Sustainable Development and Education

Sustainable development begins with education
Afra:
UN launched 17 sustainability goals for the betterment of the future generation and the
planet. The catalyst for meeting these targets and goals is education. How 2030 agenda can
be achieved through education?
Govinda:
Education is the most essential tool for a sustainable development and it is a fundamental
right for every citizen of the country. Education helps in achieving a broad development
agenda globally.
Educational qualification helps in increment of wages for the permanent employees. People
with higher qualification are paid more than those with less qualification. They are rewarded
for their high productivity. A year of education helps in 10% increment in the salary annually
on an average (UNESCO 2011, pp 7). Educating females have saved millions of girl child
from early marriage and other risky oriented events and rituals (UN Women, 2011/12;
UNDP, 2014; World Bank, 2007, 2014/15 cited in Vladimirovaa and Blanc, 2015).
Nala:
I totally agree with Govinda. The educated people can start their own business expecting a
high return on investment and in turn the profitability. In places like Uganda, the household
enterprises owner having primary qualification earns 36% more than the people having no
education. Whereas, people with lower secondary degree earns 56% more (UNESCO, 2014,
pp 1).

1DIGITAL MARKETING OF DWAYNE JOHNSON
Education is the key element for reducing poverty. According to UNESCO (2011), 12% cut
in poverty globally can be lifted in lower income countries with fundamental reading skills.
This will result in pulling 171 million people out of poverty. What other perspectives of SDG
can you suggest?
Afra:
Improvement in nutrition can also be achieved through education. Primary education in the
lower income countries can lessen the suffering of 1.7 million children from stunting. This
will increase to 12.2 million in case of women completing their secondary education. In all
the South Asian countries, children stunting can be prevented if all the mothers pursue
secondary education (UNESCO, 2014). In Bangladesh diversity in the diets of the family
became 10% more when both mother and father had secondary educational qualification.
Govinda:
Policy-makers focusing mainly on health, ignores the fact that education is a health
intervention (sustainabledevelopment.un.org). Educated individuals have better knowledge
about diseases. Thus, they can take precautions or prevent them in case of early detection.
They utilize the services provided by the health care more effectively. For example, the death
rate of children of age 5 and below has decreased from 12.6 million in 1990 to 6.6 million in
2012 reported by UNICEF, The World Bank Group, The United Nations Department Of
Economic and Social Affairs and The World Health Organization (WHO) (www.who.int).
Nala:
I agree totally. In order to eliminate child deaths, strict actions should be taken by 2030 and
education should play an important role in that. In lower income countries, secondary