Education strategies and capacities of cities in Bangladesh, The Philippines, and Rwanda to achieve SDG4

• In Event: Cities as laboratories of innovation for SDG4

Proposal

Achieving quality, equitable, and inclusive education for all (Sustainable Development Goal 4, SDG 4) is a great challenge for any country. It is especially challenging to work towards meeting each ambitious target in countries with fewer resources and with an added pressure of a rapid and uncontrolled urbanisation that burdens already overstretched services and resources. The UNESCO International institute for educational planning (IIEP) and the GCRF Centre for Sustainable, Healthy and Learning Cities and Neighbourhoods (SHLC) at the University of Glasgow, have partnered to implement the research project ‘Local challenges, global imperatives: cities at the forefront to achieve Education 2030’ in three SHLC partner countries – Bangladesh, the Philippines, and Rwanda. Our multi-country project examined the ways that cities conduct educational planning and management to achieve SDG4 in these challenging contexts. The study allowed to understand how educational planning is done at city level to identify challenges that prevent a full achievement of SDG4, but also opportunities for change and innovative practices that cities have already been developing and implementing.

In this presentation, we will highlight what four cities in these three countries have been doing to achieve SDG4 locally. In particular, we will focus on what education strategies they have adopted; how they are planned, implemented, coordinated, monitored, and evaluated; relationships that have been built with diverse actors; how projects and programmes are financed; and what challenges and opportunities cities are faced with.

We will draw on the data collected in four cities in three countries: Khulna and Dhaka in Bangladesh, Manila in the Philippines, and Kigali in Rwanda. The data include:
(1) desk research of relevant documents to examine information related to cities’ responsibilities in education, planning and strategies, budgets, infrastructure, and other such aspects of educational planning, and
(2) interviews and focus group discussions with key actors responsible for educational planning at city level, including local elected officials in charge of education, heads of education departments, school heads and teachers, civil society organisations, private companies, and others.
This research allowed us to develop an in-depth understanding of how each city works to achieve SDG4 considering their own local characteristics and realities. At the presentation, we will share successful experiences of cities working to achieve SDG4. The findings will help to support city authorities’ work towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, especially in education, and potentially inform educational planning in other cities in these countries and beyond.

Authors

• Mike Osborne, University of Glasgow

• Yulia Nesterova, University of Glasgow