Blog by Ponke Danker, Coordinator INEW
Last month marked the International Day of Education. Each year, on 24 January, the world celebrates education and its role for peace and development.
But what does this mean as we enter 2026 – a year in which prognosed aid cuts could deny an additional 6 million children access to education, adding to the already staggering 272 million out of school children and youth?
The new 2026 Oxfam report highlighting rising inequalities worldwide (a shocking but necessary read!), found that billionaires’ wealth is now higher than at any time in history and that their wealth has increased three times faster than the average annual rate – at the end of November 2025, reaching a record $18.3US trillion of wealth.
At the same time, education remains heavily underfunded, and urgently needed development and humanitarian funding is being cut back or questioned – despite education being one of the most efficient catalysts for ensuring that wealth is shared across the world and that our world becomes a place of opportunity for all.
Meanwhile, in the hope of retaining voter support, governments across the world are falling in line with rhetoric that places blame for growing challenges everyday peopleface on marginalised groups – whether migrants and refugees, other marginalised communities, or those that development and humanitarian aid is designed to help. By giving into false scapegoat narratives that claim investing in these groups prevents the average person from earning their share, this rhetoric not only erodes our hard-won values of humanity, but also undermines any serious notion of equal distribution of our world’s wealth. The broader understanding that we will actively create the conditions for equal access to opportunity and agency for everyone – through education, for example – fades at an alarmingly fast rate.
But the average person — navigating the struggle to find a crèche or school place for their child, the new normal of the housing crisis, and now adding rain floods to the list — has far more in common with the people our engagement abroad seeks to support, so that they can leave poverty behind and can also lead safe and dignified lives, than with any billionaire planning the purchase of their next yacht (or ballroom).
And just who benefits tremendously from the attention paid to scapegoat policies, conveniently diverting focus from our shared Sustainable Development Goals, including achieving quality education — the very goals aimed at making the world more prosperous and equal for all! It’s not hard to guess.
International days are marked by the UN and the global community to educate, celebrate humanity’s achievements, and mobilise political will and resources to address global challenges.
With that in mind, let’s remind ourselves, politicians, and everyone around us that education is one of the best short- and long-term investments the world can make for creating greater equality and distributing wealth fairly – eventually making us all stronger and taking back our power from the small group of billionaires. And as a multiplier of possibility, education even tackles more global challenges, building healthier and more resilient communities, increasing gender equality, and laying the foundation for a more stable world.
As a very encouraging counterpoint to other governments, our Irish government has not stepped back from its commitments and continues to work on the principle that we are stronger when collaborating globally to achieve better health, gender equality, and education outcomes for the broad public. In 2026, it will now be crucial for all of us to ensure we stay on that course.
Going back to the additional six million children who could be pushed out of school this year — by the way, equivalent to emptying every primary school in Germany and Italy combined. Clearly, we also need to step up our game.
This includes ensuring the government delivers on its 2025 Programme for Government commitment to significantly increase the proportion of ODA going to education. 2026 also brings replenishments for the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) and Education Cannot Wait (ECW), calling on the global community to commit. Ireland’s role is not small: as the proud former Celtic tiger, it can lead by example, showing the world it is willing to share wealth to benefit us all.
The year is also a key opportunity to guarantee better access to education, including legally ensuring free pre-primary and secondary education (see here for our campaign) — and it coincides with Ireland taking the EU Presidency in June (our submission on this here).
So please, follow along with our critical work via INEW’s newsletter and on LinkedIn. And if someone tells you that governments should not spend on education for people far away, remind them: that this story serves only billionaires, even further away from us. And instead, share the story of education and how it ensures that we share wealth, power, and stability across the world, a place that can provide opportunity to all and not just the few.
