A/HRC/43/63 eliminating discrimination in teaching, curricula and the learning environment; ensuring that pregnant girls, adolescent mothers and girls forced to marry can remain in education; and eliminating stigma, discrimination, bullying and violence by teachers and students, and protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students. 42. Dominic Wilcox, founder of Little Inventors, focused on creativity in education for children. Little Inventors challenged children to use their imagination to invent ideas to solve problems, improve people’s lives and bring delight to others. Children submitted these ideas on paper and Little Inventors built and exhibited them. This encouraged people to think about the world from different and surprising perspectives. Little Inventors’ challenges covered global issues, including conflict and the environment. Mr. Wilcox underlined that supporting children’s creativity increased their self-confidence, accorded their thoughts and ideas importance, and encouraged them to be proactive in improving their lives and the world. Creativity was often overlooked in education, yet creative thinking was a vital skill in today’s world. Children could feel powerless and overwhelmed by challenges, and creative education could help to help address this. It empowered young people to express their inner thoughts, ideas and feelings, become resourceful and resilient problem-solvers and bring joy to others. 43. Hiromichi Katayama, programme specialist at the Youth, Literacy and Skills Development Section of UNESCO, examined the role of education and training for a better life and decent work. The UNESCO Strategy for Technical and Vocational Education and Training 2016–2021 had three priorities: youth employment and employability, equity and gender equality, and helping States transform to greener economies, including through digitalization. UNESCO recommended access, inclusion, equity, financing and management in order to improve education and training. UNESCO worked with several ministries, employers, workers and other stakeholders to understand what skills were required in the labour market and in specific sectors. The lack of a unified lifelong learning system was challenging. UNESCO was compiling different national practices from education, employment and social protection systems to better understand the policy actions and institutional arrangements needed for lifelong learning. UNESCO worked on emerging technologies, a possible technical service for educational and training institutions, and technology in different sectors. Finally, UNESCO helped countries forecast the skills required in the future, by occupation and industry, to provide clearer information for educational planners and jobseekers. 44. Lucija Karnelutti, representing the Organizing Bureau of European School Student Unions, shared a youth perspective on changes needed to secure an education fit for the future. She highlighted the importance of life skills alongside academic competences, and stressed four areas for progress: the curriculum, assessment, lifelong learning and technology. Most school curricula focused on textbook knowledge, instead of preparing for life in society or supporting creative and critical thinking. Curricula should be inclusive, flexible, open for choice and mainly learner-oriented. Assessment should demonstrate how students learned and received information, how different approaches worked, and how to plan efficient and flexible educational systems so that education adjusted to different challenges. Students must be provided with skills and competences to understand technology and critically examine information, to distinguish false from true and to process logical pieces of knowledge that could be applied to their lives. Teachers should be open to lifelong learning, willing to adapt to new approaches, able to evaluate their practice, and should strive towards constant improvement. 45. During the interactive dialogue, representatives of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Portugal, Qatar, Sierra Leone and Ukraine, and of Franklin University Switzerland, the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Association of Human Rights in Kurdistan – Geneva, and Patriotic Vision, and OHCHR interns, took the floor. Participants noted countries’ efforts to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, particularly Sustainable Development Goal 4. Participants called on all stakeholders to renew their commitment to the Convention on the Rights of the Child by putting children’s rights at the forefront of national agenda and providing equal access to education for all. Some delegations focused on the right of minorities to receive education in their mother tongue, or on those experiencing prolonged conflict and displacement using their education 12