Target 4.6 – What is at stake for monitoring progress on adult literacy and numeracy?

4.6 By 2030, ensure that all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy

While the indicator for measuring adult literacy and numeracy skills is effective, many countries have yet to adopt the necessary tools to make monitoring it possible.

Target 4.6 is poorly formulated: it views literacy as something to be ‘achieved’, similar to the old belief that illiteracy was something to be ‘eradicated’.

However, the global indicator, which refers instead to the percentage of those achieving at least a ‘level of proficiency’ in functional literacy and numeracy skills, makes up for this deficiency. It comes closer to the view of literacy as not just a set of skills but also their application. It also recognizes recent advances in the direct assessments of skills.

One useful source of data for this indicator is the OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competences (PIAAC). This assessment establishes a reporting framework of six proficiency levels describing tasks that individuals can typically undertake.

For example, individuals at literacy level 2 ‘can integrate two or more pieces of information based on criteria, compare and contrast or reason about information and make low-level inferences’. In the first round of PIAAC in 2011, which was administered in high income countries, 15% of adults fell below this basic proficiency standard, ranging from less than 5% in Japan to almost 28% in Italy.

Target 4.7 – What is at stake for monitoring progress on education for global citizenship and sustainable development?

4.7 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.

 

Target 4.7 explicitly links education to the broad Sustainable Development agenda and captures the transformative aspirations of education in relation to other SDGs.  It calls for key themes to be mainstreamed in curricular contents, teaching practices and assessment and be given greater importance in policy planning, even if these aims present a monitoring challenge.

The global indicator to monitor this target looks at the extent to which global citizenship education, education for sustainable development and gender equality are mainstreamed in national education policies, curricula content, teacher education and student assessment. The global indicator reflects the fact that the international community has recognised the importance of monitoring the content of education. This is positive, as it will encourage countries to reflect on what is taught in classrooms, and how, not just on numbers enrolling in or finishing a cycle of education.

Target 4a – What is at stake for monitoring progress on effective learning environments?

 

4.a Build and upgrade education facilities that are child, disability and gender sensitive and provide safe, non-violent, inclusive and effective learning environments for all

The concept of effective learning environments is minimally captured by the proposed indicators – but even supposedly measurable aspects of the target present major challenges for global comparisons.

The roots of target 4.a can be traced back to the concept of child-friendly schools promoted by UNICEF. Such schools should be child-centred, encourage democratic participation and promote inclusiveness.

However, it is expensive to carry out the observations needed to monitor whether these principles are followed. This makes it a difficult target for global comparisons.

Attention has therefore shifted to look at specific aspects, which are more easily measured, although perhaps less likely to capture the spirit of an ‘effective learning environment’. Yet even these aspects pose more monitoring challenges than is understood. Two examples demonstrate that.

1. In terms of water and sanitation infrastructure, only about 70% of primary schools had adequate water supply and sanitation in 2013 according to the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme. The corresponding figure was around 50% in the least developed countries.

Target 4b – What is at stake for monitoring progress on scholarships?

 

4.b By 2020, substantially expand globally the number of scholarships available to developing countries, in particular least developed countries, small island developing States and African countries, for enrolment in higher education, including vocational training and information and communications technology, technical, engineering and scientific programmes, in developed countries and other developing countries

There is no mechanism yet in place to monitor the number of scholarships available, and the proposed global indicator that focuses on aid for scholarships only gives a very partial picture of the volume and type of such scholarships.

The roots of the target on scholarships can be traced back to a commitment made in the Istanbul Programme of Action for the Least Developed Countries for the Decade 2011–2020. However, the target sits uneasily with two of the core principles of the sustainable development agenda: universality and equity.

Moreover, even the wording in the target fails in several practical respects. For example, by stating that scholarships must be ‘available to developing countries’, the target excludes large programmes where developing countries fund their own citizens to study abroad. And by stating that enrolment must take place ‘in developed countries and other developing countries’ it excludes cases where donors fund citizens of a developing country to study at home.

Vivian Onano: We each have a role to play in achieving gender equality

By Vivian Onano, for International Day of the Girl Child

My name is Vivian Onano, partnerships Manager at SEED Project, Global Youth Ambassador at WaterAid and Women Deliver Young Leader.  I was honored and delighted to be a part of the launch of the 2016 GEM Report in Kigali, Rwanda, and the launch of the GEM Report Gender Review on education and gender equality last week. Many thanks to UNESCO for inviting me to be part of this important launch and discussion. Achieving education and gender equality are issues I am very passionate about.

I firmly believe that without access to quality and safe education, we will not achieve gender equality. Without gender equality, our goal of having a world of inclusive, peaceful and prosperous communities will not be realized. Ensuring every child gets a good education is the basic foundation for a successful future.

Access to education should never be determined by one’s sex or social status. I believe beyond doubt that education is a fundamental human right. However, the reality that faces us is that there are many young girls who have been denied an opportunity at having a better life because of their gender. Although huge strides have been made towards achieving gender parity in primary education, there is significant work to be done to close the gap in secondary and tertiary education.

Target 4c – What is at stake for monitoring progress on teachers?

 

4.c By 2030, substantially increase the supply of qualified teachers, including through international cooperation for teacher training in developing countries, especially least developed countries and small island developing States

Target 4.c focuses on the supply of qualified teachers. But what it means to be a trained teacher varies per country and the relevant standards are not documented. This means that data are not really comparable, making the job of monitoring the target hard.

A distinct target relating to the teaching profession is considered a welcome addition, as it had been missing from the Education for All and Millennium Development Goals agendas. However, there is also dissatisfaction with the narrow focus on the ‘supply of qualified teachers’.

The 2016 Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report goes beyond these relatively narrow confines and discusses the monitoring implications of the more general commitment, expressed in the Education 2030 Framework for Action, to ‘ensure that teachers and educators are empowered, adequately recruited, well-trained, professionally qualified, motivated and supported’ – the theme of this week’s World Teachers’ Day.

Even an established indicator may not be adequate and informative

The global indicator is the proportion of teachers who “have received at least the minimum organized teacher training (e.g. pedagogical) pre-service or in-service required for teaching” at each education level. This seems well-established and suitable to monitor the target. However, there are two important caveats.

Monitoring SDG 4: what is at stake?

This blog launches a series that introduces some of the key challenges for monitoring the new global education goal – SDG 4 – as outlined in the latest GEM Report. The details may seem technical, but this is far from just a technical debate. Rather, it goes to the heart of what we aspire to in education for the next generation. We hope this blog series will raise awareness of the issues at stake and enable more people to take part in the discussions.

There is an important milestone this month on the way to how SDG 4 will be monitored — namely the meeting of the Technical Cooperation Group (TCG) in Madrid on 26-28 October (on thematic indicators for SDG 4).

Discussion of the evolving monitoring architecture should be encouraged. Even though the main parameters for monitoring are in place, most of these indicators have not yet been measured on a global scale and the specific details of how this will happen remain to be decided.

The links between education, violence, and wellbeing

Living a life free from violence is a basic human right enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and is central to the Sustainable Development Goals. In the last of three blogs about the new GEM Report Gender Review, we consider the role of education in ensuring that girls, boys, men and women are able to go about daily life without the presence or threat of physical, sexual or emotional violence. This can otherwise be called having ‘gender-equitable relationships’, which our recent Gender Review says are essential for good health and wellbeing of individuals, families, and communities. Good quality education can help foster such relationships, and help maintain peaceful societies.  It’s yet another example of how education and other sectors can work together for sustainable development.

Working with adolescents is crucial for gender equality. 

In adolescence, young people are forming ideas and behaviour around gender and identity and are often under pressure to engage in sexual activity and intimate relationships. Comprehensive sexuality education in schools, for both boys and girls, can help young people develop gender-equitable attitudes towards relationships and sexual behaviour. It also helps prevent early pregnancies, promotes respectful non-violent relationships, and can help young people navigate the information available to them online. A 4 year programme in Kenya working with men on responsible sexual behavior, for example, saw pregnancy rates drop by two-thirds.

Supporting today’s teachers to meet tomorrow’s challenges

Teachers play an integral role in children and young people’s lives. They are often the first significant adult role model that young children encounter outside of their family, and can influence not only what they learn at school, but the values, beliefs and attitudes that accompany their lives. Today is World Teachers’ Day, and this year’s theme – Valuing Teachers, Improving their Status – should be a top priority for all of us. Having trained, qualified and motivated teachers benefits all of us, and especially now, as, fortified with an ambitious vision in the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, we look to education to help secure a prosperous, peaceful, just and sustainable future.

Under the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development we are asking teachers to do more than ever before. We need teachers who are prepared to teach sustainable development and global citizenship, tolerance and gender equality, comprehensive sexuality education and human rights; yet these topics are not adequately covered in teacher education. More than two thirds of European countries do not include sustainable development and global citizenship in teacher training. The GEM Report argues that schools need to take a holistic approach to tackling environmental challenges, which means that both teachers and students need to learn about climate change and its underlying causes. But if teachers don’t understand climate change themselves, how can we expect them to impart knowledge to their students? Short teacher training modules appear to hold significant benefits for teachers’ understanding and confidence on teaching about climate change. In one study cited in our latest GEM Report, the percentage of prospective teachers who felt climate change was a conceptually difficult subject to teach fell from over 21% to about 7% after fewer than four hours of training.

Education leading for gender equality

In the second of three blogs marking the launch of the new 2016 GEM Report Gender Review, we look at the relationship between education, leadership, gender equality, and participation in public and private spheres.

Until women and men have equal opportunity to participate in public and private life, as community members, citizens, decision makers and leaders, we will not be living in a sustainable, fair world for all.

We have considerable distance to travel: long-standing gender inequalities in public and private participation are endemic, with women facing deep-rooted discrimination, and men dominating leadership and decision-making positions the world over. Women are far less likely than men to hold senior management positions, seats on executive boards, or make decisions in major religions, social organizations or households. Worldwide, far less than one quarter of heads of state, heads of government and ministers are women. Looking across different government cabinets, it becomes clear that women are also far more likely to hold social policy portfolios such as education, gender and culture, rather than economic or defence portfolios.

Travelling this distance is worth it: gender equality is vital for achieving sustainable development and protecting the environment. For example, research suggests that women express more concern for the environment than men, and countries with more women in parliament are more likely to ratify environmental treaties. Women constitute almost two-thirds of the 758 million adults who are unable to read or write a sentence – a vast pool of people we are not empowering to help us fight environmental shifts. Education can equip individuals with skills and knowledge to understand environmental problems and help tackle them. Equal representation in leadership and community decision-making is more likely to build better resilience, improve risk management and advance environmental preservation.