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Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4

In 2015, all countries committed to achieving 17 Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. Education International played a critical role in securing a stand-alone goal for education - Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4): Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Significantly, SDG4 recognised that quality education can only be delivered by qualified teachers.

However, at the current pace, governments will fail to achieve SDG 4. The COVID-19 pandemic poses additional challenges, and risks reversing years of progress on education. Urgent and decisive action is imperative.

Together with our member organisations around the world we are working to ensure that governments live up to their promise to achieve SDG 4 and all its targets by 2030.

  • We monitor progress and hold governments accountable.
  • We advocate for enhanced domestic financing for public education through fair and progressive taxation and international aid.
  • We oppose corporate interests that treat education as a market instead of a public good accessible to all.
  • We promote quality education that is free from violence, develops the “whole child”, builds tolerance, understanding, democracy, respect for human rights and active citizenship for sustainable development.
  • We promote the achievement of the “teacher target” (target 4.c), underlining every students’ right to be taught by a trained and qualified teacher.

Our work in this area

  1. Worlds of Education 26 April 2024

    From recommendations to action: Joining forces to end the global teacher shortage

    Johanna Jaara Åstrand

    The shortened version of the following remarks were delivered by Johanna Jaara Åstrand, Education International Vice-president for Europe and President of the Swedish Teachers’ Union, at the European Union Global Gateway High-level Education Event on April 11, 2024. The event marked the regional launch of the recommendations put forward by...

    From recommendations to action: Joining forces to end the global teacher shortage
  2. News 23 April 2024

    Global advocates call for investment in public and transformative education

    Civil society is urging governments worldwide to invest in public and transformative education, asserting that such investment is crucial for driving social justice, sustainable development, and individual as well as collective freedom. This resounding message led the recent webinar launching the 2024 Global Action Week Campaign for Education (GAWE), centered...

    Global advocates call for investment in public and transformative education
  3. Worlds of Education 21 April 2024

    Bringing governments and education unions together

    David Edwards

    For the well-being of students, our communities and our countries, governments must increase investment in public education systems, including quality teacher training and professional development, guarantee labor rights and good working conditions, involve teacher unions in policymaking and trust and respect teachers and their professional expertise.

    Bringing governments and education unions together
  4. Publications

    International Summit of the Teaching Profession 2024: Reimagining Education, Realising Potential

    A Briefing by Education International
    21 April 2024

    From 22 to 24 April 2024, the 14th edition of the International Summit on the Teaching Profession brings together governments and education unions from 19 countries to explore the theme “Reimagining Education, Realising Potential”

    International Summit of the Teaching Profession 2024: Reimagining Education, Realising Potential
    1. Download
    2. A Briefing by Education International
  5. News 11 April 2024

    Invest in teachers to ensure quality education for all: European Union supports United Nations recommendations on the profession

    Funding education and investing in teachers are key to ensuring the right to education for all and achieving all Sustainable Development Goals. This message was heard loud and clear on April 11 at the Global Gateway High-Level Education Event co-hosted by the European Commission and the Belgian Presidency of the...

    Invest in teachers to ensure quality education for all: European Union supports United Nations recommendations on the profession
  6. Publications

    Activating the Recommendations of the UN High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession

    A Guide for Education Unions
    3 April 2024

    The High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession was convened by the United Nations Secretary-General in response to the global teacher shortage. The Panel brought together academics, ministers, former presidents, teachers and students and their unions.

    Activating the Recommendations of the UN High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession
    1. Download
  7. News 28 March 2024

    Palestine: Unionists call for an end to the war amid catastrophic conditions

    “After 173 days of the war on Gaza, more than 32,414 people have been killed, more than 74,787 wounded, and more than 10,000 are missing...More than 5,826 students and 264 teachers have been killed, and 9,570 students and 960 teachers are trying to recover from their injuries." This is the...

    Palestine: Unionists call for an end to the war amid catastrophic conditions
  8. News 25 March 2024

    The Education Crisis in Iraq: A Call for Urgent Reforms

    Iraq is currently grappling with a severe education crisis. Despite constitutional provisions and ministerial laws mandating free education at all levels, millions of children are being denied access to education. At the onset of the war against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)–a Salafi jihadist militant organisation that...

    The Education Crisis in Iraq: A Call for Urgent Reforms
  9. Worlds of Education 20 March 2024

    The ‘sum total’: Reimagining early childhood care and education through a gender perspective on the profession

    Mercedes Mayol Lassalle, Mathias Urban

    ‘Education’, suggested Austrian psychoanalyst Siegfried Bernfeld in 1925, ‘is the sum total of societal reaction to the fact of ontogenetic development’ (Bernfeld, 1973, 1925). His wide-ranging definition has profound implications as we endeavour to reimagine education for all in the 21st century: education begins at birth (‘ontogenetic development’), education is...

    The ‘sum total’: Reimagining early childhood care and education through a gender perspective on the profession
  10. Publications

    Review of the ILO Policy Guidelines on the Promotion of Decent Work for ECE Personnel

    Colette Byrne, Mercedes Mayol Lassalle, Carolina Semmoloni, Mathias Urban
    20 March 2024

    This report offers an analysis of the application of the ILO (2014) Policy Guidelines on the Promotion of Decent Work for ECE Personnel and provides recommendations for review. It addresses key themes, including the voluntary nature of a commitment level among state and non-state stakeholders, challenges in holding governments accountable...

    Review of the ILO Policy Guidelines on the Promotion of Decent Work for ECE Personnel
    1. Review of the ILO Policy Guidelines
    2. Executive Summary
  11. News 18 March 2024

    Sierra Leone: Teachers mobilise to elevate the profession through the Go Public! Fund Education campaign

    The Sierra Leone Teachers Union (SLTU) is on a mission to transform the landscape of education in their country. During a recent two-day Go Public! Fund Education national planning meeting, SLTU leaders rallied around a shared vision: to elevate the status of teachers and secure better working conditions.

    Sierra Leone: Teachers mobilise to elevate the profession through the Go Public! Fund Education campaign
  12. Worlds of Education 15 March 2024

    Teachers: key in keeping boys engaged in school and learning

    Matthias Eck

    Even though tremendous progress in enrolment has been made over the last 20 years, current estimates indicate that 250 million children and youth are still out of school. And over half of them – approximately 128 million – are boys.

    Teachers: key in keeping boys engaged in school and learning
  13. News 13 March 2024

    Education unionists call for free quality public education to help end poverty for women and girls in all their diversity

    The 68th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women takes place in New York from March 11th to the 22nd. The Commission is the most important global forum that works to advance gender equality and women’s rights and conditions, globally. A delegation of 17 women education...

    Education unionists call for free quality public education to help end poverty for women and girls in all their diversity
  14. Worlds of Education 7 March 2024

    Our fight for education is a fight for women’s rights

    Susan Hopgood

    The right to education means that every child must have access to free quality education, a well-supported, qualified teacher, and a quality learning environment no matter where they live or come from, no matter their gender, ethnicity, or how much their family earns. This is our mission as education unions...

    Our fight for education is a fight for women’s rights
  15. News 26 February 2024

    United Nations High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession launches landmark recommendations to end the global teacher shortage and strengthen the profession

    Convened by the United Nations Secretary- General in response to the alarming global teacher shortage, the High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession developed 59 recommendations to ensure teachers are valued and respected. The broad and progressive recommendations are the result of sustained union advocacy and a unique opportunity to effect...

    United Nations High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession launches landmark recommendations to end the global teacher shortage and strengthen the profession
  16. News 29 January 2024

    In their own words: the harsh reality of Afghan teachers

    Shakila* is a dedicated teacher with over 15 years of service in the Balkh Province of Afghanistan. Since the most recent takeover of the Taliban in 2021 which led to the shutdown of education for girls, attacks on female teachers, and a crackdown on the rights of women, Shakila reports...

    In their own words: the harsh reality of Afghan teachers
  17. News 26 January 2024

    International Day of Education: Unionists celebrate the right to education by campaigning for quality public education for all

    On January 24, the International Day of Education, education unionists from around the world came together to reaffirm their commitment to the universal right to education and to mark the first year of the Education International global campaign Go Public! Fund Education. The campaign is an urgent call for governments...

    International Day of Education: Unionists celebrate the right to education by campaigning for quality public education for all