Quality Education as a Sustainable Development Goal in the Context of 2030 Agenda: Bibliometric Approach

Erika González García,Andrea Cívico Ariza,Ernesto Colomo Magaña

doi:10.3390/su12155884

Abstract

Quality education is understood as one of the most powerful and proven drivers for ensuring sustainable development, which can be applied in various educational contexts, formal and non-formal, and which can generate multiple benefits for the general public. Given its relevance, this article presents a bibliometric approach of the scientific production generated around Sustainable Development Goal (SPG) 4 that seeks to “Ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning” as a priority objective of 2030 Agenda. To develop this research, a literature search was conducted in the Web of Science and Scopus databases. The final sample was 240 publications. The data were analyzed around ten variables: year of publication, type of document, area of indexation, periodical publications, most productive authors, institutions, countries, languages, most cited articles, and key words. The findings of this study indicate that quality education, within the Sustainable Development Goals, is gaining relevance, with 2019 being the year with the highest scientific production. This is a growing theme that is transmitted mainly through articles and papers in English, and there are no institutions, research groups or authors with a broad scientific background and production. The conclusion is that this bibliometric approach is important and necessary to know the reality of scientific production on this subject and to be able to make proposals and lines of research for its development.

Highlights

The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are not the first set of goals designed to help nations work together to create a cleaner planet and a more just global society
The reason for this is that the United Nations General Assembly, after approving on 25 September 2015 the Agenda for development after 2015, it published on 21 October 2015 the document entitled “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development”, from which research began on the themes and descriptors included in the 2030 Agenda and the corresponding objectives for sustainable development, establishing this date as the origin of the scientific literature on this reality
Based on the results obtained in the databases (Table 2), we found that the first research articles start to be published in 2016 (10 in Web of Science (WoS) and six in Scopus), with only one study in 2015 (Scopus) due to the date of publication of the United Nations General Assembly

Summary

Introduction

The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are not the first set of goals designed to help nations work together to create a cleaner planet and a more just global society. This movement began in 1990 at the World Conference on Education for All: Meeting Basic Learning Needs, held in Jomtien, Thailand and convened by the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF) It brought together members from both countries and associations recognizing the need to provide a broad vision of education for present and future generations by proclaiming the World Declaration on Education for All. Later, in 2002, the international community met again at the World Education Forum in Dakar, where the six key Education for All (EFA) goals were set and identified, relating to (1) expanding early childhood education, especially for the most vulnerable children; (2) ensuring that by 2015 all children have access to and complete free and compulsory primary education of good quality and that no one drops out of school; (3) ensuring equitable access to and completion of education throughout life; (4) achieving universal primary education by 2015; (5) eliminating gender disparities in education by ensuring full and equal access to and achievement in basic education of good quality; and (6) improving all aspects of the quality of education and ensuring excellence of all so that recognized and measurable learning outcomes are achieved by all, especially in literacy, numeracy, and essential life skills. All these goals aim to make education universal from early childhood and throughout life, and to ensure that states make the necessary efforts to compensate for socio-cultural inequalities so that no child is excluded from a quality education system

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