In line with its mandate, the 2020 GEM Report assesses progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) on education and its ten targets, as well as other related education targets in the SDG agenda. The 2020 Global Education Monitoring Report looks at social, economic and cultural mechanisms that discriminate against disadvantaged children, youth and adults, keeping them out of education or marginalized in it. Spurred by their commitment to fulfil the right to inclusive education, countries are expanding their vision of inclusion in education to put diversity at the core of their systems. Yet implementation of well-meaning laws and policies often falters. Released at the start of the decade of action to 2030, and in the middle of the Covid-19 crisis, which has exacerbated underlying inequalities, the Report argues that resistance to addressing every learner’s needs is a real threat to achieving global education targets.

Inclusion and education: All means all identifies the practices in governance and finance; curricula, textbooks and assessments; teacher education; school infrastructure; and relations with students, parents and communities that can unlock the process to inclusion. It provides policy recommendations to make learner diversity a strength to be celebrated, a force for social cohesion.