To mark the International Day of Education, the Global Education Monitoring Report has launched a new online interactive tool to explore progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 4 and policy priorities for 2030.
Available in seven languages, the Education Progress website brings together data from various producers, notably the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. It explores the progress made by countries towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.
Five themes
This tool, released by the Global Education Monitoring Report on 24 January, also underlines the bottlenecks and policy priorities from now until 2030 in five key themes: access, equity, learning, quality, and finance.
For instance, it highlights that special efforts are needed to ensure all children and young people can benefit equally from education’s transformative power.
It also reveals that around one in 60 children, most of them in low-income countries, will never go to school. Girls are still more likely than boys to never go to school, as discrimination against them means that they are expected to carry out childcare and other household responsibilities.
Education International report
The website echoes many findings from Education International’s 2019 report, “ Off Track: Educators Assess Progress Towards Sustainable Development Goal 4”. The report was presented to the United Nations’ High-Level Political Forum in New York reviewing progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 4 by Susan Hopgood, Education International’s President in July last year.
Governments not on track
According to this report, governments worldwide are seriously off track in terms of achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4 by 2030. Not enough governments have taken the necessary steps to implement Sustainable Development Goal 4, and some have implemented policies that actively undermine the agenda.
The report was informed by the views of EI’s member organisations, with educators believing that the challenges facing Sustainable Development Goal 4 are not insurmountable. Education International urges all governments to employ strong political will, good planning and coordination, and adequate investment to implement the Sustainable Development Goal 4 agenda.