Over the past decades, India and Nepal has taken several steps to achieve its goals towards universalization of education. Past education reforms, aided by central and state government schemes and policies, have helped in promoting access and equity and inch closer to the specified SDG targets. While India has done well in ensuring access and universalization of pre-primary, primary and secondary education, it is lagging behind in many parameters, such as quality of teaching-learning outcomes, enrolments in higher education and the quality of skills imparted to its youth.
In today’s scenario with multiple universities and institutions in higher education in India and Nepal, major challenge Is to maintain a good quality in education which includes accessible, Inclusive and Digitized education top achieve major SDG goals .
Institutions may implement evaluation mechanisms in order to identify and promote good teaching practices. The environment of higher education institutions can enhance the quality of teaching through various means. For example, a national policy run by the public authorities or recommendations issued by quality assurance agencies are likely to help university leaders to phase in a culture of quality that encompasses teaching.
However, challenges remain – even with the larger pool of graduates of tertiary education, many do not have the locally relevant skills needed for successful integration into the labor market. At the same time, larger numbers of students increase the strain on publicly-funded institutions of higher learning, and many countries with limited resources are struggling to finance the growing needs of a larger student body, without compromising the quality of their educational offerings.
Sustainable Development Goals Targets
The principles of Sustainable development are fundamental to carrying out any activity that contributes to improving a country’s standard of living. Sustainable development has been defined as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generation to meet their own needs. It calls for concerted efforts towards building an inclusive, sustainable and resilient future for people and planet.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were born at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in 2012. The objective was to produce a set of universal goals that meet the urgent environmental, political and economic challenges facing our world.
The SDGs coincided with another historic agreement reached in 2015 at the COP21 Paris Climate Conference.
The SDGs replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which started a global effort in 2000 to establish measurable, universally-agreed objectives for tackling extreme poverty and hunger, preventing deadly diseases, and expanding primary education to all children, among other development priorities.
Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4) Quality Education
Sustainable Development Goal 4 is about quality education and is among the 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations in September 2015. The full title of SDG 4 is “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”.
With regard to the SDG 4, India and Nepal has seen significant progress towards achieving the target. Several policies, measures and investments in the form of new initiatives, with the objective of enhancing educational outcomes across access, equity and quality in education are being witnessed. However, present achievements and interventions notwithstanding, the prevailing gaps in educational outcomes are many. Given the diversity in the country, a linear or a one-size fits-all solution to close the gaps will not work. We need adaptable, scalable and innovative interventions across all levels of education especially in area of Higher education to be able to bring about sustainable development in the society. Each region comes with a unique set of challenges and hence comes the necessity to localize the global agenda on Education 2030 and facilitate its effective implementation at a state and district level.
SGD 4 is about:
- Ensuring the relevance of learning, in terms of vocational and technical skills for decent work as well as for global citizenship in a plural and interconnected world.
- Ensuring lifelong learning opportunities for all, from early childhood to adult education;
- Ensuring equity, inclusion and gender equality;
- Ensuring effective learning and the acquisition of relevant knowledge, skills and competencies;
Sustainable Development Goal 10 (SDG10) Reduce inequality
within and among countries
Reduce inequality within and among countries’ – Goal 10 which strives to reduce inequality within and among countries by empowering and promoting the social, economic and political inclusion of all, including persons with disabilities. is made up of 10 targets and 11 indicators.
It covers several measures of inequality, through economic indicators (10.1) and broader social, economic and political dimensions (10.2, 10.3, 10.4). Regulation of financial markets (10.5) and enhanced representation for developing countries (10.6) are also endorsed, together with migration policies management (10.7). The means of implementation indicators focus on trade treatment of developing countries (10.a), on mobilization of resources to countries most in need (10.b) and on remittances transaction cost reduction (10.c).
SDG 10 is mainly about:
- Facilitate orderly, safe, regular migration for Sustainable Development
- Progressively achieve and sustain income growth of the bottom 40 % of the population at a rate higher than the national average
- Promote Socio- economic and political inclusion
- Ensure equal opportunity and reduce inequalities of outcome, including by eliminating discriminatory laws, policies and practices and promoting appropriate legislation, policies and action in this regard
- Adopt policies, especially fiscal, wage and social protection policies, and progressively achieve greater equality
- Ensure enhanced representation of developing countries in decision-making in global economic and financial institutions
Sustainable Development Goal 17 (SDG 17) : Partnership for the Goals
The Global Goals can only be met if the partners from various regions and countries work together. International investments and support is needed to ensure innovative technological development, fair trade and market access, especially for developing countries. To build a better world, we need to be supportive, empathetic, inventive, passionate, and above all, cooperative.
Every institution in the partner countries speaks about quality education as its mission and goals and this goal can be achieved by strengthening the partnership and learn from best practices in the process of HEI development and capacity building.
Target 17.G concentrates about Enhancing the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development, complemented by multi-stakeholder partnerships that mobilize and share knowledge, expertise, technology and financial resources, to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in all countries, in particular developing countries.
The major tasks:
- Enhance international support for implementing effective and targeted capacity-building in developing countries to support national plans to implement all the sustainable development goals, including through North-South, South-South and triangular cooperation
- Knowledge sharing and cooperation for access to science, technology and innovation
- Promote sustainable technologies to developing countries
- Strengthen the science, technology and innovation capacity for least developed countries
- Enhance the global partnership for sustainable development
- Further develop measurements of progress
Publishing and disseminating data and statistics on the SDG indicators for key stakeholders, government policymakers, higher education institutions in India and Nepal, non-governmental organizations and research institutions, and the public at large. A presentation on Strategies for SDG will provide an overview of current progress towards SDG reporting, strategic considerations, existing approaches and the benefits they provide. The SDGs will be achieved through implementing quality teaching and capacity building through center of excellence accessible to all and a detailed pilot report on global approaches and prepare the curriculum with measures of delivery on the digital platform. Task will be completed through systematic approach of developing curriculum for digital learning which will be made available in online and offline sources integrated with SDGs.
The impact of accessible, inclusive and blended learning allows teachers to address the distinct learning needs of individual students and make necessary adjustments to support them leading to personalized learning. Students can take advantage of specific resources given their individual learning needs, such as videos, audio, recorded classes, text, and quizzes. This wide variety of options will increase participation, engagement, and learning while catering to student needs.
Knowledge sharing and cooperation for access to science, technology and innovation with help of partner institutions shared goals will fulfill accomplishment of SDG, 4,10 and 17.