SUMMARY G LO B A L E D U C AT I O N M O N I TO R I N G R E P O R T 2 0 1 6 2016 Global Education Monitoring Report Summary INTRODUCTION At the 70th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015, member states adopted a new global development agenda, Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. At its heart are 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 4 on education. The SDGs establish development priorities to 2030 and succeed both the Millennium Development Goals and the Education for All (EFA) goals, whose deadlines expired in 2015. Education will not deliver its full potential to catapult the world forward unless participation rates dramatically improve, learning becomes a lifelong pursuit and education systems fully embrace sustainable development The Global Education Monitoring Report (GEM Report), which builds on the experience of the previous EFA Global Monitoring Report series, received a new mandate to assess the progress of education under the 2030 Agenda. The 2016 GEM Report, the first of the new 15-year series, explores the complex relationship between education and other facets of sustainable development, along with the monitoring implications for SDG 4. It shows that education will not deliver its full potential to catapult the world forward unless school participation rates dramatically improve, learning becomes a lifelong pursuit and education systems fully embrace sustainable development. The thematic part of the report highlights evidence, practices and policies that demonstrate how education can serve as a catalyst for the overall sustainable development agenda. It presents compelling arguments for the types of education that are vital for achieving the goals of poverty reduction, hunger eradication, improved health, gender equality and empowerment, sustainable agriculture, resilient cities and more equal, inclusive and just societies. The monitoring part tackles the many challenges concerning how to assess progress on SDG 4, including concrete recommendations for policy change. Each of the seven education targets and three means of implementation in SDG 4 are examined in turn. In addition, education finance and education systems are analysed, as is the extent to which education can be monitored in the other SDG goals. Building blocks and potential synergies for a more effective and efficient global education monitoring agenda over the next 15 years are identified at the national, regional and international levels. TAB LE 1 : How education is typically linked with other Sustainable Development Goals Goal 1 Education is critical to lifting people out of poverty. Goal 10 Where equally accessible, education makes a proven difference to social and economic inequality. Goal 2 Education plays a key role in helping people move towards more sustainable farming methods, and in understanding nutrition. Goal 11 Education can give people the skills to participate in shaping and maintaining more sustainable cities, and to achieve resilience in disaster situations. Goal 3 Education can make a critical difference to a range of health issues, including early mortality, reproductive health, spread of disease, healthy lifestyles and well-being. Goal 12 Education can make a critical difference to production patterns (e.g. with regard to the circular economy) and to consumer understanding of more sustainably produced goods and prevention of waste. Goal 5 Education for women and girls is particularly important to achieve basic literacy, improve participative skills and abilities, and improve life chances. Goal 13 Education is key to mass understanding of the impact of climate change and to adaptation and mitigation, particularly at the local level. Goal 6 Education and training increase skills and the capacity to use natural resources more sustainably and can promote hygiene. Goal 14 Education is important in developing awareness of the marine environment and building proactive consensus regarding wise and sustainable use. Goal 7 Educational programmes, particularly non-formal and informal, can promote better energy conservation and uptake of renewable energy sources. Goal 15 Education and training increase skills and capacity to underpin sustainable livelihoods and to conserve natural resources and biodiversity, particularly in threatened environments. Goal 8 There is a direct link among such areas as economic vitality, entrepreneurship, job market skills and levels of education. Goal 16 Social learning is vital to facilitate and ensure participative, inclusive and just societies, as well as social coherence. Goal 9 Education is necessary to develop the skills required to build more resilient infrastructure and more sustainable industrialization. Goal 17 Lifelong learning builds capacity to understand and promote sustainable development policies and practices. Source: ICSU and ISSC (2015). 8