International Women’s Day on March 8 is a time for reflection on the successes that women and girls around the world have made in pursuit of gender equality. But as the theme of the day, ‘Press for Progress’, suggests, we must also consider the challenges ahead.

Past progress does not in itself imply a better future – we have to guard against complacency and continue to press forward for change.

In global education, that means all children should be in school, learning, and developing the skills they need to boost incomes and contribute to their communities.

The latest figures on out-of-school-children are sobering, to say the least. According to new data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), progress remains at a standstill. We still have about 263 million – or one out of five – children, adolescents and youth worldwide out of school and this number has barely changed over the past five years.

With so many threads coming together.. the task now is to weave them into one coherent whole as we push for the best possible data on education to monitor progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4). And the Fourth SDG-Education 2030 Steering Committee Meeting in Paris this week is an opportunity to do just that.

Progress is being made in defining SDG 4 indicators

The Global Alliance to Monitor Learning (GAML) is making steady progress in defining the learning outcomes indicators of the SDG 4 monitoring framework. The first step for all of these indicators – whether they refer to adult numeracy, digital literacy or global citizenship skills - is to develop a framework that by listing all of the content and skills can serve as reference to teach, develop and assess children, youth and adults.

No strategy – no matter how thorough – can succeed unless it is backed by good data that chart progress towards its objectives and meets the needs of its users, especially countries.