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We admit that the topic of our new dossier is not a very festive one given that Christmas is coming soon.  But it is a topic that has directly concerned us at the DBS and DIPF Institute over the past few weeks, as we ourselves have been victims of a cyber attack. Education Worldwide took the opportunity to research the topic of cybercrime in the field of education. It turned out that education is one of the most popular targets for hackers around the world. The sources we compiled for our webdossier will tell you the reasons for this, it will present you facts and statistics, and it will show you some examples of how different countries are dealing with this problem in the education sector.

An estimated 60 percent of children worldwide are unable to read and understand a simple text by the age of ten. Nearly one-third of school-age children (463 million) lack access to distance learning. 222 million children and youth either have their education disrupted or are not learning due to armed conflict, forced displacement and climate-induced disasters. And while progress has been made in recent decades, gender inequalities persist in education. UNESCO's goals are therefore to expand public digital learning and improve access for children and youth affected by the crisis.
Recent UNESCO findings reveal that around half of the 100 countries reviewed had no mention of climate change in their national curriculum. This shows the discrepancy between current learning content and present and future realities. Adapting education (systems) to climate and environmental catastrophe is therefore another UNESCO concern.

In the new web dossier, Education Worldwide has compiled internet resources on the subject of digitisation and digital education in relation to inclusion. The respective web resources examine the extent to which digitisation can support inclusion, but also what barriers there can be to using digital media and new technologies, especially for people with disabilities. We compiled this web dossier in two different ways. You can browse the links to the selected websites either by subject or sorted by source type.

During the war in Ukraine in 2022, many Ukrainians had to flee to other countries. Once there, the question of schooling for the Ukrainian children quickly arose. In this context, Ukraine's good digital education infrastructure was often praised. It allows Ukrainian children to go on learning in their own language with their own curricula, their own teachers, and maybe their own classmates - no matter whether they may still be in Ukraine or in a totally different country. "Education Worldwide" therefore adds a new section to its webdossier on "Education in Ukraine" which provides information on digital education in Ukraine.

With regard to current events (war in Ukraine 2022), our chart of the month highlights the number of attacks on educational institutions in selected countries between 2015 and 2020. As you can see, Ukraine was already included in the sad statistics before 2022. The graph is part of the Unesco Global Education Monitoring Report (GEM Report) 2021/22. The data used for the graph are taken from "Education Under Attack 2020", a report published by the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA). There is a "Country Profile" for each country examined. We provide links to the publications of Unesco and the GCPEA as well as to the country profile on Ukraine below.

The Unesco (United Nations Educational, Scientific, Cultural and Communication Organisation) and the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) are two of the largest international players when it comes to reports, studies and other publications on education. Both have therefore published several interesting publications on the subject of the corona pandemic (COVID-19) and education. We link their publication lists here. The literature is usually free of costs and freely accessible. Sometimes it is also available in different languages.

The OECD and the World Bank have released a new publication on school closures during the first wave of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. 45 examples from countries around the world document how governments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) dealt with school closures and "reinvented learning", often using digital solutions.

Since the beginning of the corona pandemic, the OECD has published a number of reports on the subject of "Education and work in COVID-19 times", which we also link to here.

Our chart of the month looks at the unequal distribution of scientific publications worldwide. The dominance of publications from North America, Europe and East/Southeast Asia in contrast to the other regions is particularly striking. In addition to the impressive graphic, we suggest further reading if you are interested in the topic of north-south divide in science and research.

The "European Days of Research & Innovation" took place for the third time in June 2021. The European Commission invites policy makers, researchers, entrepreneurs and the public to debate the future of research and innovation in Europe. The conference was particularly interesting because it dealt with the new EU research and innovation programme "Horizon Europe". The conference report contains summaries, quotes and images from the two-day event. The conference website also provides videos of the individual sessions and workshops.