The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) framework as a whole, and the SDG on education specifically, reflected a sea change in development thinking both in the expansion of scope and ambition. For the first time equity and protection of the planet and environment have become central to the global development agenda. More than any other previous global agenda, the SDGs have gained traction across both the Global North and South. This ambition is reflected in the education goal, which displays a more holistic and comprehensive approach to education progress by recognising quality, inclusion, and equity as central to education progress. Beyond the mid-point of the SDGs, in this paper, we reflect on progress made in tracking progress towards some of the targets associated with the education Sustainable Development Goal, namely learning (4.1), global citizenship education (4.7), and on teachers (4c). We reflect on these targets in the context of the attention given by international organisations to foundational literacy and numeracy as the dominant focus of SDG4. We consider why this gained such policy traction, how it is manifest in policy and programmes of international organisations as well as in global South policies, and the intended and unintended consequences of this including for other targets of the SDGs. We highlight that targets, such as those related to global citizenship education and teachers have suffered from becoming residual targets, and narrowly focused. The narrow focus on foundational literacy and numeracy risks delegitimising the broader and more expansive of education as was portrayed in the SDGs and the 2030 Framework for Action. We conclude by considering how we might reframe the current orthodoxy which suggests a hierarchy of targets, rather than viewing them holistically as was originally intended. We propose for debate how the implications of this for the next set of goals, including those related to the power dynamics between international organisations, and between them and governments in the global South.

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