Sustainable Development Goals (Education)

Patrick Grady Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Westminster Hall

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I declare an interest, as I did at the start of my debate on the sustainable development goals a couple of weeks ago: until the election I was employed by the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund, and I was a member of the Scottish working group on the sustainable development goals, so I have a considerable personal and professional interest in this subject area.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) on bringing this issue back to the House so soon and for giving us the chance to explore in more detail the education aspect of the sustainable development goals. He made a very thoughtful contribution, and I agreed with a lot of what he said, especially on financing, to which I will return; on the importance of data disaggregation for monitoring the goals’ impact, particularly disaggregation by age for education; and on the importance of nutrition in schools to enable children to learn effectively.

I also congratulate the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) on highlighting the fantastic Send My Friend to School initiative. One of the first pieces of mail I received as an MP was from St Charles primary school in Kelvinside in my constituency; it included pictures of the world leaders who young people throughout the country—indeed, around the world—want to see act on their behalf to make progress on global education. The point made by the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) about solidarity among young people is a lesson for us all.

As I said, I have some personal interest in and experience of this matter. Between 2004 and 2005, I had the great privilege of living in Malawi, where I worked as a teacher in St Peter’s secondary school in the capital of Malawi’s northern region, Mzuzu. The school was founded by Father Nazarius Mgungwe, who has become a very good friend of mine, and it has gone from strength to strength over the 10-plus years during which I have been connected to it. The school has sister schools in Scotland—perhaps later I will say a little more about the connections between school communities and how they affect the education of children both overseas and at home. I probably learned more from the pupils and my colleagues in the school than any of them did from me, but if anything my experience brought home the absolute value and importance of education in tackling global poverty.

Education is fundamental to development and ending poverty, as we can see from our own histories. In Scotland, we are very proud of the historic enlightenment that our country went through and the establishment of free education, as a matter of principle, from parish schools through to university level. That has led to some of the inventions and contributions of which we in Scotland are rightly proud. Ahead of the debate, I saw some analysis that described the educational systems in many developing countries as being a least 100 years behind ours. In some ways, we can see that that is the case, but we must not wait 100 years for international developing education systems to be brought up to the level that we expect and appreciate in this country.

It is worth touching on the importance of education for girls. There is no silver bullet when it comes to eradicating world poverty, but if there is something close it is investing in education for girls. As more young women receive a formal education, that has knock-on effects across the whole spectrum of development indicators. It leads to healthier, longer, more productive and more fruitful lives—not only for the individual concerned, but for their families and whole communities. Educating girls must be a key priority in the sustainable development goals for education. I should say that I know some very valuable projects in Malawi with just that focus—one is run by my very good friend Janet Chesney, who runs a school in the north of the country. It would be remiss of me if she found out that I was speaking on education and did not mention that.

The fact that there has been progress in education— 80 million more children are in education than before the millennium development goals were established—is testament to the success and importance of the MDG framework. Nevertheless, as we have heard from the statistics and as the Global Partnership for Education said, there is “no chance whatsoever” of meeting the goal of achieving universal primary education in time for the MDG deadline. That is why it is so vital that that goal is not only retained but enhanced in the successor framework. In the sustainable development goals we have the opportunity to get it right and to go further by extending the right to education to include secondary school education and by focusing on quality.

In his opening speech, the hon. Member for Ceredigion was absolutely right that funding for education is going to be crucial, so I will repeat to the Minister the question I asked the Leader of the House this morning: when can we expect to hear from the Government who will represent the United Kingdom at the financing for development summit starting on 13 July? I appreciate that we are very close to the Budget statement and there is a lot of pressure on the Chancellor’s time, but the UK’s global leadership, of which the Government are proud, will be enhanced if a senior figure from the Treasury team can join international development colleagues at the summit and show the global leadership that is needed.

Finance is going to be vital. One example from my experience in Malawi is that when the country became a multi-party democracy in 1994, one of the first things it did was to introduce free primary education for all. That was a hugely significant and important move, and it has made a big difference. However, the school system really struggled, and continues to struggle, to cope with the number of pupils. The secondary education system is still fee-based, which limits access, even for talented pupils.

I mentioned the Scottish Government’s work on the sustainable development goals. A very positive working group of the Scottish Government, DFID officials, NGOs and academics is looking at the negotiation and implementation process of the sustainable development goals—including how to fund appropriate programmes, perhaps including education. The group is also considering the domestic aspect of the sustainable development goals and a universal framework. There is a responsibility for us at home to consider how we make progress on these issues. One of the important ways of doing that in education lies in the roll-out and improvement of global citizenship education in our schools, whether they are under a devolved Administration or not, as was discussed in the main Chamber earlier.

The Send My Friend to School campaign that we discussed earlier is a good example of development education in action. In Scotland, there is a fantastic network of development education centres. I do not know whether there is a similar network south of the border, but this one gives schools and pupils the tools and opportunity to access resources. Pupils learn about the experiences of international development, which helps to bring issues alive and promotes understanding.

I spoke briefly about the community links that exist in Scotland between many different communities—schools, parishes and community groups—and our counterparts in Malawi. Again, that builds a sense of solidarity and helps to promote education.

When I was involved in student politics, we used to chant that education was a right, not a privilege. That is as true for a young girl in a developing country as it is for a teenager looking at university courses or a wannabe student politician with their placard. Education is a right and if we can get it right, we will be well on the way to achieving sustainable development goals and building the fairer and more just world that so many of us want to see.