<div style="text-align: justify; "><b style="font-size: 1rem;">A staggering 78 million girls and boys around the world today “don’t go to school at all” because of conflict, climate disasters and displacement – while tens of millions more receive only sporadic teaching – UN Secretary-General António Guterres said Thursday.</b><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Calling for more funding for education in emergencies spearheaded by the UN global fund Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the UN chief in a video message said no one should be denied their chance to learn.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A full 222 million children today experience blighted education, Guterres said. “To help them, 18 countries and private partners have pledged $826 million for UN global fund ECW, on the opening day of the landmark conference.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“No matter who you are, no matter where you live, no matter what barriers stand in your way, you have a right to a quality education,” he said, in an appeal for greater international efforts to ensure that more vulnerable children and youngsters get their chance to succeed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Delivering his comments at the Education Cannot Wait High-Level Financing Conference in Geneva, the Secretary-General welcomed the fact that since it was founded in 2017, the fund had trained 87,000 teachers and given seven million children in crisis “the education they deserve”.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As pledges from 18 countries and the private sector topped $826 million on the first day of the conference, UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of ECW High-Level Steering Group Gordon Brown said: “We are talking about the most isolated, the most desolate, the most neglected children of the world. We’re talking about girls who find themselves trafficked or forced into child labour or child marriage unless we can help them.” AP/UNB</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>