Establishing a baseline for progress against Sustainable Development Goal 4

For establishing a baseline for progress against Sustainable Development Goal 4, the 2030 Agenda, adopted on 25 September 2015, includes Sustainable Development Goal 4: ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. The goal combines access, completion, learning, skills, equality, facilities, scholarships and teachers. Monitoring should preserve the distinction between each target and indicator and should not treat progress on one dimension as evidence that the complete goal has been achieved.

Implementation of the available evidence should be organised around a decision that can be tested. For decisions concerning establishing a baseline for progress against Sustainable Development Goal 4, trend claims require comparable observations over time and a documented account of revisions, breaks in series and changes in coverage.

Application of the evidence to establishing a baseline for progress against Sustainable Development Goal 4

For progress against Sustainable Development Goal 4, the instrument should be used to identify the intended direction, the actors addressed and the implementation measures that remain necessary.

For the measure, the public interest is not confined to institutional compliance. When examining establishing a baseline for progress against Sustainable Development Goal 4, quality assurance should connect stated educational purposes with implemented controls, reliable evidence and action where outcomes fall below expectation.

• Review whether improvement is sustained before it informs a consequential decision.
• Identify the affected scope.
• Act on adverse findings.
• Collect proportionate evidence before it informs a consequential decision.
• Test material variation.

Controls relevant to establishing a baseline for progress against Sustainable Development Goal 4

Review of progress against Sustainable Development Goal 4 should follow a stated and reproducible method.

Material concerns include responsibility distributed without clear ownership, learner experience omitted from review, policy detached from practice, and corrective action closed on activity rather than effect. Across the defined scope, the assessment of an exception should address severity, persistence and the likelihood that the condition is more widely present.

Relevant evidence for the available evidence will normally include approved objectives and responsibilities, representative outcome information, independent checks of material claims, learner and staff evidence, and implementation and monitoring records.

• Which evidence establishes operation?
• Where do exceptions occur?
• What outcome is intended?
• What action is required by the finding?
• Who controls each stage?

Review criteria for establishing a baseline for progress against Sustainable Development Goal 4

Implementation of progress against Sustainable Development Goal 4 can be tested without imposing unnecessary reporting. Review of the available evidence should map the complete process, identify the intended result and responsible authority at each stage, and test normal cases together with exceptions. In the context of establishing a baseline for progress against Sustainable Development Goal 4, information should not be treated as sufficient merely because it is already available; its relevance to the present question must be established.

When examining establishing a baseline for progress against Sustainable Development Goal 4, decision-makers using evidence on the measure should be told what the data cannot establish as clearly as what it can. The nature of the result and its applicable unit—system, institution, programme or learner group—should be explicit.

Across the defined scope, material uncertainty should result in further enquiry or an expressly limited finding.

For establishing a baseline for progress against Sustainable Development Goal 4, decisions concerning the comparison should remain traceable to the information available for the stated reference period.