AI concerns, cellphone policies, economic worries, and questions about new schedules, new curricula and other changes fill up the back-to-school headlines this year. IEN’s annual scan of the sources of education news and research around the world begins with a look at the Northern Hemisphere headlines from outside the US. Next week, we’ll review the national and local headlines in the US along with some of the biggest changes in federal policy and funding that schools are dealing with this year.
For back-to school headlines from Fall 23; Crises and Concerns: Scanning the Back-to-School Headlines (Part 1), (Part 2), (Part 3). Fall 22: Hope and trepidation: Scanning the back-to-school headlines in 2022 (Part 1), (Part 2) , (Part 3); Fall 21: Going back to school has never been quite like this (Part 1), (Part 2), (Part 3); Fall 20: What does it look like to go back to school? It’s different all around the world…; Fall 19: Headlines around the world: Back to school 2019 edition.
Africa
- Kenya
- South Africa
Asia & the Pacific
- China
- ‘Return to school’ shopping fuels surge in consumption, Global Times
- Hong Kong
- Hong Kong families face back-to-school strain as study grant is scrapped, South China Morning Post
“Hong Kong mother May Lam had planned to buy her 11-year-old son a new set of school uniforms and pay for his basketball training fees. However, the government’s decision to cut the HK$2,500 study grant she relied on has forced her to scale back on her son’s extracurricular classes just as he begins Primary Six.”
– South China Morning Post
Europe
- England
- Estonia
- Finland
- Schools open under new rules on phones, funding and class limits, Helsinki Times
- France
- French school year 2025-2026: the changes that await pupils, The Connexion
“Reforms on how French and mathematics are taught as well as expanded sexual education, stricter rules for mobile phones and more” – The Connexion
- Italy
“Textbooks for all students have been printed and for the first time in seven years, foreign languages textbooks will be handed out. Artificial intelligence is being introduced in schools and more educational assistants had been hired in elementary schools and, for the first time, in high schools.” – MIA
- Norway
- Ukraine
- Returning to School: Ukrainian Children in Poverty, The Borgen Project
“Reports show that more than 600,000 children remain out of school and as of 2024, the poverty rate in Ukraine has risen to 37%, according to the World Bank.” – The Borgen Project
Middle East
- Israel
- Palestine
- United Arab Emirates
“[T]he Ministry of Education has announced an ambitious package of upgrades to the nation’s education system. From the opening of nine new public schools to curriculum innovation, AI integration, and increased focus on national identity.” – Education Today
The Americas
- Canada
“There are still more than 5,500 people displaced by wildfires, the Manitoba government says.” – CBC
- Columbia, Peru & Ecuador
- Mexico
- Families to Spend 12.7% More on Back-to-School 2025, Mexico Business News
- Trinidad & Tobago
- Extra vacation week a back-to-school blessing for parents, Trinidad Guardian
- Back to school: The test begins for the new Education Minister, Trinidad Guardian
“More than 200,000 students will file through the gates of primary and secondary schools across the country to begin a new academic year. But T&T’s education system is at a breaking point: parents are straining under rising costs, teachers face overcrowded classrooms and inadequate resources, and the system often works against, not for, those it is meant to serve.” –Trinidad Guardian
International Education News 