Education in the light of sustainable development goals – The case of the European Union countries

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study is to compare the implementation of sustainable development goals targeted at an important area of socio-economic life: quality education. The study focuses on a sample of 28 European Union countries and uses multivariate approaches to check to what extent the goals have been achieved. Due to data availability, the study is based on data for 2018. Regardless of the employed method, the results, presented in the form of rankings, show that Romania and Italy achieved the lowest positions and were outliers; in contrast, Sweden was the best performer. The rankings underscore the differences within the European Union, highlighting the dissimilarities between countries. The results show that globalisation and the creation of unified policy frameworks in the European Union require additional effort at the domestic level, especially since education is an important element of the European Union’s strategies and the Sustainable Development Goals announced by the United Nations.

KEYWORDS:

• Education
• sustainable development goals
• European Union
• multivariate analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Share of the population aged 18–24 with at most lower secondary education who were not involved in any education or training during the four weeks preceding the survey, Eurostat (2020).

2 Share of the population aged 30–34 who have successfully completed tertiary studies, Eurostat (2020).

3 The employment rates of persons aged 20 to 34. Based on the following conditions: first, employed according to the ILO definition, second, attained at least upper secondary education as the highest level of education, third, not received any education or training in the four weeks preceding the survey and four, successfully completed their highest educational attainment 1, 2 or 3 years before the survey, Eurostat (2020).

4 Share of people aged 25–64 who stated that they received formal or non-formal education and training in the four weeks preceding the survey (numerator). The denominator consists of the total population of the same age group, excluding those who did not answer to the question ‘participation in education and training’, Eurostat (2020).

5 Share of the population aged 15–29 who is not employed and not involved in education or training, see: Eurostat (2020) for details.

6 Classic standardisation used here aims to obtain the standard deviation of variables equals to 1 and the arithmetic mean equals to 0.