SLX 2021
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About Our UNSDG Goal
UNSDG Goal #4: Quality Education
The UNSDG or United Nations Sustainability and developmental goals are goals set by the UN, adopted in 2015, to help create a more sustainable world. By using these goals, and specific targets to reach each goal, everyone in the world has an outline of how to create the best life for people all over the planet. For our specific goal, we chose to focus on the goal of quality education. Quality of education is an important topic to consider when talking about improving life among all people across the globe. If people around the world have equal opportunities, in can improve many lives. People can learn new skills that may solve a problem, people can learn from each other in order to understand each other better, and so much more.
Our Specific Topic
Quality education is quite a vague term. To narrow our focus, our group decided to focus on the graduation/completion rates of secondary schooling students. Using this as a focal point, we can see how students can get the best out of their education by completing the secondary level of schooling. To make the best out of this research, our group had to define a "quality education". For this particular topic, the definition we came up with for quality education is learning to use the skills that are taught, and applying them to everyday life. Quality education remains one of the biggest factors in improving a person’s quality of life. Yet children still might not be able to fully graduate. To understand why children might not graduate school, we will be looking at graduation rates, what factors influence graduation rates, and what other factors affect the quality of education that students receive.
As we can see here, there seems to be little to no correlation between the % of GDP put into education and the graduation % per country. We see this through Belgium and Costa Rica, having the lowest graduation rate, and one of the highest % of expenditure on education. There must be a different factor affecting the graduation rates if GDP expenditure is not directly responsible. A factor that could be possible is the way the money for education is spent. We see this in Finland, Finland has a high graduation rate and also one of the highest expenditure. This could mean that Finland could be using the money for something that Belgium or Costa Rica are leaving out from education budgets, or not adding to their budgets.
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Using the context of this graph, this data can bring the conclusion of lower class sizes can be beneficial. This is seen through the cluster on the top right of the graph. A lot of countries that are represented in this graph have approximately 10 students per class and a graduation rate of about 70% or more. This can show that with fewer students, there is a more focused learning environment for each student. Teachers that have a lower class size can better tailor and manage the class towards fewer students, giving more time for each student to fully understand taught concepts. This means that graduation rates may go up when a students education is tailor to them specifically.
In this graph, the data shows that there is a slight correlation between graduation rates and a family's income. The flatter slope is a bit misleading since a 10% difference would be a very big graduation gap in this context, but it does not show on the graph since the outliers stand out so much. The outliers, however, do show that a low average household income does correlate to graduation rates across the world.This means that many children around the world do not receive a quality education because of how much a family makes. Students all around the world are missing out on an opportunity to get a formal education.
In this graph, we organized data about how much each country was spending on each student individually. This data can answer many questions, including if this affects graduation rates. Looking at the first graph from before, there seems to be little correlation between money spent per student and graduation rates. By examining Finland, we can see that there is a high graduation rate, and Finland spends a fair amount less on each student when compared to other countries. This means that Finland might have other factors that make it have high graduation rates
Conclusion
From the information that we have graphed, we can conclude a few factors that do and do not affect the effectiveness of education. The most important information from here is that GDP spending does not correlate with higher graduation rates. Creating effective education isn’t about only spending more money on education, it’s about spending money more wisely, such as on Teachers. A low Pupil to Teacher ratio is shown to improve a student’s likelihood of graduating. For students, one of the important factors in determining graduation rates would be their Annual Income. Children whose parents earn less are less likely to graduate school, even though they are the ones that they require education the most. Even though money spent by the government on students can have an effect, it is seen as minimal through our research. From this, we can conclude that time spent on each student is most important. We see this through student-teacher ratios. Students that get more attention in the classroom can thrive better in learning and in the real world. Knowing these pieces of information, people can now more effectively improve their view on education and how to improve it. Now Understanding just how important education is, our group knows the importance of quality education in the context of the UNSDG goal, and creating a better world.