Education, skills, sustainability and growth: Complex relations

The global education agenda, embedded in the Education for All (EFA) Goals, and the Millennium Development Goals, has emphasised the importance of reaching EFA rather than sustaining this achievement. As a corollary, the emphasis for external aid has also been on increasing aid to secure EFA rather than on the dangers of aid dependency in securing and sustaining EFA. The international architecture in support of education for sustainable development appears to have little interest in analysing these tensions between the pursuit of these rights-based EFA Goals, on the one hand, and the kind of economic growth and macro-economic environment that would be necessary to sustain their achievement.