people and planet

23
Synthesis of monitoring challenges and opportunities....................................... 377
Recommendations on monitoring the education agenda..................................379
The Global Education Monitoring Report 2016 (GEM
Report) makes a strong case that education is a
catalyst for achieving the ambitious 2030 Agenda
for Sustainable Development, with its 17 Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 4 on
education. It provides evidence on the extent to which
achieving the SDG 4 targets by 2030 would accelerate
the achievement of the key economic, health and
environment-related SDGs.
The monitoring part of the GEM Report reviewed
the scope for monitoring education in the SDGs,
especially SDG 4, carefully examining concepts in
target formulations, analysing proposed as well as
missing indicators, discussing the latest developments
in measurement tools and identifying the main gaps in
conceptualization and measurement.
Viewed in one way, the Education 2030 monitoring
agenda, when presented by individual target is daunting
in its breadth. Responding to each target would pose
significant challenges to education ministries and
national statistical agencies, not only in poor countries
but also in rich ones.
At the same time, the proposed monitoring agenda
is underwhelming. Given the severity of sustainable
development challenges, it barely scratches the surface
of the fundamental questions facing education and
lifelong learning. How do education systems help
learners of all ages acquire relevant knowledge, practice
critical thinking, manage uncertainty, act responsibly
regarding the environmental crisis, understand their
shared humanity and behave as global citizens? The
monitoring framework does not go far enough to answer
these questions.
The new Education
2030 agenda is
instilling a new
sense of purpose in
education monitoring,
compared with the
emphasis of past
expanded approach
to reviewing progress
should be celebrated
and safeguarded. It
offers a starting point
for advancing the
sustainable development
agenda, with
education at its heart.
The challenge is for
decades on counting
governments and
heads in schools
the international
community to take
concrete steps to
achieve the new education targets while acting swiftly
and purposefully to enable their monitoring, based on
agreed indicators, even those with identified weaknesses.
This concluding chapter has two objectives. First, it aims
to distil the detailed discussions by target to provide
a summary of emerging priorities for monitoring the
new agenda. Second, using these conclusions as a basis,
the chapter describes key implications in terms of the
necessary steps forward at the national, regional and
global levels. In doing so, it points to potential links
between approaches that can support an efficient and
feasible monitoring strategy for countries and the
international community.
The driving consideration in forming these
recommendations is not monitoring per se, let alone
global monitoring, but whether monitoring can
significantly help catalyse improvements in education
systems and the quality of learning environments
serving all learners, regardless of background and age.
Yet, overall, important steps have been taken. The
agenda is instilling a new sense of purpose in education
monitoring activities, compared with the emphasis
of past decades on counting heads in schools. The
All countries are now committed to global monitoring.
While global monitoring is not the main objective of
the Education 2030 agenda, its contribution should not
be underestimated. The GEM Report’s mandate is to
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CHAPTER 23 | PRIORITIES FOR MONITORING EDUCATION IN THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS