Education

The GEM Report is an editorially independent report published by UNESCO every 15-18 months to monitor the implementation and progress of the education goals (SDG 4) and promote accountability. It was founded in 2002 and hosted by UNESCO, but works independently in terms of content. Its tasks include the creation and further development of a monitoring framework, a mandate to observe the education goals and to analyse the implementation of national and international education strategies, while also providing evidence to support political decision-making processes.

The GEM Report 2024/25 was presented in Austria on 23 June 2025 at an event organised by the Austrian Commission for UNESCO in cooperation with the Institute of Educational Science at the University of Vienna and the Austrian Research Foundation for International Development. In his keynote speech, Manos Antoninis, Director of the GEM Report, highlighted a number of global challenges in the education sector. The current GEM report identifies several global challenges in the education sector. Learning levels are falling, even in affluent countries. Data from 70 countries show a decline in reading and, albeit to a lesser extent, in maths. In addition, the number of children and young people who do not attend school or drop out of school is increasing worldwide. Prioritization of education funding is also decreasing, partly due to growing national debt.

The topic of the current GEM report is the importance of ‘leadership’ in education. The term ‘leadership’ is defined very broadly - both formally and informally. It encompasses various levels: the management level of schools, i.e., head teachers and their deputies, the local administrative level, as well as the system and political level, for example, ministries and parliaments. The report also includes stakeholders from civil society, the media, research, and student representatives.

Leadership in education is defined as a social function that aims to maximize the efforts of others to achieve common goals. There are different leadership styles and a variety of possible effects.

According to the GEM report, educational institutions and their leadership teams are encouraged to take action in the following key areas:

• Formulate shared visions,
• Practice and implement transformative change processes,
• focus more strongly on learning and improved learning conditions (‘didactic leadership’),
• strengthen collaboration and democratic processes (‘leadership in collaboration’),
• to organize the content of personnel development and individual support.

The GEM report makes several recommendations in this context:

• Firstly, it emphasizes the importance of ‘trust & empowerment’, i.e., trust between teachers and managers in the education system. This is essential to achieve impact and positive outputs in educational institutions. Teachers should be given more decision-making power. However, autonomy alone is not enough; it must be flanked by suitable support measures. At the same time, the allocation of tasks and resources must be clear, fair, and predictable.
• Secondly, the report calls for investment in the professionalization of head teachers. Selection procedures for head teachers should be open, competitive, and inclusive. Currently, such procedures only exist in around 63% of the countries analysed. The best teachers are not automatically the best leaders, which is why leadership skills need to be specifically developed and promoted. Only in one out of three countries is the category ‘leadership competence’ a criterion for the selection of head teachers. In many countries, including wealthy ones, almost half of headteachers do not receive any specific training before taking up their post. Austria, for example, works with selection committees. There are also structures such as school quality management, which supports leadership tasks. Standards are necessary so that headteachers can concentrate more on their core tasks and not get lost in purely administrative activities.
• Thirdly, the sharing of experiences and collaboration is emphasized. Leaders should share their experiences and reflect on their narratives. In this context, it was found that co-operation and exchange improve the overall quality of schools and education systems. However, the report shows that collaboration in leadership in education is a political priority in only half of the countries analysed. It is also important that leadership qualities are shared within the team, whereby both strengths and weaknesses should be identified.
• The report also makes a further recommendation: investing in leadership at system level. People need to be able to link educational reforms to political goals, but also recognize their role. Political leaders play a central role in the implementation of reforms. However, half of all education ministers worldwide change after an average of two years in office, which makes sustainable change difficult. Women remain in leadership positions longer on average, but are still in the minority at the level of education management.

NOTE:
The GEM report also takes regional particularities into account: In Eastern Europe, it deals with inclusive education, in Latin America with democracy, in East Asia with technology integration, in Africa with basic education and linguistic diversity. There is also a gender report and a planned youth report. Future priorities are access and equal opportunities (2026), quality and learning (2027), and relevance (2028/2029). The aim remains to promote exchange and networking between different areas of education. The report is produced in cooperation with instruments and initiatives such as SCOPE, PEER, WIDE, and VIEW. According to UNESCO, around 80% of all countries recently participated in providing data for the GEM report.

Commentary round: Leadership in education: commitment, trust and systemic conditions

In order to discuss and embed the report at a national level, three experts were invited to reflect on and comment on the report and the education landscape in Austria from their research and work areas and then engage in an exchange with the audience.

1. Manos ANTONINIS, Director of the Global Education Monitoring Report, UNESCO
2. Barbara SCHULTE, Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Education, University of Vienna
3. Barbara HERZOG-PUNZENBERGER, Rector of the Vienna University of Teacher Education
4. Julia MOSER, Chairwoman of the Independent Monitoring Committee for the Implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Austria

Barbara Schulte illustrated the great decision-making power and agency of school leaders using a Covid case in an Austrian school, in which the school leadership had to decide whether a pupil had to go home or not, and a rotation system at a school in Yunnan, China. Both examples showed that intrinsic commitment is a crucial basis for effective leadership. She emphasized that everyone involved in the education process has different perspectives on conflicts and structures and that parent participation has been underused in Austrian schools to date, even though it could have a big impact.

However, systemic framework conditions are more important than individual measures to implement leadership effectively. The GEM report names seven criteria in this context and emphasizes the importance of shared leadership, which must be characterized by a clear distribution of roles and responsibilities. School leaders need both experience and sound expertise in terms of content. Regarding the concept of autonomy, trust is essential, both trust from a higher level and trust within the schools. She also addressed the tension between the idea of educational ideals and the reality of quality assurance and assessment. Using the example of a study from Thailand, she showed that international standards can sometimes have the opposite effect in local contexts, as in the case of pregnant pupils who lose their school places because school administrators fear that they will not be able to fulfil international standards regarding sex education.

Barbara Herzog-Punzenberger emphasized the importance of the GEM report and pointed out that leadership in Austria often clashes with teachers' strong desire for autonomous decision-making, which makes shared visions more difficult. The preservationist mentality in Austria also hinders the discussion of social change, migration, and diversity, which are often not sufficiently addressed in schools. She recommended focusing more on school quality managers, as they play a key role in supporting school leaders but need to be better prepared for their tasks and receive more targeted training to effectively implement leadership in the education system. Overall, more consideration should be given to all levels of the system.

Julia Moser spoke about inclusion in education from the perspective of the Austrian Monitoring Committee for the Implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. She emphasized that the focus of inclusive education must be on three levels: teachers, parents, and leaders with disabilities, whereby the pupils themselves must also be included. She posed the question of how leaders with disabilities could be better supported and pointed out that in some countries, there are already mandatory requirements for the representation of minorities, including in disability inclusion. Inclusion means recognising the strengths of diversity, being open and using the available resources in a targeted manner. She called for the entire educational career and different perspectives to be included and cited Moldova as an example of successful inclusion, where the proportion of pupils being taught in special schools has been reduced from more than two-thirds to just 5%.  She also emphasised that curricula should deal honestly with inclusion and that people with disabilities should be involved in their design.

Discussion and Q&A session in plenary
The first question related to whether there are surveys on how many people with disabilities are in schools and whether there are concrete figures on this. The answer from Manos Antoninis, UNESCO, was that it was extremely difficult to obtain comparable data, as the definition of the term ‘disability’ had been deliberately made more open in recent years to include more groups. However, this means that it is becoming increasingly difficult to define where disability begins and ends, which also makes international comparisons more difficult.

A second participant addressed the topic of inclusion and diversity and explained that it is particularly difficult to convince teachers of the importance of these topics. This is always accompanied by a discussion about the many additional responsibilities towards pupils. She asked for recommendations on how these challenges could be overcome, how more diverse teachers could be deployed in classes. Julia Moser replied that a change in the system was necessary, as the solution to such problems should not be left to individuals. Although this change is a lengthy process, it is worthwhile. She explained that segregation within the education system does not mean inclusion but merely perpetuates discrimination. Sharing ideas with others is therefore an important step. She also pointed out that inclusion is not yet a mandatory part of teacher training programmes. Manos Antoninis added to the answer and asked what approaches the education systems of different countries are taking to become more inclusive. In this context, Barbara Herzog-Punzenberger and Barbara Schulte referred to curricular revisions that are currently taking place in Austria and to new modules that are being developed on this topic. However, the time factor is a major challenge, as teachers can hardly try out inclusive concepts in practice.

The third question revolved around the problem of a lack of expertise in inclusion as well as a lack of funding, time, and resources to close the gap in inclusion. It was asked whether there are guidelines on how to act more inclusively, especially as the political trend in Austria is currently more towards segregated ‘German support classes’ and there is a lack of expertise and knowledge about inclusion. Recommendations were also asked for on how to change perceptions among the population to convince people in favour of inclusive models that could benefit everyone. Barbara Herzog-Punzenberger replied that teachers need to be able to clearly state what they need, what they want to learn, and where they see their limitations. Another important point is change-management, which must be systemically anchored to provide support for all managers in the education sector.

Downloads

• Bericht_Präsentation UNESCO-GEM Report 2024/5_Leadership in Education 368 KB (pdf)
• Report_Presentation UNESCO-GEM Report 2024/5_Leadership in Education 430 KB (pdf)