The formulation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) education targets was more inclusive than the processes linked with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Key constituencies making representations through the Open Working Group and other consultative processes succeeded in formulating targets that stressed inclusion, quality and equality in all phases of education in the SDGs agenda. However, the development of the global indicators for SDG4 has resulted in metrics that miss many of the values of the targets, most notably with regard to free education and approaches to substantive dimensions of equality. The paper analyses why some of these slippages took place, and what potential there may be to mobilise for metrics that better depict the key tenets of the education goal and targets. Drawing on the theme of measuring the unmeasurable in education, the analysis in this paper considers measurement as a form of negative capability, which reflects both facts and uncertainties. The notion of ‘negative capability’ is used to acknowledge some of the limits of what is measurable, and keep open the understanding of central elements of the process of education, associated with uncertainty and public scrutiny of complexity. In this paper, some dialogues around accountability linked to work for the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report Gender Review (2018) and recently completed research in Lagos, Nigeria on public and private schools are used to highlight some of the challenges around measurement, equalities, and realising education rights.

Bio:

Elaine Unterhalter is a Professor of Education and International Development at the UCL Institute of Education. She has more than 30 years experience working on themes concerned with gender, race and class inequalities and their bearing on education. Her specialist interests are in the capability approach and human development and education in Africa, particularly South Africa. She is currently working on the project ‘Higher Education, Inequality and the Public Good in four African countries: South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana’.