This brief is on education and MDG 3 (Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women), with a focus on target 3.A (Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015). It highlights that education is essential to eliminate discrimination and transform social attitudes and power relations.

The right to education and lifelong learning is at the very heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development because education, knowledge and learning are central to the dignity, growth and development of the individual. For centuries, education has been the great equalizer, a driving force of nation-building, and the engine of social, cultural, economic and technological progress. Today, however, beset by twin crises of equity and relevance, education as we know it is no longer fit for purpose.

Building on the Transforming Education Summit and the report of the International Commission on the Futures of Education, the present policy brief examines the current crisis in education in more detail and puts forward a vision and a set of guiding actions for countries and the international community to transform education. It concludes with two overarching recommendations for the consideration of Member States in their preparations for the Summit of the Future.