Lost in Translation? Learning Challenges in the SDG4 Target-to-Indicator Process

1. Lost in Translation?Learning Challenges in the SDG4 Target-to-Indicator Process Kenneth King NORRAG & University of Edinburgh Kenneth.King@ed.ac.uk

2. Summary Outline • History of quality targets and indicators from Jomtien (1990) to Agenda 2030 (2016) • The SDG 4 goal & target process versus SDG 4 indicator development • Global and thematic indicators for quality in SDG 4 • The global governance architecture for education & skill • Monitoring quality ambitions: the lens of the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report: Education for People and Planet (2016)

3. Two Histories Converge in SDG 4 • One stream, from World Conference Jomtien (1990) and Dakar (2000), has a powerful emphasis on quality ‘learning needs’ & ‘learning acquisition’ • ‘The focus of basic education must, therefore, be on actual learning acquisition and outcome rather than exclusively on enrolment’ (Article 4) • Jomtien’sFramework for Action (FFA) contains the key dimension: ‘Improvement in learning achievement’ and ‘a defined level of necessary learning achievement’ (FFA, 3) • But Jomtien’sDeclaration and Framework for Action don’t use the language of ‘indicators’ or ‘learning outcomes’ at all. Rather their emphasis is on ‘learning needs’. Huge emphasis on this. No mention of indicators in NN7 and NN8. • But the Background Document for Jomtien (170 pages) has a whole chapter on ‘indicators of the contexts and effects of basic education’, and makes valuable comment on the need for ‘indicators of the learning process’ and ‘qualitative dimensions of quantitative measures’ (UNESCO, 1990c. 15)

4. Dakar’s Education for All (EFA) Goals are part of the First Stream • Dakar Goal 6’s ambition underlines monitoring: ‘Improving all aspects of the quality of education & ensuring excellence of all so that recognized & measurable learning outcomes are achieved by all’ • Dakar’s Expanded Commentary adds that ‘Quality is at the heart of learning’. • Dakar retains the Jomtien focus on ‘learning acquisition’ and ‘learning needs’, but does focus on ‘assessment’ and mentions ‘progress-’ and ‘performance indicators’. • There is no Dakar list of education indicators, as there is for the Incheon World Education Forum, and for the SDGs, including SDG 4. • Dakar aspires to put in place the systematic UNESCO monitoring of the Goals, resulting, eventually, in the EFA Global Monitoring Report in 2002.

5. The Second Stream’s emphasis on UPE & gender parity as ‘indicators of progress’ • The source of the MDGs is in OECD-DAC’s 6 International Development targets (IDTs) of 1996, but derived from the UN’s 6 world conferences • The IDTs selected ‘universal primary education in all countries by 2015’ and ‘eliminating gender disparity in primary & secondary education by 2005’. • ‘Indicators are used by OECD/DAC to mean goals & targets: ‘..an integrated set of goals, based on agreed targets, = valuable indicators of progress’ (9) • In Shaping the 21st Century –OECD-DAC underlined that ‘qualitative factors’ were ‘essential to the attainment of these measurable goals’, but • These qualitative factors were lost in translation to the MDGs following the Millennium Summit of 2000.

6. The 2 Education MDGs (2000+): How Different from SDG4! • 2 Education MDGs: ‘Achieve universal primary education’ & ‘Promote gender equality & empower women’ • 2 Education targets: 2A.Ensure by 2015 all children .. ‘will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling’ –intelligible even to politicians • 3A ‘Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015’ • Education Indicators: 3 indicators for UPE and 3 for gender parity. • 2 for UPE = obvious: net enrolment; and % of 1st grade reaching last; literacy rate of 15-24s less obvious. 3 for gender parity: 1 obvious: ratio of boys to girls in primary, secondary tertiary. 2 others much less so: Share of female wage employment in non-agricultural sector; and proportion of women MPs.

7. Fast Forward to Global, Thematic, Regional & National Indicators for Quality Learning in SDG 4? • It is claimed that SDG 4 resulted from ‘the most inclusive process of consultation in the history of the United Nations’ (Naidoo) • By contrast, the vital process of global indicator development has been principally left to technical experts (in UN’s Inter-Agency Expert Group) • It is claimed that the ‘global indicator framework will be simple yet robust’! • For SDG 4’s 10 targets there are 11 global indicators and 32 thematic indicators. There will also be regional and national indicators. • But what happens to quality learning and children’s rights to education, in schools & in vocational skills, even with11 global indicators? • Only 11 global ones are a main source of data for UN’s annual SDG reports

8. From Targets to Global Indicators: Are Rights to, and Breadth of, Education Lost in Translation? • Example 1: SDG 4.1: ’..ensure that all girls & boys complete free, equitable & quality primary & secondary education leading to relevant & effective learning outcomes’ – with more than five descriptors - becomes: • Global Indicator for 4.1: ‘Proportion of children & young people at grade 2/3; end of primary; & end of lower secondary, achieving at least a minimum proficiency level in reading and mathematics, by sex’ • So ‘free’, ‘relevant’ & ‘effective’ disappear completely; and ‘quality’ is translated & narrowed into ‘minimum proficiency’ in two subjects • Given the concern over privatisation of education this loss is critical

9. The Dramatic Narrowing of TVET Skills in Translating Targets into Global Indicators • Example 2: SDG 4.3 & 4.4 talk of equal access for all to ’quality technical, vocational and tertiary education’ and increasing numbers ‘who have relevant skills, including technical & vocational skills for employment, decent jobs & entrepreneurship.’ These terms are a world away from ‘life-skills’ which distracted monitoring post-Dakar. • But these SDG ambitions get translated into a global indicator that only aims to measure ‘Proportion of youth and adults with information & communications technology (ICT) skills, by type of skill’ • And ‘quality technical and vocational’ becomes merely ‘participation rate in formal & non-formal education & training’ in last 12 months

10. The Ambitions for Quality Learning Vanish along with Education for Sustainable Devt. • ‘Minimum’ and ‘fixed proficiency’ levels of learning replace quality learning in primary & lower secondary schools & in adult literacy & numeracy • A focus on just reading and maths (4.1) is at odds with mainstreaming global citizenship education and education for sustainable development ‘at all levels’ (4.7). ‘Quality’ ECCE becomes merely ‘developmentally on track’ • Plans to ‘increase the supply of qualified teachers’ is translated into ‘at least the minimum organized teacher training’ (4.c) • Only 3 of the 11 global indicators reach full ‘tier 1’, being ‘conceptually clear’ with ‘established methodology’ & regular availability of country data. They are gender parity; aid scholarships; & proportion of qualified teachers • UNGA will sign off on UNSC’s global framework in 2017. But refinements of the global indicators will continue to be made in 2020 and 2025

11. Global Governance by Targets & Indicators? • Because the SDGs are meant to be ‘integrated’ and ‘indivisible’ with ‘deep interconnections and many cross-cutting elements’, the monitoring of education has to pay attention to at least 7 other SDGs which refer to education, training or skills. See GEMR 2016 chs. 9 ff. • One example is the relation between SDG 4’s concern with skills for decent jobs and SDG 8 on decent work and economic growth. • Thus, SDG 4 aims ‘substantially to increase’ young people with skills for employment & decent jobs, while SDG 8 plans ‘substantially to reduce’ the numbers of young people not in employment, education or training - a ‘western concept’ with no appreciation of the informal sector • SDG 8’s target of ‘full & productive employment and decent work for all’ morphs merely into a global indicator for ‘average hourly earnings’

12. The Complexity of the Global Governance Architecture for Monitoring SDG 4 • The SDG-Education 2030 Steering Committee is to provide overall guidance on SDG 4 implementation & on education in other SDGs • UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) has outlined its process in its Laying the foundation to measure SDG 4 (2016) & its expert groups: The Global Alliance to Monitor Learning covers just 5 of 10 SDG 4 targets. UIS also has an Inter-agency Group on Education Inequality Indicators on use of household survey data relevant to SDG 4 • Still under UIS, there are the Technical Cooperation Group, eAtlas for Education 2030, Learning Assessment Capacity Index, Learning Metric Partnership (UIS-Australia) and also Assessment for Learning (A4L)

13. Global Education Monitoring Report (GEMR) on Education for Development & Quality Learning • GEM Report is not only about monitoring schools, but about lifelong education, & links & synergies between education & all other 16 SDGs • 2016 GEM Report covers all SDG 4’s 10 targets, both global & thematic indicators • What data relations are there between the GEMR’s critical analysis & the other monitoring approaches, including UIS & UN’s Annual SDG Report? • Note that there is not seen to be much scope for cross-country monitoring of quality in the text of SDG 4, its targets and indicators: ‘And with the exception of learning outcome indicators, and some equity and inclusion-related indicators, the proposed SDG 4 monitoring framework provides a weak basis for monitoring quality’ (GEM, 2016: 188) • GEM argues that ‘quality cannot be reduced to learning outcomes’ but should look at ‘policies, curricula, textbooks & teacher education’ (Benavot, ppt. 2016), illustrating this from textbooks & pedagogy • Arguably in GEMR, TVET skills continue to be neglected despite emphasis in SDG4

14. The Final, Bigger Question: Global, Regional or National Priorities? • A system is being set up in which only the global indicators will be used for the key annual SDG Report. • What happens therefore to the priorities set by, for example, the African Union’s Agenda 2063, with its very different deadline? • Or to countries, such as China, with their Five-Year Plans? • Do countries have to accommodate the 17 goals and 169 targets of the SDGs within their own agreed national plans? • Assumption of a Global Governance concept – a problem: Who are they? Where are they? And what power do they have over nations?

15. A Final Thought: Does it Really Matter? • ‘But for targets and target setting to have any educational meaning in the day-to-day lives of teachers and learners, these transnational activities will require much more humility about their measurement, much more honesty about their motivation, and much less hype about their meanings’ Jonathan Jansen ‘Targeting Education’ 2003 • ‘SDG: What is That?’ Claudio Da Moura Castro, NORRAG News 54, January 2017

16. Further Reading and Follow-ups • King, K. The global targeting of education and skill: policy history and comparative perspectives, Compare, vol. 46. 6, September, 2016; also NORRAG Working Paper No 9, 2016. See www.norrag.org • King, K. ‘Quality learning in SDG 4: Translating the global goal and targets into global indicators’, BAICE Conference paper, Sept. 2016 • GEM Report: Education for People and Planet (September, 2016) • Benavot, A. ‘Education for People and Planet’ (ppt,6th September 2016) • Check out our series of blogs on SDG4: https://gemreportunesco.wordpress.com/2016/10/10/monitoring-sdg-4-what-is-at-stake/#more-8417 • NORRAG News 54: Education 2030: What Progress One Year On? (January, 2017) http://www.norrag.org/en/publications/norrag-news/online-version/education-training-and-agenda-2030-what-progress-one-year-on.html • Please contact me at: Kenneth.King@ed.ac.uk