Tomorrow Today

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UNICEF promotes countries’ development of quality

education through the Child-Friendly Schooling (CFS)

approach. The CFS approach is a pragmatic pathway

towards quality education that has evolved (and is still

evolving) from the principles of children’s rights. The

pragmatic, flexible and comprehensive nature of the

CFS approach has facilitated the inclusion of context

specific and relevant elements of climate change adap-

tation into school curricula, facilities, construction and

operations.

Currently, UNICEF Education is supporting coun-

tries to address climate change adaptation through

climate change education in child-friendly schooling

in the following ways:

• Supporting child-centred relevant education that

incorporates disaster risk reduction, climate change

and environmental curricula to empower children

with the knowledge, skills and values that prepare

them for a disaster situation in the short term and

help them adapt to, thrive, and live sustainably in a

changing environment in the long term

• Promoting sustainable facilities at schools, such

as school gardens, rainwater harvesting and

alternative energies, as a way to enrich the education

experience while improving the school environment

• Retrofitting and constructing structurally sound

schools, which are resilient to disasters caused by

natural hazards, such as heavy rains, earthquakes

and cyclones.

millions of the world’s most disadvantaged, vulnerable and margin-

alized children”.

The report highlights the inequities that are keeping us from reach-

ing the MDGs, including universal primary education. Foremost

among these are disparities due to poverty, gender and geographic

location. In Liberia, children from the richest households are 3.5

times more likely than children from the poorest households and

urban children are twice as likely as rural children to attend primary

school. In Pakistan, girls from poor, rural households are far less

likely to attend school than boys in the same situation. These three

factors are inextricably linked with key environmental issues such as

land degradation, forced migration, increasing urbanization, pollu-

tion and climate change.

3,4

Quality education provides all learners with the capabilities they

require to become economically productive, develop sustainable

livelihoods, contribute to peaceful and democratic societies and

enhance individual well-being. It is key for bringing about the

changes in knowledge, skills and behaviours necessary for climate

change adaptation. For example, education contributes to better

health and longer life expectancy, reduces social costs of health,

criminal justice and social security, and fosters social participation

and social cohesion.

A single year of primary school increases the

wages people earn later in life by 5-15 per cent. For each additional

year of secondary school education, an individual’s wages increase

by 15-25 per cent (Global Campaign for Education 2010).

This is even more so for girls’ and women’s education. Educating

young women is one of the key determinants for climate change

adaptation and, according to the latest research, can even neutralize

the impact of increasingly extreme weather events.

A primary school classroom in Tarawa, the capital of the Pacific Island Republic of Kiribati, where children lack health care and education and are

under threat from natural disasters