#Education is the broad hashtag for posts about teaching, learning and schooling, from classroom ideas and study tips to debates about school policy. Wikipedia defines education as “the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits,” and the tag covers that whole range, inside and outside school. The United Nations marks education with annual observances, including International Day of Education on 24 January and World Teachers’ Day on October 5.
Origin
The hashtag borrows an old word and a set of international commitments built around it:
- 10 December 1948: The UN General Assembly proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Paris. Its Article 26 opens: “Everyone has the right to education.”
- 1966: The International Labour Organization and UNESCO signed the Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers, a standard-setting instrument on teachers’ status and working conditions (Wikipedia).
- 1976: UNESCO’s General Conference endorsed the first version of the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED), which sorts schooling into comparable levels.
- 1994: World Teachers’ Day was established, held every October 5 to mark the 1966 Recommendation.
- 2015 onward: The Education for All initiative, which aimed to give basic education to everyone by 2015, was replaced by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 4: “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”
- 3 December 2018: The UN General Assembly declared 24 January the International Day of Education, working with UNESCO and the permanent missions of Ireland, Nigeria, Norway, Qatar and Singapore. It has been celebrated every year since 2019.
How It’s Used
Because the word is so general, #Education works as an umbrella tag. Teachers share lesson materials and classroom routines under it, students and parents post about studying and school life, and schools, universities and nonprofits use it to promote programs and campaigns. Policy posts about funding, access and curriculum also gather under the tag.
The tag spans all three kinds of education Wikipedia describes. Formal education takes place in institutions such as public schools. Non-formal education is also structured but happens outside the school system. Informal education is unstructured learning through daily experiences. Narrower tags cover parts of the subject, such as #EdTech for classroom technology, #Homeschooling for learning at home, and #STEMEducation for science, technology, engineering and mathematics teaching.
Levels of Education (ISCED 2011)
UNESCO’s classification is the common way to say which stage of schooling a post is about. ISCED 2011 expanded the framework from 7 to 9 levels by dividing the tertiary pre-doctorate level into three.
| ISCED level | Label |
|---|---|
| 0 | Early childhood education |
| 1 | Primary education |
| 2 | Lower secondary education |
| 3 | Upper secondary education |
| 4 | Post-secondary non-tertiary education |
| 5 | Short-cycle tertiary education |
| 6 | Bachelor’s or equivalent |
| 7 | Master’s or equivalent |
| 8 | Doctorate or equivalent |
Labels are from the ISCED 2011 table on Wikipedia.
Recent Developments
Each International Day of Education has a theme. The theme for 2025 was artificial intelligence, and the theme for 2026 was “The power of youth in co-creating education” (Wikipedia). The UN’s observance page says that 250 million children and adolescents are out of school and 763 million adults are illiterate, according to UNESCO.
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education
- https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Teachers%27_Day
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Classification_of_Education
- https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal4
- https://www.un.org/en/observances/education-day
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Day_of_Education