Category Archives: Sustainable Development Goal 4

Wanted: The Best Teacher for Every Class

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By Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)

Tracking progress on teacher training is vital to progress towards SDG 4

It could be a classroom in the heart of Tokyo or New York. It could be deep in the Amazon rainforest, the mountains of Bhutan or in the townships of Johannesburg. But wherever the classroom, much of its success relies the teacher.

Ideally, this teacher has been properly trained, and has every skill they need to inspire and enthuse their pupils. And ideally, they will teach generation after generation of children, becoming one of the teachers people remember with gratitude for the rest of their lives.

This vision will be celebrated on 5 October, when World Teachers’ Day focuses on the world’s young teachers, exploring ways to attract and keep the brightest minds and young talents. Here at the UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS), we see effective reporting on teacher training as a vital part of this process. Its importance has also been recognized in the SDG 4 monitoring framework: Indicator 4.c.1 requires data on the proportion of teachers in pre-primary right through to upper secondary education who have received at least the minimum amount of formal teacher training, whether pre-service or in service, to do their job. Continue reading →

Are the Education Goals Out of Reach?

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By Silvia Montoya, Director, UNESCO Institute for Statistics, and Robert Jenkins, Chief, Education and Associate Director, Programme Division, UNICEF

New data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics confirm the need for accelerated efforts to get every child in school and learning

Education matters. It stands for the hopes and dreams of many children around the world. Education paves the way towards more productive, healthier, sustainable and resilient societies in which children can reach their full potential. However, new data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) confirm that the situation of out-of-school children has stalled without significant improvement over the last ten years. In 2018, one in six or more than 258 million children, adolescents and youth were denied the right to education. Continue reading →

#LearningCounts: We Must Keep Children’s Learning on the 2030 Agenda

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Make your voice heard in the IAEG-SDG Open Consultation for the 2020 Comprehensive Review of the Global Indicator Framework

By Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics and Jordan Naidoo, Director of UNESCO’s Division for Education 2030 Support and Coordination. Both authors co-chair the Technical Cooperation Group on the Indicators for SDG 4.

Data users the world over have a unique opportunity to show their support for SDG 4 Indicator 4.1.1: the proportion of children and young people achieving at least a minimum proficiency level in reading and mathematics.

A new public consultation by the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on SDG indicators (IAEG-SDGs) seeks the views of stakeholders on proposals to replace, revise or delete existing indicators as part of an intensive review process of the global SDG indicator framework. Adopted by the UN General Assembly in July 2017, the framework was developed by the IAEG-SDGs, with substantial input on the education-related indicators from the Education 2030 process coordinated by UNESCO. Continue reading →

Data to Fuel an Education Revolution: Countries Answer the Funding Call

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By Julia Dicum, Deputy Director of Education at Global Affairs Canada, and Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics.

It is time for all donor countries to invest more heavily in education data. This matters because we can’t solve a problem we don’t understand. And it is only too clear that we have some big problems that must be solved right away, with 617 million children and adolescents who are not reaching even minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics, and 262 million children – one in every five –  who are out of school and half of whom are girls. Continue reading →

SDG 4: Making Human Rights Count

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By Erica Murphy (Right to Education Initiative), Mihir Mankad (Center for Economic and Social Rights), and Francesca Feruglio (ESCR-Net Secretariat) on behalf of the Monitoring Working Group of ESCR-Net.*

There is increasing recognition that data—relevant and reliable data—are central to achieving Agenda 2030 and advancing the realisation of human rights. We need data to inform laws and policies, improve decision-making, ensure sufficient resource allocation, monitor progress and identify gaps, and ensure accountability. However, more data alone will not do the job. We need more of the right kinds of data collected in the right kinds of ways. Leaving no one behind—and meeting the targets for SDG 4 and the wider Education 2030 Agenda—requires taking a human rights based approach to data[1]. This means taking everyone into account in a way that puts people at the centre of how they are counted. Continue reading →

The World is Off Track to Deliver on its Education Commitments by 2030

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By Manos Antoninis, Director of the Global Education Monitoring Report, and Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics

Without a shift from ‘business as usual’, the world will miss its goal of a quality education for all by 2030, according to our first-ever projections on progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4).

We are almost one-third of the way to 2030 and the generation that should finish secondary education by the deadline is making its way into the world’s primary classrooms. Yet if current trends continue, in 2030, when all children should be in school, one in six aged 6-17 will still be excluded. Many children are still dropping out too: by 2030, only six in ten young people will be completing secondary education. There is a real risk that the world will fail to deliver on its education promises without a rapid acceleration of progress. Continue reading →

We Need More and Better Data on Education

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38 organizations issue a collective call to fund education data that will allow the world to reach Sustainable Development Goal 4

Back in February, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) and its partners sent out an urgent call to make the case for education data. Now we have an opportunity to make that case – loudly and clearly – directly to policy-makers.

Hundreds of international, regional and national policymakers will be in New York from 9 to 18 July to discuss global progress in education during the UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF). It’s an opportunity we cannot afford to miss. That’s why we are issuing a collective call for greater funding for data on Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4): a quality, inclusive education for all. Our message is clear: we need more and better data not only to monitor progress towards that goal but also to achieve it. Continue reading →

Data to Deliver for Women

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Sylvie Michaud, Chair of the UIS Governing Board and formerly Assistant Chief Statistician, Analytical Studies, Methodology and Statistical Infrastructure, Statistics Canada, and Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)

Thousands of policymakers, activists and researchers have gathered here in Canada for Women Deliver, which is the world’s largest conference on gender equality and the health, rights and wellbeing of women and girls.

The theme of this year’s conference is power and how it drives or hinders progress and change. For those of us who spend our days deep in statistics, information really is power. We believe that we must deliver data on women and girls if we are to help them reach their full potential. Gender equality is a key priority for tracking progress towards the achievement of all the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 4 on quality education for all.

If an education indicator can be broken down by sex, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) disaggregates it – from pre-school enrolment to PhD students, and from the percentage of women teachers to whether women researchers are equally represented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) courses. If there are different trends for girls and boys at different ages as they make their way through the education system, we want to know why. Continue reading →

Focus on our SDG 4 Data Digest Partners: Conférence des Ministres de l’Éducation des États et Gouvernements de la Francophonie (CONFEMEN)

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By Hilaire Hounkpodoté, PASEC Coordinator

The recent SDG 4 Data Digest illustrates the range of partners working with the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) to help countries produce and use assessment data to strengthen lifelong learning. This blog highlights the work of one of these vital partners: the Conférence des Ministres de l’Éducation des États et Gouvernements de la Francophonie (CONFEMEN). CONFEMEN works with the world’s French-speaking countries to implement the Programme for the Analysis of Education Systems (PASEC), a renowned regional learning assessment.

Continue reading →

We Must Support Our Teachers

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By Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)

It seems so obvious: without good teachers, there cannot be good education. But when you look more closely at the conditions in which millions of them work, you could be forgiven for thinking that this message isn’t getting through.

The latest data release from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) offers some sobering facts and figures for the annual CIES Conference in San Francisco this week. The Conference will focus on ‘Education for Sustainability’, and it seems to me that you cannot sustain anything in education – not even one single school class – without a good teacher who is driving the pupils’ learning. Continue reading →