4 Quality Education

To understand the world around us, access to basic education is crucial. Through quality education, people acquire the ability to listen, critically reflect about reality, and make informed choices about their life. This goal also seeks to improve school facilities, increase the number of training and vocational opportunities, and increase the number of trained teachers available to provide a safe learning environment.

Education is essential to achieve many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Quality education allows people to break the cycle of poverty; it helps to reduce inequalities and reaches gender equality; It enables people to lead a healthier and more sustainable life and it is essential to foster tolerance and peaceful societies.

The integration of SDG into vocational education helps people to develop knowledge, skills, values, and behaviours needed to address 21st-century challenges. In particular, this SDG is related to vocational education through target 4.3 (equal access to affordable technical, vocational, and higher education); target 4.4 (increase the number of people with relevant skills for financial success), and target 4.5 (eliminate all discrimination in education).

Schools/universities are essential to provide learning spaces for students to plan and implement their ideas to contribute to achieve SDGs and to integrate these issues into curricula and extra-curricular activities.

Targets ▼

4.1 By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes
4.2 By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys have a good quality of early childhood development, care and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary education
4.3 By 2030, ensure that all women and men have equal access to affordable, quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university.
4.4 By 2030, substantially increase the number of youth and adults with relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship
4.5 By 2030, eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations
4.6 By 2030, ensure that all youth and a large proportion of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy
4.7 By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and an appreciation of cultural diversity and the contribution of culture to sustainable development
4.A Build and develop child-friendly, disability and gender-sensitive educational facilities that provide safe, non-violent, inclusive and effective learning environments for all
4.B By 2020, Increasing the number of scholarships available to developing countries globally, in particular least developed countries, small island developing States and African countries, for enrolment in higher education, including vocational training and information and communications technology, technical, engineering and scientific programmes, in developed countries and other developing countries
4.C By 2030, substantially increase the supply of qualified teachers, through international cooperation for teacher training in developing countries, especially the least developed countries and small island developing States

Action Area

Global action

Quality education is essential to acquire knowledge about sustainable development which in turn can lead to more sustainable behaviours. For that, actions should be taken to promote fair and inclusive access to education all around the world. In an interdependent world, global action is related to individual actions that could have global consequences, for example: following international news and campaigns, sharing a social media post about global education, or running an international awareness campaign. This and other actions can contribute to raising awareness about global education challenges which in turn could influence national and international stakeholders to tackle these challenges.
Self learning

Learning comes not only from formal education but also through non-formal and informal education across all contexts and life situations of individuals. In all learning contexts, individuals shouldn’t simply have a passive attitude towards education, but also be proactive in acquiring knowledge, skills, and abilities for his/her personal and professional development through an attitude of curiosity and exploration to enjoy and to value learning. To be proactive, individuals can participate and organize workshops about SDGs, get involved in programs (internships, traineeships…) or take free online courses.
Community participation

Individuals also have a responsibility to contribute to quality education in their local community by promoting a more inclusive and solidary school. They must be aware of local challenges in accessing education, namely, accessibilities, gender, cultural and socio-economic challenges to develop and participate in local initiatives against discrimination and defend everyone’s right to education. Some initiatives that individuals can carry out are: creating a petition for the school board for accessible facilities; asking the local authorities to get involved in initiatives about quality education, and volunteering as a tutor.

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Learning Objectives ▼

Cognitive ▼

The learner understands the important role of education and lifelong learning opportunities for all (formal, non-formal and informal learning) as main drivers of sustainable development, for improving people’s lives and in achieving the SDGs
The learner understands education as a public good, a global common good, a fundamental human right and a basis for guaranteeing the realization of other rights.
The learner knows about inequality in access to and attainment of education, particularly between girls and boys and in rural areas, and about reasons for a lack of equitable access to quality education and lifelong learning opportunities.
The learner understands the important role of culture in achieving sustainability.
The learner understands that education can help create a more sustainable, equitable and peaceful world.

Socio-emotional ▼

The learner is able to raise awareness of the importance of quality education for all, a humanistic and holistic approach to education, ESD and related approaches
The learner is able through participatory methods to motivate and empower others to demand and use educational opportunities
The learner is able to recognize the intrinsic value of education and to analyse and identify their own learning needs in their personal development.
The learner is able to recognize the importance of their own skills for improving their life, in particular for employment and entrepreneurship.
The learner is able to engage personally with ESD.

Behavioural ▼

The learner is able to contribute to facilitating and implementing quality education for all, ESD and related approaches at different levels.
The learner is able to promote gender equality in education.
The learner is able to publicly demand and support the development of policies promoting free, equitable and quality education for all, ESD and related approaches as well as aiming at safe, accessible and inclusive educational facilities.
The learner is able to promote the empowerment of young people.
The learner is able to use all opportunities for their own education throughout their life, and to apply the acquired knowledge in everyday situations to promote sustainable development.

Organisational Perspective ▼

Quality education is essential for organisations which act at both the international and local level. Education is a fundamental human right and therefore should be addressed by all individuals, public and private entities, governments, and civil society. Thus, organisations can guide their action to contribute to global education, provide training actions to their employees to increase their qualifications and support or participate in education initiatives in the local community.

Globalisation implies an increasingly international scope of work which in turn requires a better understanding of education and sustainable global challenges. Thus, organisations can support international projects focusing on quality education and they must commit themselves to global education in different contexts that are involved.

For organisations, education can be a source of innovation, facilitating access to new markets or new partnerships and strengthening their leadership. Thus, a skilled workforce is required to address these challenges. Organisations should give lifelong training opportunities to improve skills for all their employees.

At the local community level, organisations can develop a social responsibility strategy to empower local communities, taking into account ethics values. This strategy could include the establishment of local partnerships to promote inclusive quality education opportunities for all, through the creation of programmes (e.g. internships, work-study programs, traineeships…) or supporting local initiatives dealing with this issue.

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Quality Education: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

Targets ▼

Action Area

Learning Objectives ▼

Cognitive ▼

Socio-emotional ▼

Behavioural ▼

Organisational Perspective ▼

Find out more

United Nations - SDG Knowledge - SDG4

United Nations - Facts & Figures - SDG4

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Quality Education: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

Action Area

Global action

Self learning

Community participation

Organisational Perspective ▼