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The future of education: How can every child enjoy free quality education?
Education is widely considered to be the cornerstone of a country’s development, and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) aims to ensure that every child has access to inclusive and equitable quality education. Since 2015, countries have begun moving towards reducing educational inequalities, seeking to provide free and equitable quality education. Specific targets of this goal include ensuring that all girls and boys complete free and compulsory quality education, improving opportunities for adults and youth to acquire relevant employable skills, and eliminating gender disparities in education.
However, while we have seen some progress in increasing access to education around the world, significant challenges remain.
According to the 2017 report, 2.62 million children and adolescents are still out of school, and more than half of children and adolescents worldwide do not meet minimum proficiency standards in reading and mathematics. As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads, hundreds of millions of children and adolescents have suffered severe setbacks in their learning, which undoubtedly makes the achievement of SDG 4 more difficult. To promote educational equity, the international community must increase investment in education, especially in developing countries, and address these difficulties through international cooperation.
SDG 4 consists of ten specific targets, covering a wide range of aspects, from free and compulsory education to technical and vocational education. Each goal has corresponding indicators to assess progress. Key to these goals include:
- Ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equal and quality primary and secondary education.
- Provide quality pre-primary education for all and ensure preparation for primary education.
- Upskill youth and adults to meet the demands of the workplace.
- Eliminate gender disparities and other forms of discrimination in education.
- Improve literacy and numeracy among the population.
At the core of SDG 4 is the idea that education should not be a privilege but a fundamental right for everyone.
To achieve these goals, building more safe, inclusive, and effective school environments is critical. At the same time, society should attach importance to and enhance awareness of educational equity. Regardless of gender, race or economic background, everyone should have equal access to educational opportunities. In this regard, educational institutions in developing countries need more support and resources to improve their educational facilities and train qualified teachers.
Quality and accessibility of education
While many countries have made progress in improving access to education, improving the quality of education is equally important. In fact, even with the increase in school enrollment rates, the phenomenon of declining education quality still exists. According to the report, students in many countries are performing significantly below target in maths and reading tests. This is worrying because the ultimate goal of education is to enable students to acquire practical knowledge and skills to prepare them for their future lives.
Promoters of SDG 4 emphasize that education should not only focus on school enrollment rates, but also work on cultivating students' critical thinking, creativity and problem-solving skills. This requires developing more student-centered teaching strategies and providing diverse learning methods.
Only when every child has equal access to learning opportunities can we truly achieve fairness and quality in education.
Impact of the epidemic and follow-up actions
The global epidemic has undoubtedly put the fairness and accessibility of education to the test again. During the epidemic, many countries were forced to close schools, which undoubtedly increased educational inequality for children who rely on face-to-face teaching. It is estimated that at least one-third of the world’s children cannot participate in distance learning, further exacerbating existing education gaps. It is reported that the completion rate of students from wealthy families is 79%, while that of students from poor families is only 34%.
Therefore, in order to ensure the sustainable development of education in the future, the international community needs to work together to further strengthen the application of technology in education, including introducing more distance teaching methods to ensure that every student has a safe and supportive learning environment.
Vision for the future
Education is an important part of sustainable development, and efforts to achieve SDG 4 will not only improve the quality of life of individuals, but also promote social progress. Through education, children will be able to break the cycle of poverty and become more responsible global citizens. The joint support of the international community and the active promotion of the government in education policy will be the key to achieving this goal.
Ultimately, how to ensure that every child in the future has access to free and quality education will be an important issue that the world needs to face and think about together?
