Countdown to 2030 – Global Education Monitoring Report 2026: What explains progress in access to education in the past 20 years?

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

As we approach the end of the 2030 Agenda, there is a sense that global education targets have not succeeded in accelerating progress towards universal education. SDG 4, as previous global education goals, brought countries together but may have been too ambitious and have failed to recognize individual country realities. But this sweeping view may also fail to recognize that several countries have made real progress achieved in the long run. We need to pay attention to that and derive lessons about future policy priorities and target setting.



There is a need for more realistic, grounded and country-driven objectives. The GEM Report has developed a new approach for its upcoming three reports to 2030, the Countdown to 2030 series. It is inspired by countries’ own national commitments, reflected in the SDG 4 benchmarking process, which the GEM Report has steered with the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Four in five countries have set such targets for 2025 and 2030 for eight SDG 4 indicators, making countries more active partners in the process towards SDG 4 and refraining from imposing targets outside their national policy, planning and budget processes.



The first in the series, which will be launched shortly before the 2026 CIES conference, will focus on access and equity, while the second will focus on quality and learning (2027) and the third on relevance (2028). Together, the three reports will provide a basis for international dialogue on where countries stand, how fast they have progressed, the main drivers of differences between countries, and what this record suggests for priorities post-2030



The 2026 GEM Report focuses on five SDG 4 indicators; early childhood participation; out-of-school rate for children, adolescents and youth of primary and secondary school age; primary, lower secondary and upper secondary completion rate; tertiary education gross enrolment ratio; and the parity index for these indicators.



It analyses progress since as far back as 2000 for select countries that, either throughout the period or over a sufficiently long period of time, have expanded education faster than other countries that started from the same initial point.



This session aims to present the findings of the 2026 GEM Report for the first time to an international academic audience, to generate a discussion around the gaps and opportunities for the post-2030 agenda and to advocate for a new agenda where countries take responsibility for their educational futures.



The session aims to respond to the following research questions:

What are the global and country trends in early childhood participation, out-of-school rate, completion rate and tertiary participation? Among countries that started from similar levels of education development, which countries have improved much faster than others?

What factors explain best this progress? Are they country-specific or can they inspire action?

How do factors, such as conflict or financial crises, impact education expansion? How does the significance of such factors compare to the potential of education policy and reform?

What are the implications of the statistical, country case study, and policy analyses for a realistic but ambitious future education agenda?

What is the role of financing policies to promote equity?

The panel will provide insights on these questions and highlight new directions for analysis that can improve the robustness of policy relevant research and evidence.

Format

The session begins with a presentation on the findings of the GEM Report (15 mins).

It will be followed by 3 presentations (10 mins each) that will look at political developments and education reforms. (30 mins)

1. The first presentation focuses on key case studies and historical analysis to reflect on political developments and education reforms.

2. The second presentation potentially focuses on teachers as a critical dimension of education reforms.

3. The third presentation will reflect on how policy data can be used as proxies of country effort in explaining variation in progress towards SDGs. It will be based on reflections from the WERD database – a repository of roughly 12,000 national education reforms reported to international organizations and experts, covering the period since 1960.

Three discussants will then reflect on the presentations and bring regional insights on analyzing SDG 4 (20 mins)
1. Africa
2. Pacific
3. Southeast Asia

The session will conclude with a question-and-answer section for the presenters and discussants (25 mins).

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Chairs

• Priyadarshani Joshi, UNESCO

• Manos Antoninis, Global Education Monitoring Report, UNESCO

Individual Presentations

• Countdown to 2030 - the Global Monitoring Report 2026 - Manos Antoninis, Global Education Monitoring Report, UNESCO

• Making progress on SDG 4: Lessons and reflections from key case studies - Fernando M. Reimers, Harvard University

• Teacher labor force issues in the achievement of SDG 4 - Amita Chudgar, Michigan State University

• SDG 4 and the World Education Reform Database - Patricia Bromley, Stanford University