The Obstacles to Sustainable Education Through a Justice Lens

Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4) is a key global commitment to Education, aiming to bring equitable and inclusive quality education to global citizens and to provide lifelong learning opportunities for all (UNESCO, 2016). However, many obstacles have been encountered in achieving SDG4, in which distributive justice and procedural justice play an important role in determining the accessibility and engagement of education. This analysis will use these concepts of justice as the analytical framework to explain the difficulties in achieving sustainable education as a goal. These concepts of justice not only pointed out the inequitable distribution of resources but also emphasis the importance of valuing the voices of marginalised groups.

Distributive justice in education focuses on providing equitable teaching resources and learning opportunities for all students, ensuring their basic rights and benefits of education. In promoting equality in education globally, factors such as gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic status might affect regional fair education accessibility, leading to educational and occupational inequalities. The unequal distribution of education due to these factors will continue to perpetuate unfair class disadvantages, such as early school dropouts due to poverty and gender, which will result in future social marginalisation and be passed on to their offspring (Keddie, 2012). Such socially marginalised groups are subject to higher levels of negative emotions as well as educational and health risks than the general population (Elenbaas et al., 2020), this will in turn affect their school attendance. Similar to poverty, race also plays a role in the unequal distribution of education. A study in the United States showed that schools with a higher population of low-income and ‘minority’ students had significantly less access to teaching resources than other schools. These schools often had fewer and lower-quality books, curricular materials, laboratories, and computers; significantly larger class sizes; fewer qualified and experienced teachers; and less access to high-quality curricula (Darling-Hammond, 2001).

Procedural justice values the importance of fairness of each ethnicity and group’s involvement in decision-making procedures in education policy and system. The composition of the political environment in most Western schools tends not to give a voice to marginalised groups, nor does it do so in the wider social environment. In this context, it is difficult for marginalised groups to get involved in decision-making procedures in education. White people tend to be the favoured subjects in most schools globally, and Western and middle-class perceptions and lifestyles are more likely to be recognised. The composition of groups in these schools in Western countries is usually dominated by white people, white students, and middle-class teachers. The marginalised groups such as ethnic minorities and Indigenous peoples have limited participation in the education system and their exclusion from educational policy procedures and resource allocation processes affects their equitable treatment in the education system. In Australia, the number of Indigenous teachers accounts for less than 1% of all teachers and has been cited as a factor in the poor academic performance and retention of Indigenous students relative to non-indigenous students (Keddie, 2012).

The lack of distributive justice in the allocation of educational resources, especially in poor and remote areas where schools and learning resources are in painstaking short supply, can greatly exacerbate inequalities in the quality of and access to education. At the same time, the lack of procedural justice in the decision-making process for the allocation of educational resources will significantly reduce the inclusiveness and effectiveness of education policies. Ensuring distributive and procedural justice in the allocation of educational resources and policies contributes to the goal of equitable, inclusive and sustainable educational development.

References

Darling-Hammond, L. 2001. Inequality in Teaching and Schooling: How Opportunity Is Rationed to Students of Color in America. National Center for Biotechnology Information. [Online]. [Accessed 14 May 2025]. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK223640/

Elenbaas, L., Rizzo, M.T. and Killen, M. 2020. A Developmental-Science Perspective on Social Inequality. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 29(6), pp.610–616.

Keddie, A. 2012. Schooling and social justice through the lenses of Nancy Fraser. Critical studies in education. 53(3), pp.263–279.

UNESCO 2016. Unpacking Sustainable Development Goal 4: Education 2030; guide. Unesco.org. [Online]. [Accessed 14 May 2025]. Available from: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000246300.