The World Education Forum was held in London from 19 to 22 May. This forum was supported by Microsoft, Amazon, HP, Google, NewGlobe, Pearson and McKinsey & Cía, among other major transnational companies, and with the support of the Global Director of Education of the World Bank, Luis Benveniste.

Education ministers from all over the world participated in this event, developing policies and establishing decisive alliances. However, the event was held behind closed doors, open only to government representatives and the private sector. Civil society organisations, social movements, educational unions and other educational actors were not invited, and the event had little or no transparency in its agenda or results (it was enough to enter the Forum website to check that the programme was only available to "guests").

The world is in crisis, conflicts are increasing, inequality is increasing and climate threats are increasing. In addition, the right to education is increasingly threatened, as public education spending is declining dramatically to the benefit of private initiatives and, as always, to the detriment of people who already have barriers and suffer discrimination, as in the Basque Autonomous Community.

We need, more than ever, transparent and accountable public administrations and representatives to communicate their policies and decisions. The outsourcing of forums to all non-governmental educational actors, except the private sector, has an active impact on this goal and can have negative consequences for the implementation of the right to education in the coming years. We have seen, starting in 2020, that the massive adoption of technology in education is a booming business that, although it may have some benefit, also threatens children’s rights in the area of privacy, security and data collection (for example, the 2022 Human Rights Watch report includes: "How dare you curious in my private life? and in UNESCO's 2023 report on continuing global education: "Technology in education: A tool in terms of who? ").

If governments, with often questionable arguments, decide that the private sector and companies participate in education, such participation must be transparent, regulated and subject to public counting and criticism, it cannot go on with the lustrous endorsement of those who govern us, as has happened at the World Education Forum.

Matías Cordero Arce, member of the Basque Public School