In 2015, the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and within it, SDG 4 as their aspiration for educational development by 2030. The 2030 Agenda was hailed as an unprecedented achievement by the United Nations (Benavot & Naidoo, 2018) and sparked a myriad of initiatives, reforms and strategic reorientations, at all levels, international, regional and national. International and regional organizations vied for the so-called “custodianship”, passport to becoming a global authority over an SDG target, and re-legitimized themselves by enacting strategic redirections that would make them all the more relevant during the SDG era (Elfert & Ydesen, 2023). National governments reviewed and aligned their education policies with the commitments they made at the international level, and they engaged with critical changes to allow their national statistical systems to respond to the unprecedented demand for numbers. Universities and academics introduced new research foci and requirements, developed institutional policies to foster sustainability and prioritized research endeavors associated with the SDGs. Multilateral and bilateral donors reframed their strategic visions as testimony of their support to this global movement. An entire ecosystem was set in motion where governments, international organization, philanthropies, companies and civil society would act in concert towards a global common future for the next 15 years.

The new agenda was said to have addressed issues and concerns that surrounded its predecessors, the Millennium Development Goals and the Education for All goals (Benavot & Naidoo, 2018), and, at the time, little room was left for critically engaging with the features, content and political processes that surrounded SDG 4. After 10 years of implementation however, ghosts of the past have resurfaced. Neglected goals and targets (Rose & Sayed, 2024), ineffectiveness of leading international organizations to foster progress (Beeharry, 2021), impending failure (for some targets for the second time in 30 years), unwarranted interpretations of targets (Montjourides, 2023) and strategic gaming are on the list of issues that can threaten the relevance and legitimacy of these global endeavors. This symposium  is the first part of a two-parts symposium that gathers academics who have questioned the legitimacy of Sustainable Development Goal 4 from various perspectives and sheds light on the evolution of global and regional governance in education, raising concerns about the fact that international education agendas may either be improperly implemented, or just built and used as another strategic instrument of geopolitical influence, in either case failing to effectively contribute to building education for the future of all.

This first part sets the scene by discussing the extent to which SDG 4 adheres to the contemporary principles of democratic legitimacy. It brings together international relations, comparative education policy analysis and historical perspectives, to allow for a comprehensive engagement with input, throughput and output legitimacy (Scharpf, 1999, 2006; Schmidt, 2012), questioning the normative side of democratic legitimacy; whose views are reflected in SDG 4, the extent to which established processes are respected and attuned to the requirements for a democratic global governance of education, and eventually, what have been, to date, educational outcomes associated with SDG 4. The second part entitled “Perceived Legitimacy of SDG 4: a Prerequisite to Authority and Effectiveness, yet still missing?” will build on these discussions and focus on how various audiences perceive or influence the perception of SDG 4.

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