SDG Area: Education
Education for all has always been an integral part of the sustainable development agenda.
In the past few decades, major progress has been made towards increasing access toeducation at all levels and increasing enrolment rates in schools, particularly for women andgirls.
Basic literacy skills have improved tremendously, yet bolder efforts are needed to makeeven greater strides for achieving universal education goals. We have achieved equality inprimary education between girls and boys, but few countries have achieved this insecondary education.
Sustainable Development Goal 4 aims to ensure inclusive and quality education for all andpromote lifelong learning. Education is a right, not a privilege, like the right to have proper
food or a roof over your head. Furthermore education is a passport to human development:
it opens doors and expands opportunities and freedoms. It contributes to fostering peace,democracy and economic growth as well as improving health and reducing poverty.
Education helps:- Beat poverty; e.g. 171m could be lifted out of poverty if all students in low-income schools
left school with basic reading skills.

- Reduce gender inequality- Reduce child mortality and improve maternal health; e.g. a child is 50% more likely tosurvive to age of 5 if born to a mother who can read.

- Combat HIV, malaria and other preventable diseases- Encourage environmental sustainability
NB: The SDGs include a broad range of specific targets relating to education. The full targets
can be found at http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/education/. Whilst we can’t
tackle all of the issues in one project, we can still make progress: we have a selected a
specific challenge which you can help solve. Furthermore, due to the SDGs universal,indivisible and interlinked nature, progress in this area will contribute to progress towards allseventeen goals.
What’s the challenge?
An estimated 57 million children remain out of school. More than half of the children thathave not enrolled in school live in sub-Saharan Africa. An estimated 50 per cent of out-ofschool children of primary school age live in conflict-affected areas. Some 103 million youth
worldwide lack basic literacy skills, and more than 60 per cent of them are women.
Public policy tackling this problem must address issues of health and nutrition (is the childwell and fed?), infrastructure (can the child get to school?), quality of education, poverty,gender equality, etc. Whilst getting more children in school is ultimately a question of public
policy, the civil and private sectors can provide support in both financial and attitudinal form.

What do we need you to do?
We want a big idea to get more people in school. We want you to come up with a media
campaign which will inspire businesses and influential individuals to commit to/act on thisgoal by aiding public policy.
NB: We are not asking for ideas about privatisation of education. All contributions andideas should work in line with a public model of education access.
Target Audience
You are speaking to organisations and individuals in the private sector. Your audience ishard-working and business-minded. Whilst they intellectually agree that education is aright, they don’t fully grasp the implications of children out of school. We need to turn their
passive belief into formative action.
Key message
Education is a right, not a privilege, and has huge implications for development.