UN SDGs Summit 2023: An Urgent Call to Action

World leaders meet at the UN SDG4 Summit on the 18-19 September to discuss progress on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, including Sustainable Development Goal 4 - Quality Education.

18-19th September, New York This week the world leaders are meeting in New York to discuss how to get back on track with achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including the Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4) of ensuring inclusive and equitable education for all children and young people by 2030.

The realisation of the SDG4 has already been discussed in September 2022 when the United Nations convened the Transforming Education Summit (TES) to respond to the triple-crisis in education—of equity and inclusion, quality, and relevance – compounded by a lack of adequate financing and heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the TES 140 governments made statements of commitment which outlined countries’ strategic policy priorities in education, from early childhood education, teacher training, gender equality to higher education research and vocational training. 

Among the 140 countries 34 of them listed foundational learning (FLN) as one of their key priorities and promised to take action towards improving outcomes in literacy and numeracy. 

One year later the UN SDG Summit presents another opportunity for governments to accelerate progress towards foundational learning.

A long way to go to ensure every child learns the basics 

Foundational learning such as numeracy and literacy are critical enablers for wider education goals, skills acquisition and the development of inclusive economies. 

Today 250 million children globally are out of school today. 64% of children around the world cannot read and understand a simple sentence by age 10. In low and middle-income countries this figure raises up to 70% and in sub-Saharan Africa, 89% of 10-year-olds are not learning to read. Many of these children are in school but they are not learning. 

Progress to getting all children around the world to attend school, and while in school to read and do basic maths has been very slow, particularly in the Global South.  

A new 2023 Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report assessing the progress made since 2015 against all SDG 4 targets shows that the number of out-of-school children globally increased in 2022 to 250 million, largely due to the education crisis in Afghanistan which excluded million of girls from educational institutions.  

In sub-Saharan Africa the number of children who are not accessing school increased by 12 million in 2022.

The report also shows that countries currently increase reading levels of children at the end of primary education by just 0.4 percentage points per year, although 52% of children live in countries where there are not enough data points to measure learning.  

This result undermines UN SDG4 and shows that countries are far from achieving the goal.

Building forward better 

The Transforming Education Summit helped shine a spotlight on the learning crisis. But the Summit was only the beginning and commitments aren’t enough. 

At this year’s UN SDGs Summit we are calling for every government to turn their promises into action and accelerate their efforts to ensure all children, including the most marginalized children such as refugees and children in crisis-affected countries with greatest need, are learning foundational skills.

Getting all children to learn to read and do basic math also means doing things differently. Strong political leadership, sufficient financing, and the implementation of robust evidence-based policies are required to make quality education a reality for all children.

Low & middle income countries currently lack $97 billion annually to achieve SDG4 by 2030. Education spending should no longer be regarded as a consumption expenditure but a crucial national investment.  

“The future of millions of children is in your hands as time is running out for us to get on track to meet SDG4. Priorities defined at the TES and the SDG Summit have the potential to change the future of education. We’re looking to world leaders to ensure that all children worldwide can achieve their full potential and no one is left behind.”, concludes Joseph Nhan O’Reilly, Executive Director of IPNEd.