By the UNESCO Institute for Statistics and the Global Education Monitoring Report
The SDG 4 benchmarking process, which traces its roots to the Education 2030 Framework for Action, began with the selection of seven SDG 4 benchmark indicators in 2019, continued with the invitation extended to countries in 2021 to share national targets to be achieved by 2025 and 2030, and matured in 2023 with the publication of the first SDG 4 Scorecard, which assesses the probability of achieving these targets.
How extensively are counties participating?
The 2025 edition of the SDG 4 Scorecard released today by the Global Education Monitoring Report and the UNESCO Institute for Statistics shows Member States’ growing commitment to the process. In total, 164 – or 80% – of countries have submitted benchmark values for at least one of eight SDG 4 benchmark indicators, the last of which was added following the 2022 UN Transforming Education Summit. The share of available benchmark values, which includes those submitted directly, those provided indirectly through regional organizations and those extracted from national plans, increased from 56% in 2024 to 60% in 2025. A full 100% would have meant that every country had set benchmark targets for all indicators at all levels.
All regions have contributed roughly equally to the process, with only Europe and Northern America lagging a little behind (45%), largely because there is universal achievement of, for example, school attendance or internet connectivity, and therefore less interest in setting targets.
Which indicators are more popular?
Apart from the public expenditure indicators, for which there is a common benchmark for all countries, the two benchmark indicators with the highest submission rates, either directly or through regional mechanisms in the Caribbean, Europe and South Asia, are the early childhood education participation rate (73%) and the upper secondary completion rate (70%).
The two indicators with the lowest submission rates are the gender gap in upper secondary completion (38%) and primary school internet connectivity (39%). In the latter case, the coverage increases to 57% if including countries where all primary schools are already connected to the internet.
How far are countries from their targets?
The 2025 SDG 4 Scorecard cannot yet make a final assessment of whether countries achieved their 2025 benchmarks, as much of the data still refer to 2023. Whether countries are likely to achieve their national targets varies by indicator.
The percentage of countries with data that have progressed fast, or already almost reached the 100% target, ranges from about one third for early childhood education participation and the youth out‑of‑school rate, upper secondary completion rate and gender gap in upper secondary completion to about one half for minimum proficiency in reading at the end of primary and pre‑primary school trained teachers. About two thirds of countries with data have progressed fast or already achieved universal primary school internet connectivity and zero children and adolescent out‑of‑school rates.
Countries are furthest behind from their 2025 national targets in training pre‑primary school teachers (off track by 7 percentage points), expanding early childhood education participation (off track by 9 percentage points) and achieving minimum proficiency in reading by the end of primary (off track by 11 percentage points).
The large gap in the last indicator is likely the result of limited experience in setting realistic targets on learning outcomes, which is itself the result of low data availability. The percentage of countries lacking data on learning outcomes ranges from 66% to 87% depending on the subject and education level.
Countries are moving backwards in terms of public education spending, which was further away from the twin thresholds of 4% of gross domestic product and 15% of total public expenditure in 2023 than in 2015.
Even if countries are not committing to universal achievement of the SDG 4 targets by 2030, their combined aspirations, as outlined in their benchmarks, are nevertheless substantial. The 2025 SDG 4 Scorecard focuses on the out-of-school rate and shows that countries aim to reduce the out-of-school rate between 2015 and 2030 from 8% to 2% for primary school age children; from 13% to 5% for lower secondary school age adolescents; and from 29% to 16% for upper secondary school age youth. If these benchmark values are achieved, the out-of-school population would be lower by 165 million.
Meeting these national targets would represent one of the largest expansions of education access in history. Yet progress has generally stagnated. Already by 2025, it is projected that countries were off track from achieving their out-of-school targets by 4 percentage points for primary school age children, by 4 percentage points for lower secondary school age adolescents and by 6 percentage points for upper secondary school age youth.
SDG 4 benchmarks offer a country-focused approach to monitoring a global agenda
The SDG 4 benchmarking process offers a paradigm for engaging countries in a global development agenda. While the language of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development expresses collective aspirations, the success of each country depends on its initial conditions and the commitments the government makes to its people.
The SDG 4 benchmark values submitted for 2025 and 2030 express the willingness of each country to contribute to the global agenda. Monitoring them offers a way to evaluate that success but also a way to reflect on the targets set and the probability of meeting them. Countries are invited every year to share updates as their priorities and their means change over time.
As thinking towards a global development agenda beyond 2030 evolves, the SDG 4 benchmarking process presents an example to consider – one that could be applied not just in education but also in all the other areas of development.
You can review all results in the printed version of the SDG 4 Scorecard but also on the interactive dashboard.
