The 2026 Global Education Monitoring Report is out

The 2026 GEM Report is being launched today during a full-day event at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France.

It is the first in the three-part Countdown to 2030 series, which takes stock of progress across access and equity (2026), quality and learning (2027), and the relevance of education (2028/9). Together, they aim to inform and frame the debate on the post-2030 education agenda.

This publication shows that ambitions for universal access to education have consistently outstripped the pace of expansion. Despite repeated targets calling for access for all, the latest GEM Report and UIS update shows that 273 million children and youth are out of school – a rise for the seventh consecutive year. Completion rates rise every year but, at the current rate, universal secondary completion, a target set for 2030, will not be achieved until the next century.

In a context where multilateralism is under strain, the 2026 GEM Report argues that a failure to reach our target does not mean that the agenda has failed.

Enrolment has expanded dramatically in the past 25 years. There are 327 million more students, or 30%, in schools today than in 2000. There are 45% more in preschools and 161% more in colleges and universities.

Accordingly, the report calls for countries to set and publicly share their own national targets that are ambitious, but achievable and country owned, just as the SDG 4 benchmarking process has encouraged them to do since 2020. The global target in any future agenda should be an accumulation of these targets, against which countries can be held to account, first and foremost to their citizens.

Achieving those targets, however, requires more than ambition. In 35 country case studies compiled for this report, the case is made for what sustains change at scale: patience, context-specific policy bundles, and a commitment to equity.