Quality education is absolutely essential. Preserving this right and being able to guarantee it is indispensable in any society because it is the most efficient way out of poverty.
But not only to get out of poverty. Ending gender violence, ending stigmas that are deeply embedded in the mentality of our society, creating compassionate, open-minded, tolerant and fair human beings depends 100% on the education they receive.
This is why this right is so basic and fundamental. The right to education is enshrined as a fundamental right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child. The intention is to guarantee it globally, but the practice is very different.
The targets of Goal 4 were far from being met by 2030. Before the pandemic, 160 million children, or one fifth of the world's child population, were out of school.
In addition, the UN has estimated that more than 55% of children and adolescents around the world are not achieving the minimum standards in reading and mathematics required to continue their studies. This indicates that not all children in school are learning or are learning in the best conditions, meaning that more than half of the world's children and adolescents will not be prepared to participate in the global economic system.
Today, after two and a half years of the pandemic, according to the latest available data from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), 258 million children are not in school, and 67 million cannot read or write.
As always, inequalities are present, and these educational deficiencies are most prevalent in countries and regions with few resources. Specifically, Sub-Saharan Africa leads this ranking, followed by a large part of Central and South Asia, with certain Latin American and Caribbean regions in third place. These areas are facing serious problems in ensuring education for their children and adolescents. In Sudan, for example, 72% of children do not go to school. This is inconceivable. It is impossible for a country with the majority of its children out of school to be a just, sustainable, equal or safe country.
Of course, gender inequality is also present in education. Girls have even more difficulty than boys in getting to school. Because they are girls, they are exposed to great dangers such as child marriage or gender violence, which makes it very difficult for them to finish their studies. Furthermore, in countries such as Equatorial Guinea or Tanzania, girls are forbidden to go to school from the moment they become pregnant, something very representative considering that these are countries with very high rates of child and adolescent pregnancies.
Another problem that aggravates the global education situation is war. Going to school in countries in conflict has become truly complicated and dangerous. It is estimated that 50 per cent of children who do not attend primary school live in areas of armed conflict.
Not going to school has serious consequences, both for the children themselves, who are much more likely to fall into forced labour, trafficking schemes or guerrilla warfare, and for society in general, which perpetuates itself as a society that is easy to manipulate, without a solid social base with protection of human rights, without any political or economic guarantees for foreign markets, and with high rates of crime and poverty.
Clearly, the pandemic we have been through has only worsened the already dismal situation. In 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic spread across the globe, most countries announced temporary school closures, affecting more than 91% of students worldwide. By April 2020, more than 1.6 billion children and young people were out of school.
In many of the geographic areas many of these students have not yet had the opportunity to return for good, and not only in the resource-poor countries mentioned above, but also in many areas of South Asia or the Caribbean, where there were not such high rates of out-of-school children before the pandemic. One of the reasons for the increase in truancy rates has been the famous "digital divide".
The pandemic has highlighted once again that the right to access the internet is fundamental and far from equitable and, in particular for people living in more rural areas, and for children, it has been a real problem for them to continue to access the education system.
It has been estimated that reducing and closing this gap would reduce the number of children without access to education by more than two thirds.
Finally, but just as fundamental, is the need to be able to guarantee access to education for people with functional diversity. People with different abilities must be able to access education on equal terms. This, which is always on the table in well-resourced countries, is unfortunately completely forgotten in low-resourced countries, where there are also children with different needs and special abilities.
If SDG 4 is to become a reality, it is necessary to ensure quality education for all. The education must be equitable, egalitarian and inclusive.
However, so far, the vast majority of efforts to reduce both the digital divide and the school absenteeism rate remain in the hands of non-profit organisations that struggle to raise funds to improve this situation in certain communities, groups or geographic areas.
While their efforts are absolutely relevant and essential, they are not enough if they are not accompanied by real institutional support. Governments must intervene and accept that this is a serious problem that leads to many others and that leaves 258 million children, and therefore future families, without the resources to be able to obtain a decent job that will allow them to live well. Investment must be made in education and in social programmes that bring education closer to the places with the least resources. Quality education must be democratised, based on values and respect for all, regardless of their conditions.
A good solution are the partnerships, programmes financed by large companies that are interested in attracting talent, educational programmes that are implemented in schools in places with fewer resources. Aids to the families so that they can send their children to school and not have to make them work are crucial.
There is a lot to be done and partnerships are the key.
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