The 17 Goals include a series of targets over the next 15 years to tackle global issues including hunger, poverty, gender equality, peace and the environment. Goal 4 is concerned specifically with education.
Education formed a key part of the Millennium Development Goals set in 2000, with world leaders promising to deliver an education for every child by 2015.
However, while much progress has been made, 57 million children are still out of school. More than half of these children live in sub-Saharan Africa and half also live in conflict-affected areas.
Furthermore, 103 million young people worldwide lack basic literacy skills, with more than 60 per cent of them being women.
More positively, enrolment in primary education in developing countries has reached 91 per cent.
The key target within the new Sustainable Development Goal 4 (see panel, right) challenges world leaders to achieve universal primary and secondary education by 2030. It states that all girls and boys should complete a “free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education”.
Elsewhere, governments are tasked with ending gender inequality in education and ensuring equal access for people with disabilities and other groups by 2030. There is also a goal to increase the supply of qualified teachers including through international cooperation for teacher training in developing countries.
The Steve Sinnott Foundation said that Goal 4 was the most important in terms of helping to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
The Foundation was set up following the sudden death in 2008 of Mr Sinnott, the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and a passionate advocate of global education.
The Foundation has also welcomed a recent commitment from the UK government to get 6.5 million girls into school in the next five years. International development secretary Justine Greening made the pledge at the Global Citizenship Festival last month.
Ann Beatty, executive manager at the Foundation, welcomed the news but said that the national curriculum had to do more to tackle these issues.
She explained: “We are delighted by this commitment, but it will be absurd if, while Justine Greening declares such strong support for the new goals agreed by world leaders, her colleague in the Department for Education continues to preside over a curriculum which omits any requirement to explain to children and young people why the commitment is being made and how important it is for all our futures. Even for those who can go to school the quality of education at primary level still has millions of children leaving school without basic skills.”
Mr Sinnott’s legacy also inspired the creation of the Steve Sinnott Award, which each year appoints two Young Ambassadors and charges them with spreading the message about the Global Campaign for Education (GCE).
Funded by GCE UK and the NUT, this year’s ambassadors were George Watts and Emily Pemberton from Ysgol Gyfun Plasmawr in Cardiff, who visited Ghana to investigate the challenges that girls face to education.
The search is now on for 2016’s Young Ambassadors, who will travel to Kenya to investigate the barriers to education faced by deaf children. The deadline for applications is November 16. For details, visit www.sendmyfriend.org/young-ambassadors
Goal 4: Quality Education
- By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes.
- By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary education.
- By 2030, ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university.
- By 2030, substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship.
- By 2030, eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations.
- By 2030, ensure that all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy.
- By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development. Build and upgrade education facilities that are child, disability and gender-sensitive and provide safe, non-violent, inclusive and effective learning environments for all.
- By 2020, substantially expand globally the number of scholarships available to developing countries for enrolment in higher education, including vocational training and ICT, technical, engineering and scientific programmes, in developed countries and other developing countries.
- By 2030, substantially increase the supply of qualified teachers, including through international cooperation for teacher training in developing countries.
- The Sustainable Development Goals can be found at www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment