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Judith Herbertson

Head of Girls' Education, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

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24th January 2025

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by Judith Herbertson

Head of Girls' Education, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

International Day of Education: creating hope in the climate crisis

This International Day of Education, it’s impossible to ignore the climate and environment crisis. 2024 has been confirmed as the hottest year on record, and the last ten years have been recorded as the hottest decade. Disasters are becoming more severe and happening almost 5 times as frequently as 50 years ago. Unsurprisingly, the impact […]

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4th December 2023

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by Judith Herbertson

Head of Girls' Education, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Disability Inclusive Education: our commitment to supporting children with disabilities to achieve SDG 4

This year’s theme for International Day of Persons with Disabilities is ‘United in action to rescue and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for, with and by persons with disabilities’. This feels particularly poignant when we look at education. Children with disabilities are the single most marginalised group of children; the least likely to be […]

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13th October 2022

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by Judith Herbertson

Head of Girls' Education, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Girls’ education: measuring access and learning through the Global Objectives report

Today the Minister for Development Vicky Ford launches the Global Objectives report alongside colleagues from the Global Education Monitoring Report, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, and the UN Girls’ Education Initiative, who jointly authored the report. The report sets out the progress made against two objectives on girls’ access to education and their learning.   Improving […]

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29th September 2022

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by Judith Herbertson

Head of Girls' Education, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Prioritising foundational learning at the Transforming Education Summit

September is a crucial month in the calendar. In the UK, as in many countries, children have been going back to school. We have a new Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary. We have also seen the sad death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and the accession of His Majesty King Charles III. And last […]

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6th July 2022

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by Judith Herbertson

Head of Girls' Education, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Tackling the education crisis: our priorities for the Transforming Education Summit

I joined the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) Girls’ Education Department almost 10 weeks ago. Since then there have been multiple mentions of the ‘Transforming Education Summit’; the TES. I have just returned from Paris where, with Laura Davies, our Ambassador to UNESCO, I was representing FCDO at the TES pre-Summit. Held to build […]

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About Judith Herbertson

Judith Herbertson is the Head of Girls' Education Department. Judith has held previous roles in embassies and high commissions overseas, in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Sudan and Pakistan, as well as…

Judith Herbertson is the Head of Girls' Education Department. Judith has held previous roles in embassies and high commissions overseas, in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Sudan and Pakistan, as well as in the UK. She has worked in the Department for International Development, and now the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), since 2003.

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