Is the global goal on education still in reach? Five takeaways from the UN’s top education committee

The SDG4-Education 2030 High-Level Steering Committee (HLSC) is the UN’s top body on education and sustainable development.

Its purpose is, very simply, to gather the biggest players in global education around one table: governments, multilateral institutions and development banks, together with representatives from teacher unions, civil society, youth networks, the private sector and philanthropy.

It’s this group that needs to work together to deliver Sustainable Development Goal 4, the global goal to deliver education for all by 2030.

Last week, I took part in the committee’s latest meeting in Paris as a Sherpa – a deputy – representing private foundations, a constituency made up of philanthropic groups which fund education around the world. (Our Leader on the committee is Luke Aspinall of the Maitri Trust, and we’re supported by the International Education Funders Group.)

It felt like a particularly important moment for the international community, with leaders from all over the world coming together to agree on their shared priorities for education and debating difficult questions over financing and the future of sustainable development.

My five top takeaways are:

“Resilience” is top of the agenda: The HLSC has made building resilient education systems its top priority for the next two years. Over the last few years, global shocks like geopolitical crises and armed conflicts have jeopardized progress on sustainable development. These shocks have had a particularly deleterious effect on education, depressing teacher recruitment and retention, plunging many children in the world’s poorest countries into learning poverty, and keeping hundreds of millions more children out of school altogether (last year, UNESCO estimated that 272 million children were out of school). The committee is clear that more needs to be done to protect learners, at a time of growing geopolitical instability.

Teachers matter: Teachers will be one of the three key pillars of work for the committee over the next two years (alongside foundational and lifelong learning, and digital transformation). At first glance, that shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, around six out of every 10 dollars spent by governments on education are actually spent on teachers (many governments, of course, spend far more). But, for me at least, this does represent a major shift in the narrative. Only a few years ago, it felt like teachers barely got a mention at global education events. Today, teachers are very much at the top of the agenda. That’s a welcome outcome for our team here at the Varkey Foundation, where our motto has always been “teachers matter”.

A case for investment: With education aid falling, and an annual financing gap of 97 billion dollars, there are some very difficult conversations happening at the highest level over how education development can be funded sustainably in the years ahead. Not least among them: Who is prepared to put up badly needed funding, where should it go, and – with many recipient countries now saddled with record levels of debt – who is prepared to share the financial risk? The answers to these questions will have far-reaching, generational, consequences for millions of learners around the world.

Right now, there are many who are arguing that education should be re-positioned as a strategic investment, one where a dollar invested will return many times its value in human development and economic returns. But it’s also clear that many more of those dollars will need to come from private philanthropy. While foundations cannot hope to fill the gap left by the decline in official development assistance, they can offer catalytic funding, vital to unlocking broader investments and strategic partnerships. Philanthropy’s role in education is now more important than ever.

Beyond 2030: There are still five years to go before the deadline to deliver the global goal on education. But, with progress on key indicators stalling, it’s no surprise that the UN is beginning to think about what will happen after that deadline expires. In Paris, we reviewed plans to launch wide-ranging consultations on building a post-2030 agenda for education, in which young people will play a significant role. Under the draft plans, the intention is to give everyone a voice in shaping the future of global education. Philanthropy, with its far-reaching networks of grassroots education groups, can help ensure that happens.

All change: Finally, it’s clear that the international community itself is changing in some very significant ways. New members have taken their seats around the table at the High-Level Steering Committee. New leaders are now in place at key UN agencies, including at UNESCO and Education Cannot Wait, the UN’s fund for education in emergencies. And, perhaps most importantly, a major fundraising drive by the Global Partnership For Education – the sector’s biggest multilateral fund – is testing the extent to which the international community is prepared to put its money where its mouth is. For global education, the next few years will be as much a test of political will as it will be of public finances. Both will now be needed to deliver on the promise of delivering a quality education to every child, a promise made by a previous generation of political leaders in the far-distant world that was 2015.

It was heartening, then, at a time of so much reconfiguration and uncertainty, to see so many governments and groups come together last week to recommit themselves to the cause of education. A reminder that, for hundreds of millions of children, progress toward the global goal for education has never been more needed, and nor has it ever been more urgent.

HLSC’s strategic theme for 2026-2027

Education systems face increasingly complex and overlapping crises—from conflicts, climate-related disasters and pandemic to rapid technological change—at a time when many countries are already far off track in achieving SDG 4. The challenge is not only to recover from disruption, but to ensure systems are prepared to anticipate, withstand and mitigate shocks while protecting the right to education.

In this context, the HLSC Sherpa Group agreed to place the resilience of education systems at the centre of the HLSC’s work for 2026–2027, recognizing that stronger, resilient systems are essential to accelerate progress towards SDG 4. This shared focus will prioritize strengthening the teaching profession, advancing foundational and lifelong learning, and promoting inclusive digital transformation—three mutually reinforcing priorities for building more resilient education systems.

The HLSC reaffirmed that sustainable education financing is the foundation of resilient education systems and will continue to mobilize and align global commitment, innovative finance and partnerships to ensure that education systems have predictable and equitable resources needed to deliver quality education for every learner, reducing dependence on external finance.