people and planet

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governments. It measures the number of countries
with laws and regulations that guarantee access to
sexual and reproductive health care, information and
education, in accordance with the Programme of Action
of the International Conference on Population and
Development and the Beijing Platform for Action.
reports on the implementation of the Recommendation
concerning Education for International Understanding,
Co-operation and Peace and Education relating to
Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, adopted at
the 1974 UNESCO General Conference. Nevertheless, this
has been classified as a Tier III indicator.
One component of the indicator will therefore focus on
the number of countries with such laws and regulations
in education, noting if they are age-appropriate, genderfocused
and human rights-based. The methodology,
currently under development, consists of initial selfreporting
by governments. Data collection is expected
to start in July 2017 (UNFPA, 2016). As the approach has
not yet been tested, the indicator has been classified as
Tier III. This qualitative systems indicator approach (see
Chapter 21) is very similar to that used for issues raised
under target 4.7 (see Chapter 16).
Global indicator 8.6.1 monitors the proportion of youth
not in education, employment or training (NEET).
It complements global indicator 4.3.1, the youth
participation rate in formal and non-formal education
and training. The difference between them is that the
SDG 8 global indicator also includes employment. The
indicator captures youth who are either discouraged
from or not interested in participating in the labour force.
A methodology has been established, so the indicator
has been classified as Tier I (ILO, 2013).
However, this indicator cannot easily be compared across
countries. For example, a comparison of 28 countries that
participated in the School-to-Work Transition Survey shows
that Cambodia and Madagascar had NEET rates below 10%
among 15- to 29-year-olds, while Bangladesh and Samoa
exceeded 40%. The European Union average was 15% in
2012/13, similar to the low income countries average (18%)
but well below that of middle income countries (26%). It is
unclear what the target should be. It is important to look
at the parts that constitute the indicator to understand
whether the challenge in a country is, for example, access
to education and training or constraints to labour force
participation for women (ILO, 2015).
Finally, global indicators 12.8.1 and 13.3.1 focus on global
citizenship education and education for sustainable
development as means to support the transition to
sustainable production and consumption patterns as well
as addressing the causes and impact of climate change.
In that respect, they are essentially identical to global
indicator 4.7.1 (see Chapter 16). Accordingly, the proposed
sources of information are the quadrennial national
Alternative sources and approaches may be necessary.
This report has argued for more specificity than these
reports allow and to increase country coverage in the
monitoring process. A global process to code national
curriculum framework documents using a standard
protocol could be established. This would require close
collaboration with ministries and a leading international
coordinating body (see Chapter 16).
INDIRECT REFERENCES TO
EDUCATION IN GLOBAL SDG
INDICATORS
Apart from monitoring indicators that explicitly refer to
education, future GEM Reports will also pay attention to
indirect references to education in the other SDGs. Two
examples are highlighted in this section: education as a
factor associated with other development outcomes and
therefore as a characteristic by which particular global
indicators can be disaggregated; and indicators that
refer to human resource capacity, which are related to
professional and higher education.
EDUCATION AS A FACTOR ASSOCIATED WITH
DEVELOPMENT OUTCOMES
The GEM Report has presented strong examples of
the relationship between education and other
development outcomes. In many cases, research has
clearly shown that education attainment has a causal
effect over and above other related influences such as
wealth. In other cases, this causal relationship has not
yet been established.
Observing the correlation of education attainment with
other development outcomes and how this relationship
varies by country and evolves over time is interesting.
It can indicate whether the relationship is consistent
and how it may contribute to reaching the targets.
It can also point at cases where the relationship is
weak to give useful feedback to education planners.
Taking the education level into account can also show
the intergenerational effects of education on other
outcomes.
2016 • GLOBAL EDUCATION MONITORING REPORT 369