Casina Pio IV, Vatican City — Jennifer Gross , founder of the Blue Chip Foundation, addressed the Ethics in Action committee at the Vatican on Sustainable Development Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning.

Gross, whose foundation promotes awareness and encourages action on behalf of struggling populations across the world, says that the international community’s unwillingness to supply resources is causing possibly irreversible damage.

“Of the 1.6 billion children in the world, over 123 million are not in school, and 400 million have not learned basic literacy. By 2030, if present trends continue, half the children on the planet will not have the basic skills needed for employment,” Gross said. “There is a significant shortfall that must be financed by international aid – about $40 billion in 2020, reaching $90 billion by 2030. However, international aid for education has been stagnant since 2010 and is at risk of stopping altogether.”

Several organizations have formed to combat the issue, including Education Cannot Wait, which aims to raise $3.85 billion to reach 18 percent of kids worldwide whose educations are affected by conflict, natural disasters, and disease outbreaks.

Gross and the Ethics in Action committee have pressed world leaders earlier in the year to adopt a Global Fund for Education to replace the Global Partnership for Education, which is deeply enmeshed in the World Bank (80 percent of GPE’s grants are administered by the World Bank).

“There has been a call by Ethics in Action to replace the GPE with a Global Fund for Education. And then today, an Education Fund for Secondary School in Africa was proposed by Belay Begashaw. It’s time to get this off the ground,” said Gross. “We have been fighting for a Global Fund for Education for years. An Education Fund for Secondary School in Africa would be easy to implement, and will most likely be approved in January at the African Union. Empowering Africa will greatly strengthen each country’s ownership, reduce transaction costs, and promote innovation in the field of education.”

An Education Fund for Secondary School in Africa may require about five billion dollars a year and could draw financing in two ways: Wealthy countries could begin honoring a commitment they each made in 1970 to provide 0.7 percent of their GDPs for Official Development Assistance, which would be significant enough to finance all the sustainable development goals, and by eliminating tax evasion, which costs the global economy more than $600 billion each year.

“Redistribution of global wealth should not rely on the whims of the rich countries. A global approach to taxation should be built into the U.N. mandate,” says Gross. “In many countries, like the U.S., transfer of wealth from the national government to state governments is not charity but built into the framework of governance. In the era of Sustainable Development, it’s time we adopt such a framework globally. There needs to be a global coordination to have a tax on the wealthy; to close tax havens; to tax corporations.”

Principal and Vice Chancellor Jophus Anamuah-Mensah of Ghana says that SDG 4 is attainable, but that it will require intensive investment.

“External support and collaboration will be required in the provision of infrastructure, teaching and learning resources, scholarships to support the needy, teacher development, management of institutions, and strengthening of governance bodies. This should be accompanied by internal accountability measures, including minimizing corruption in the education sector,” says Anamuah-Mensah.

By population, Africa is the youngest continent in the world – it’s home to 200 million people between 15 and 24 years of age. Experts say that by 2050, half of Africa’s population will be under the age of 25 and the continent will hold more young people than all of the G20 countries combined.

“Certainly, lifting educational outcomes is a quest that will require Africa to partner with the global north to rethink and intensify investment and funding mechanisms directed to education in the continent, says Belay Begashaw, Director General of the Sustainable Development Goals Center for Africa. “Given that Africa is the region in the world that needs the greatest access and quality educational push, not only to catch up globally but to appropriately deal with the coming demographic trends, it is of extreme importance that the financial vehicle emerged is well rooted to the continent.”

Ethically, most experts agree that education is a fundamental human right.

“Education is a human right. It is a public good and a public responsibility – and I would say a moral responsibility and a societal responsibility,” said Irina Bokova, Director General of UNESCO. “It is about learning to live together in societies under pressure. It is about connecting the dots between the social, economic and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. Fundamentally, it is about values. It is about critical thinking. It is about the ethics of development. Education must be about learning to live in a world facing limits, in a planet under pressure.”

Statistically, fewer female children have access to quality education than male children do – and the reasons may lie in systemic patriarchy.

“As advocates for an inclusive and quality education, I think that we must give particular consideration to the plight of the girl child. Though acknowledging ongoing changes, we cannot deny also that in so many countries around out world patriarchy, the preference for the male child, the abortion of female fetuses, the demand for dowries, and disparities in food and health care severely limit access to education for girls,” said Professor Anantanand Rambachan, professor of religion at St. Olaf College. 

Ramabachan called on religious organizations to challenge beliefs and practices that “in the name of religion, condone the unequal treatment of girls unequally and see them as having lesser worth than boys.”

Education transforms everyday citizens into an informed electorate, which is required for a successful democracy. According to Jane O’Meara Sanders of the Sanders Institute, individualized education is the future – not the outdated Socratic method used in classrooms throughout the world.

“Educating for global citizenship requires the ability to think critically, write clearly and communicate effectively. It requires media literacy and analysis. It requires an understanding of sustainable development, and the ability to identify and research complex issues. And it requires ethical behavior,” said Sanders. “This kind of self-directed higher education would enable the student to make a meaningful difference in the world as he or she wishes and to effectively carry out their role as global citizen.”

All of this requires significant change and serious commitments from global leaders with the power to make a difference. You can read EIA’s statement here.

“It’s devastating that we are climbing on the shoulders of our children and leaving them with such enormous problems that they won’t be equipped to dig themselves out of due to a lack of education,” said Gross. “All of this is feasible. We need all of you to champion this idea. We need more voices.”

Meeting for Education