Sustainable development goal: good quality education

Education and access to it significantly affect the standard of living while increasing the potential for innovation in a given place. Ensuring it is another goal to be achieved by 2030 on the UN list.

ensuring quality education and promoting lifelong learning

Looking at education from a longer perspective, as with many of the UN's 2030 targets, the situation is actually improving. Compared to the 1990s and the beginning of the 21st century, many more children attend schools today, including at the preschool level. For example, in 1995 only about 33% of children aged 3-5 years in Poland attended kindergarten — in 2022 it was already over 92%(GUS) Access to schools in rural areas has also improved significantly thanks to the expansion of educational infrastructure and equalization programmes. The number of people with tertiary education in the population aged 25-34 increased from around 14% in 2000 to more than 43% in 2022 (Eurostat). Of course, better access to education does not always automatically translate into a higher quality of life, it depends on many factors such as the labor market, cultural capital or the social support system. Nevertheless, education undoubtedly changes the starting point of a person, increases the chances of employment, supports the development of cognitive, social and emotional competencies, and also allows further development at different stages of life.

Functional illiteracy

The level of learning can be verified, for example, by the level of illiteracy. In our country, this problem has almost been eliminated thanks to compulsory school education. However, we are talking here about the traditional form of Anafabetism and there is another variant of it, which is functional illiteracy. It is the ability to read and write, but the lack of understanding of what one reads applies not only to written text, but also to tables, graphs and diagrams. As Justyna Suchecka, journalist and author of essays on functional anaphabetism, tells Political Critique:

Nor can it be confused with secondary illiteracy, i.e. loss of literacy skills, and digital — related to the use of computers and the Internet, among others.

15 percent of people between the ages of 16 and 65 are unable to understand or verify easy text, according to the report. International Adult Competence Survey (PIAAC). This is alarming for various reasons; it tells us about the poor state of education, being locked in online bubbles of easily digestible information with which we agree, and low reading levels. Functional illiteracy in a vivid but very important way shows that the quality of education is essential in the process of forming a healthy society. People who are exposed to functional Anafabetism are also more prone to fraud, manipulation and problems solving cases that require paperwork and paperwork.

Equality in access to education for girls and boys

Today, girls and boys have much more equal opportunities for education - this is a great success, but it should be emphasized that for the time being this mainly applies to the basic level. In order to achieve Goal 4, education should be pursued at a later stage. This can be seen, for example, in a Polish study Gender gap in education. How society, economy, and culture influence educational choices of women and men in Poland, in which researcher Alicja Zawistowska describes the gap in higher education between women and men. Despite the fact that access to education in Poland is still unequal, especially in terms of social status or place of residence, the numerical superiority of women has been observed at the level of higher education for years. Already from the mid-1990s, the share of women among college students began to grow faster than that of men, and this difference persisted for decades to come. In the most recent data (e.g. from 2020), women still make up the majority in the group of students aged 19-24 years. This shows that although women often face educational barriers earlier (e.g. related to caring for siblings or household chores), they are more likely to pursue higher education later in life.

However, the author of the study also points out that the representation of women in mathematics is much weaker. The researcher draws attention to such phenomena as: belief or lack thereof in one's own mathematical abilities in the early stages of education, mathematical anxiety and gender stereotyping. As can be seen, equalization of education is not only the provision of access, but also the promotion of equal opportunities, access to the realization of given subjects, a system of motivation and the fight against wage stereotypes to which certain fields of science are attributed.

Factors affecting limited access to education

One of the biggest declines in education for years was the time of the Covid-19 pandemic; it influenced, for obvious reasons of epidemiological danger, the change of education from stationary to home, which significantly affected the learning of children, but also the psychological condition of them and their teachers. in Polish education, the crisis of education manifested itself among others decrease in math, science, and reading comprehension skills. Compared to their pre-pandemic peers, students in 2022 were set back by about two years in this area of education. At the same time, the model and perception of education have changed somewhat in the world - just like work itself. It turned out that distance learning can also have its pluses, although an essential element in the development of children, especially in the early stages, is to confront social reality in the school environment.

We must not forget that today access to the Internet means access to information, the world, news, but also to social contacts. Let's go back to the problem of the pandemic: it highlighted the problems in the Polish education system. It showed that despite the formal universality of education, inequalities in access to the Internet, equipment, psychological support or digital competences have dramatically deepened differences between students. The report of the Foundation for Economy and Public Administration clearly indicates that the lack of coordination of activities, the underfunding of education and the rigidity of the “transmissive” teaching model have contributed to the deterioration of the quality of education, especially in the groups most vulnerable to exclusion. The authors of the report emphasize the need for immediate actions: from compensatory classes and psychological support, to changing the approach to assessment and moving away from the mechanical implementation of the curriculum base in favor of a model focused on the student and his needs.

Another very important factor affecting access to education, not only in Poland, but also globally, is transport exclusion. In Poland, this problem is clearly reflected in the classical division into the city and the periphery, but also, what is particularly important, in the east-west layout. According to UNICEF data, as many as one in six young people in Poland (around 380,000 children and adolescents) are at risk of transport exclusion, which significantly limits their ability to participate in school and social life. Children living in small towns and villages where public transport links have been eliminated, and alternatives such as private transport or school transport are often scarce. sufficient or unavailable. This problem not only exacerbates educational inequalities, but also socially isolates young people, limiting their chances of development, participation in extracurricular activities or contact with peers. The lack of a systemic solution to the issue of transport for students in less urbanized areas is one of the key challenges for educational and social policy in Poland - especially in the context of equalizing opportunities.

summary

As you can see, based on the collected examples, although they are largely from Poland, education is one of the most important foundations of social, economic and personal development. Although access to it in Poland has improved significantly, there are still serious challenges; from functional illiteracy, through digital and transport barriers, to social and gender inequalities. To achieve Goal 4 of the 2030 Agenda, we need systemic changes: a more flexible teaching model, real psychological support and equal opportunities for all children, regardless of their place of residence or social status.

Sources:

Sustainable development goal: good quality education

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