SDG 4 ON ENSURING INCLUSIVE AND EQUITABLE QUALITY EDUCATION – A Toolkit Of Legal & Institutional Practices –

I. Introduction

SDG 4: An Opportunity to Strengthen Inclusive and Quality Education and
Promote Life-long Learning Opportunities for All

Education is a free-stading right and an empowerment right, which enhances the ability of individuals to achieve other human rights, and is also shown to have multiple benefits for families, communities and society as a whole. Education contributes to progress on a number of other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including eradication of poverty (SDG 1), improved health and genderequality (SDG 3), and the promotion of peace and good governance (SDG 16).

This Toolkit focuses on Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4 Education), which aims to “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote life-long learning opportunities for all”,
addressing unfinished aspects of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), in which Goal 2 aimed to achieve universal primary education. SDG 4 recognizes that while the MDGs resulted in substantial advancements in the area of education, there is still a long way to go before full realization of this fundamental right. At the same time, SDG 4 recognizes that education as a whole is a lifelong process and right, one which includes all levels of education as well as vocational and skills-based training. In this way, SDG 4 seeks to create a holistic system in which individuals have the ability to access and benefit from education and training in order to assist themselves and their communities in the present day and in the future…………………………….………………….……………………..