Beyond Commitments: How Countries Implement SDG4
On the occasion of the 2019 High-Level Political Forum (HLPF), the Global Education Monitoring Report team, under the auspices of the SDG-Education 2030 Steering Committee, has prepared “Beyond Commitments: How Countries Implement SDG 4,” a special publication to review countries’ perceptions about and policies regarding Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4). SDG 4 seeks to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.
A companion publication by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics and the Global Education Monitoring Report for the 2019 HLPF, titled “Meeting Commitments: Are Countries on Track to Achieve SDG 4?,” showed that the world is off track in its education commitments for 2030. In response to member states’ demand for guidance on how to respond when their education systems do not reach their targets, “Beyond Commitments” has the following purposes:
- Understand countries’ perceptions of SDG 4 based on responses to a questionnaire prepared for this publication, which asked countries to report on their flagship SDG 4 policies
- Distill those perceptions into a framework of the types of national policies that are best aligned with SDG 4 and whose implementation should be monitored
- Communicate the framework succinctly and provide a complementary input for the review of SDG 4 at the 2019 HLPF
- Provide an opportunity for countries to engage in dialogue on how they approach SDG 4.
A core recommendation is that countries should align their education plans and policies with their international commitments. The report identifies the following six areas as being well geared for accelerating progress to reach the goal.
- Beyond Averages: Equity and Inclusion
- Beyond Access: Quality and Learning
- Beyond Basics: Content Fit for Sustainable Development
- Beyond Schooling: Lifelong Learning
- Beyond Education: Cross-Sector Cooperation
- Beyond Countries: Regional and Global Cooperation
Read the report here: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000369008/PDF/369008eng.pdf.multi