Ladies and Gentlemen,
Education is a fundamental human right and a pillar of sustainable development. It is essential to ensuring a full and productive life to all individuals.
I have no doubt that you are all aware of the importance of education for the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development.
Equitable and universal access to quality education – at all levels – generates greater economic returns for individuals and societies. It creates a lasting impact on public health, decent work, and gender equality. And it leads to safer, more resilient and stable societies.
The importance of education has been recognized by defining a standalone goal on education, ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education, and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all. But its role as a lever for sustainable development is reflected throughout the 2030 Agenda.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The 43 Voluntary National Reviews on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, conducted at the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in 2017, showed many encouraging trends. Among individual country experiences were increasing secondary school attendance, improvements in access to training for girls, an increase in the number of higher education institutions and in children attending early learning centers, and a decrease in drop-out rate.
Considerable gains in education have been made in the past decades. More children than ever are going to school today. But despite impressive progress, millions of children remain out of school.
In some countries, educational systems struggle to keep up with population growth. There are regions where the lack of trained teachers and the poor condition of schools, such as lack of electricity or drinking water and separate sanitation facilities for girls and boys, are jeopardizing the goal of quality education for all.
Many children who go to school do not acquire basic skills. Inequality is one of the major challenges we face. Recent assessments have shown that children from the richest 20 per cent of households enrolled in schools at higher rates and achieved greater proficiency in reading, than those from the poorest 20 per cent of households, and urban children scored higher than rural children.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Achieving inclusive and equitable quality education for all will require increasing efforts. We need to do more.
To leave no one behind, we must also focus on supporting vulnerable populations, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples, refugee children and poor children in rural areas. In this context, the UN General Assembly has proclaimed 2019 as the Year of Indigenous Languages, with UNESCO as the lead agency. I believe that this can ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for indigenous peoples.
We need to bring quality education within reach of all. You, the members of the SDG-Education 2030 Steering Committee, have an important role in this process. I wish you the very best for your important work in the coming days.
Thank you.
Education is a fundamental human right and a pillar of sustainable development. It is essential to ensuring a full and productive life to all individuals.
I have no doubt that you are all aware of the importance of education for the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development.
Equitable and universal access to quality education – at all levels – generates greater economic returns for individuals and societies. It creates a lasting impact on public health, decent work, and gender equality. And it leads to safer, more resilient and stable societies.
The importance of education has been recognized by defining a standalone goal on education, ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education, and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all. But its role as a lever for sustainable development is reflected throughout the 2030 Agenda.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The 43 Voluntary National Reviews on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, conducted at the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in 2017, showed many encouraging trends. Among individual country experiences were increasing secondary school attendance, improvements in access to training for girls, an increase in the number of higher education institutions and in children attending early learning centers, and a decrease in drop-out rate.
Considerable gains in education have been made in the past decades. More children than ever are going to school today. But despite impressive progress, millions of children remain out of school.
In some countries, educational systems struggle to keep up with population growth. There are regions where the lack of trained teachers and the poor condition of schools, such as lack of electricity or drinking water and separate sanitation facilities for girls and boys, are jeopardizing the goal of quality education for all.
Many children who go to school do not acquire basic skills. Inequality is one of the major challenges we face. Recent assessments have shown that children from the richest 20 per cent of households enrolled in schools at higher rates and achieved greater proficiency in reading, than those from the poorest 20 per cent of households, and urban children scored higher than rural children.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Achieving inclusive and equitable quality education for all will require increasing efforts. We need to do more.
To leave no one behind, we must also focus on supporting vulnerable populations, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples, refugee children and poor children in rural areas. In this context, the UN General Assembly has proclaimed 2019 as the Year of Indigenous Languages, with UNESCO as the lead agency. I believe that this can ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for indigenous peoples.
We need to bring quality education within reach of all. You, the members of the SDG-Education 2030 Steering Committee, have an important role in this process. I wish you the very best for your important work in the coming days.
Thank you.
File date:
Wednesday, February 28, 2018