Today, the National Education Union releases Progress
off-track, a new snapshot briefing indicating how England
and the UK are performing with the Sustainable Development Goals
in relation to education and social justice. (Attached)
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a set of 17 Goals
and 169 targets agreed upon by world leaders in 2015, setting the
course of development through to 2030. The Goals cover everything
from quality education to eliminating hunger, and many topics in
between. Two underpinning principles of the SDGs are that they
apply across all countries globally, and promise to leave no one
behind.
This year, 2019, presents a perfect opportunity to assess if this
expected trajectory is coming to fruition. For the first time,
the UK will be submitting a Voluntary National Review (VNR) of
its progress on the SDGs at the United Nations’ High-Level
Political Forum (HLPF). The theme of this year’s HLPF is
Empowering people and ensuring inclusiveness and equality.
The NEU’s briefing adopts a similar focus and provides a snapshot
of the UK’s progress on education and social justice and focusses
particularly on targets related to SDGs 1 (no poverty), 2 (zero
hunger), 4 (quality education), 8 (decent work), 10 (reduced
inequalities) and 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions).
Within these parameters, a clear narrative is formed that the
Government is not living up to the promise of the SDGs and
leaving no one behind.
Key concerns include:
• SDG1: increased rates
of poverty (in particular child poverty) and growth in rough
sleeping;
• SDG2: increased use
of foodbanks and little if any progression in relation to holiday
hunger;
• SDG4: poor rates of
literacy and numeracy, unambitious global citizenship education,
a crisis in teacher recruitment and retention, and devastating
funding cuts;
• SDG8: huge sixth-form
funding cuts, real term income loss for people with disabilities,
a stagnant gender pay gap in the teaching profession, and huge
workloads for education professionals;
• SDG10: projected
income growth for the richest and losses for the poorest, vast
income inequality within academy chains, and stagnant social
mobility; and
• SDG16: rising reports
of hate crimes and continued discrimination against Black and
minority ethnic teachers in schools.
In the four years since the adoption of the SDGs, progress on
some of the key targets related to education and social justice
are at best stagnating, and at worst regressing. If leaders are
seriously committed to achieving the SDGs for all, this needs to
be addressed as a matter of urgency.
To facilitate this change, the National Education Union
recommends that Government
• Addresses, as a
matter of urgency, all forms of poverty in the UK by critically
evaluating the implications of Universal Credit (and acting
accordingly), responding in full to the UN Special Rapporteur’s
recommendations on poverty in the UK, and abandoning the
work-centric approach to poverty reduction;
• Adopts a proactive
approach to child hunger, including holiday hunger, by working
with teachers, trade unions, families, NGOs and community groups
to develop a plan of action, while continuing to fight childhood
obesity;
• Supports teachers and
trade unions’ demands to improve education, including delivering
a more ambitious approach to SDG4.7, reversing all funding cuts
to education, delivering a fully-funded 5% pay increase for all
teachers, and widening the curriculum to focus on more than just
testing;
• Increases funding for
Further Education as a matter of urgency, and improves conditions
for teachers to address the crisis of teacher workload and
attrition;
• Takes action to
reverse the worrying trends in inequality and tackle the growing
economic inequality, while limiting the gaps in income of the
highest and lowest earners in education; and
• Commits to engaging
with individuals and communities affected by hate crime to better
support their needs and tackle the issue.
Commenting on the briefing, Dr Mary Bousted, Joint
General Secretary of the National Education Union, said:
“The Sustainable Development Goals are a global agenda that
relate to all countries, and all people, equally. The Government
is once again failing to protect the poorest and most
marginalised in the community as it continues to fail in terms of
social justice. At the same time, the education system in England
limps along, haemorrhaging teachers and suffering loss after loss
in funding. In the world’s fifth largest economy, this is
incomprehensible and unacceptable.”
ENDS
Editor’s Notes
Sustainable Development Goals: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300
