It is sometimes difficult to keep track of the many reports published by foundations, multilateral organizations and others on progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 4, which seeks to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

This post provides links and a brief outline for a few reports published in 2018 and 2019 by various organizations. Some of these reports may be useful to school teachers, principals and administrators as well as policy makers and researchers. The documents are available online for free, in some cases in multiple languages.

Goalkeepers - Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Goalkeepers has nothing to do with soccer. It is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s annual report card on the world’s progress toward the SDGs. The analysis is conducted by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

The 2019 report is the third in the series. It focuses on inequality and was released ahead of the UN General Assembly in September. Lots of graphics and key messages, including stories of progress for primary healthcare, digital inclusion and climate adaptation.

Beyond the annual report itself, the Goalkeepers website includes features to explore the data, short video presentations, and other resources such as “accelerators”, which bring together partners from different sectors around common agendas for action, with the aim of catalyzing investments, expertise, and innovation to accelerate progress towards the SDGs. In 2018, one of the accelerators was Room to Read, a proven model for early-grade literacy implemented in India, Vietnam and South Africa.

Learning to Leapfrog – Innovative Pedagogies to Transform Education - Brookings Institution

Among reports released ahead of the United Nations’ General Assembly in September was the Brookings Institution’s Learning to Leapfrog – Innovative Pedagogies to Transform Education. The report emphasizes three priorities:

• Embrace innovative pedagogy, tailored to particular education settings
• Make the structural changes necessary to invest in the foundations for quality teaching, widen the profile of who can be considered as educators, and support hybrid learning environments, which blend formal and nonformal schooling
• Promote the pivotal role of the “missing middle,” or “meso,” layer of education—consisting of networks, chains of schools and communities of practice—to scale deep change.

Transforming the Education Workforce - Education Commission

In September 2019, the Education Commission shared a new report on Transforming the Education Workforce. The report notes that good teachers are the most important driver of learning outcomes at the school level.

Unfortunately, in many countries, teachers are poorly trained and in short supply. They work in isolation without effective supporting networks. Teachers should not work by themselves: they should work as teams of professionals with support from great principals.

The report discusses how to strengthen the education workforce, develop learning teams, and transform towards learning systems. Reforms are needed to achieve these objectives. The report discusses the political economy of such reforms as well as issues related to planning, costing and financing the education workforce.

2019 Education at a Glance Report - OECD

The 2019 Education at a Glance is an annual report produced by OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) on education systems in OECD and partner economies. This year’s report includes more than 100 charts and tables with links to more detailed underlying data.

Topics include educational outputs, performance on learning assessments, financing and costs, data on teacher and the learning environment and more. The 2019 report includes chapters dedicated to tertiary education and SDG 4.

Earlier this year, OECD released its Measuring Innovation in Education 2019 report, looking at what has (or has not) changed over the past decade in OECD education systems. Has the use of technology spread? Have assessments become more important in pedagogical practices? Are students given more agency in their learning? Are they still asked to memorize facts and procedures? Do teachers increasingly engage students in peer learning activities? Reviewing 150 educational practices, the report focuses on pedagogical innovation in the classroom.

Right to Education Handbook - UNESCO

The first International Day of Education was celebrated on January 24, 2019. The Day was adopted in December 2018 by the UN General Assembly. The Day’s website features videos and a Right to Education Handbook published by UNESCO and the Right to Education Initiative.

The Handbook has chapters on:

• Education as a human right
• International legal recognition of the right
• Normative content of the right
• States’ legal obligations
• The right and SDG 4
• Domestic implementation
• Monitoring
• Accountability.

Migration, Displacement and Education: Building Bridges, Not Walls – GEM Report

UNESCO’s flagship annual report on education is the Global Education Monitoring Report. The 2019 report focuses on Migration, Displacement and Education: Building Bridges, Not Walls. Refugee and migrant children could fill over half a million classrooms globally – this is an increase of more than a fourth since 2000. As for internal migration, it may lead to an additional 80 million children living in slums by 2030. These are major challenges for education systems.

The report discusses those challenges for both migration and displacement, and how changes in curriculum and teacher training and pedagogy, among others, may help respond to these challenges. The report includes a number of case studies that can serve as tools for practitioners. The implications of refugee emergencies for progress towards SDG 4 are also discussed. The next GEM report will be on inclusive education, in particular children with disabilities.

Other reports released over the last year or so by UNESCO include:

• SDG 4 Data Digest 2018: Data to Nurture Learning which shows how data can contribute to improve learning.
• Beyond Commitments: How Do Countries Implement SDG 4 shows how countries have taken on the challenge of implementing SDG 4 at the national level.
• The SDG4 Data Book on Global Education Indicators 2019 has useful trends and links to a data visualization tool and country profiles.
• Meeting Commitments: Are Countries on Track to Meet SDG4 suggests that many countries, especially low-income countries in Africa, are off-track.
• Facing the Facts: The Case for Comprehensive Sexuality Education argues that comprehensive sexuality education is an essential part of a good quality education that helps prepare young people for a fulfilling life in a changing world.

Behind the Numbers: Ending Violence in Schools and Bullying – UNICEF

Behind the Numbers: Ending Violence in Schools and Bullying discusses violence in school. A related report from Their World and co-sponsored by UNICEF is entitled Safe Schools – The Hidden Crisis. These reports show how children are affected by violence in schools, and how contexts of fragility and conflict affects schooling – including through school closures.

UNICEF often produces reports on specific regions of the world or sets of countries. A recent example is a child alert on the crisis affecting schools in West and Central Africa due to attacks on schools. Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger as well as Cameroon, Chad, and Nigeria are especially affected. Actual attacks as well as the threat of attacks forces schools to close, teachers to flee, and school children to remain at home, with highly negative implications for their ability to learn.

Since 2018, UNICEF has released “Think Pieces” by leading academics and practitioners to stimulate debate on educational challenges in East and Southern Africa. The pieces are relevant for low and lower-middle income countries more generally. The first 7 of 10 pieces are available here on girls’ education, pre-primary education, parents and caregivers, teacher performance, curriculum reform, accountability and the delivery approach, and disability inclusion.

State of the World’s Children 2019 - UNICEF

Also of interest is UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children 2019 focusing on food and nutrition, which is essential for learning in school and a child’s broader development. From the headlines: At least one in three children under five – or over 200 million – is either undernourished or overweight. Almost two in three children between six months and two years of age are not fed food that supports their rapidly growing bodies and brains. This puts them at risk of poor brain development, weak learning, low immunity, increased infections and, in many cases, death. A number of recommendations are made in the report to improve children’s nutrition.

Stepping Up – Refugee Education in Crisis - UNHCR

The refugee crisis has worsened in recent years, especially due to the war in Syria, but also in other parts of the world, including in East Africa. The needs are massive, including for the provision of education to children and youth. The United Nations’ Refugee Agency (UNHCR) recently released two reports on education for refugees. The first report, Stepping Up: Refugee Education in Crisis (landing page and report), tells the stories of some of the world’s 7.1 million refugee children of school age. It looks at the educational aspirations of refugee youth eager to continue learning after secondary education, and highlights the need for strong partnerships in order to break down barriers to education for millions of refugee children.

The second report, Refugee Education 2030, is UNHCR’s new strategy to improve education for refugee populations. Apart from data points and analysis, both reports include short case studies and examples of good practices.

Learning to Realize Education’s Promise – The World Bank

In 2018, for the first time in the 30-year history of the World Bank’s World Development Report, the focus was on education. While the Millennium Development Goals emphasized schooling, SDG 4 emphasizes learning. Unfortunately, many education systems are failing students. The need to improve learning is at the core of the WDR 2018 — Learning to Realize Education’s Promise.

What can be done to improve learning? To answer this question, the report explores four main themes: 1) education’s promise; 2) the need to shine a light on learning; 3) how to make schools work for learners; and 4) how to make systems work for learning.

A series of companion pieces have been published or are in the process of being published at the regional level, including as one example for sub-Saharan Africa.

Education has long been critical to human welfare, but it is even more so in a time of rapid economic and social change. The WDR 2019 on the Changing Nature of Work may also be of interest to educators. It explores how the nature of work is changing with technology. Fears that jobs will be lost to robots may be overstated as technology brings opportunities as well as challenges.

Yet, as technology is changing the skills that employers are seeking, workers must acquire those skills – including problem-solving, teamwork and adaptability. This in turn requires governments to invest more in human capital and enhance social protection systems. This also requires mobilizing revenues by increasing the tax base.

Ending Learning Poverty – The World Bank

At the 2019 annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, a new target - halving learning poverty by 2030 - was announced. Learning poverty is defined as the percentage of 10-year-old children who cannot read and understand a short text.

Unfortunately, in low-and middle-income countries, the figure is above 50%. In countries benefitting from concessional loans and grants from IDA, the figure is even lower, at close to 80%. Ending learning poverty is an imperative if children are to be given the means to succeed in life. Various resources including a policy package are being made available on how to achieve the target of halving learning poverty by 2030, but the main report is a good first read.

This blog post is adapted from articles for the summer and fall 2019 issues of the Educatio Si Bulletin produced by the International Office of Catholic Education.