Quality Education- Part of Sustainable Development Goal

Sustainable development goals are actions to create a just, fair, and equitable world ensuring no one is left behind. In 2015, all member states of the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This agenda is comprised of 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) that provide a shared blueprint for a more peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable future for all.

Quality education

Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Education is a key to escaping poverty. Over the past decade, major progress was made towards increasing access to education and school enrolment rates at all levels, particularly for girls.

More than half of all children and adolescents worldwide are not meeting minimum proficiency standards in reading and mathematics. In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the globe, a majority of countries announced the temporary closure of schools, which affect the education of children worldwide.

The covid-19 has created a great education crisis. Most education systems in the world have been affected by education disruptions and have faced unprecedented challenges. School closures brought on by the pandemic have a great effect on children’s learning and well-being. It is estimated that 147 million children missed more than half of their in-class instruction over the past two years. This generation of children could lose a combined total of $17 trillion in lifetime earnings at present value. School closures have affected girls, children from disadvantaged backgrounds, those living in rural areas, children with disabilities, and children from ethnic minorities more than their peers.

Early indications from low-income countries based on phone surveys point to a small decline in attendance upon a return to school but a larger increase in repetition, which may increase dropout rates in coming years. The participation rate in organized learning one year before the official primary entry age rose steadily in the years before the COVID-19 pandemic, from 69 percent in 2010 to 75 percent in 2020. In most countries, early education facilities and schools were partially or fully closed for more than a full school year.

Insufficient skills are often mentioned as an impediment to effective information and communications technology use. Only 10 percent of countries could more than 70 percent of individuals carry out one of the activities that compose basic skills.

Gender inequalities remain for many indicators. Basic school infrastructure is far from universal. In 2020, approximately one-quarter of primary schools globally did not have access to basic services such as electricity, drinking water, and basic sanitation facilities.

Shares among least developed countries tend to be substantially lower. During the pandemic, schools in comparatively disadvantaged areas were less equipped to keep children and staff safe. In 2020, there were about 12 million pre-primary school teachers, 33 million primary school teachers, and 38 million secondary school teachers working in classrooms around the world, and 83 percent of primary and secondary school teachers were trained.

Thus, this sustainable goal aims to improve the education facility worldwide and provide good quality education which can lead to removing poverty.