New report aims to help countries produce and use the global and thematic indicators
The need for accurate, current and comparable data on education has never been more urgent, with the prospects of reaching Sustainable Development Goal 4 – a quality education for all by 2030 – far from certain.
According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), about 258 million children, adolescents and youth are out of school. The data confirm recent projections showing that, without a shift from ‟business as usual”, one in every six children aged 6 to 17 will still be out of school in 2030 and only six out of ten youth will complete secondary education.
The data also highlight the urgent need to improve the quality of education on offer. According to UIS estimates, 55% of children and adolescents of primary and lower secondary school age are not achieving minimum proficiency levels in reading and 60% are not reaching these levels in mathematics.
The 2019 edition of the SDG 4 Data Digest reinforces the need for the robust data that are crucial to reach the global education goal. It provides a panoramic view of the current development of the SDG 4 monitoring framework, including proven methodologies for data collection and reporting at the international, regional and national levels. The new report, entitled How to Produce and Use the Global and Thematic Education Indicators, was launched today in Paris during the UNESCO General Conference.
