar revealed that nearly 95 million people in the region are currently at life-threatening risk, including 45 million children. More than 52 million children have experienced learning disruptions, with education and protection crises becoming deeply intertwined. Since 2005, the region has recorded over 127,000 verified grave violations against children, accounting for 33 per cent of the global total.
Ms. Lily Neyestani, Chief of the Section for Education in Emergencies at UNESCO, stressed that education is a life-saving intervention and a crucial element of recovery for conflict-affected children. However, a large number of schools have been destroyed or used as shelters, creating a severe shortage of safe learning environments. The webinar called on all parties to strengthen child protection, safeguard access to education, strictly adhere to international humanitarian law, and substantially increase investment in education and protection programmes to prevent an entire generation of children from losing hope and their future to conflict.
Source:UNESCO
https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/45-million-children-risk-webinar-highlights-toll-middle-east-crisis-children-and-education
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/h-Eypagu3vb9FSLEBD1eUw
Compilers:ZHENG Rouyu, RIICE, Shanghai Normal University; XIA Yuxuan, UNESCO-TEC
United States:The U.S. Department of Education and the Department of Labor jointly launched a new round of competitive grants for elementary and secondary schools
On April 16, 2026, the U.S. Department of Education and the Department of Labor issued a notice on competitive elementary and secondary education grants for Fiscal Year 2026. This round of funding primarily covers two major directions: a support program for the professional development of highly effective educators, and a charter school expansion grant program targeting state-level agencies. Its core objectives are to support teachers nationwide, empower family educational choice, and promote innovative programs that can directly impact student academic achievement.
The two departments have deepened their collaboration by disbursing funds uniformly through the Department of Labor, strengthening the overall governance of elementary and secondary education programs, and promoting a closer alignment between the education system and labor market demands. The Trump administration has adjusted the funding priorities for educational programs, placing greater emphasis on evidence-based teacher professional development, lowering barriers for families to choose schools, and prioritizing charter schools that focus on civics education, career and technical education, and STEM.
Source:Official Website of the National Association of State Boards of Education
Compilers:PANG Zhengpei, RIICE, Shanghai Normal University; FENGJiamiao, UNESCO-TEC
International Organization:OECD released the first global survey report on teachers' pedagogical knowledge, emphasizing teachers' general pedagogical knowledge
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) conducted the Teacher Knowledge Survey (TKS) for the first time in 2024 and released the "Results from the Teacher Knowledge Survey: What Teachers Know About General Pedagogy". As a new module of the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), this world's first large-scale assessment covered more than 2,000 lower secondary schools and approximately 20,000 teachers across eight countries: Chile, Croatia, Morocco, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and the United States.
The core finding of the report is that the level of teachers' knowledge varies significantly across countries, with Portugal ranking the highest and Saudi Arabia the lowest, and that the knowledge gap within a single country is typically larger than the gap between countries. Teachers' general pedagogical knowledge is significantly and positively correlated with the mathematics and reading scores of 15-year-old students in the 2022 PISA test; teachers with higher levels of knowledge spend more time on effective classroom instruction, and are more adept at adjusting their teaching and designing scaffolded tasks. At the same time, this knowledge can effectively alleviate teachers' occupational stress in areas such as teaching and management, but teachers who have received complete normal education with higher degrees and who focus on peer communication possess more advantages in their knowledge levels. OECD recommends positioning pedagogical knowledge as the core of teacher workforce development to optimize teacher training and resource allocation.
Source: OECD
https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/results-from-the-teacher-knowledge-survey_5542e88a-en.html
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/tTHxIH7GgEq0OHTWR2YdQw
Compilers:CUI Zichen, RIICE, Shanghai Normal University; FENGJiamiao, UNESCO-TEC
