Can Education Outgrow the Rhetoric of ‘Development’ Embedded in the UN Sustainability Goals?

The UN Sustainability Goals recognise the important efforts of organisations to meet global commitments to the terms of the Paris Agreement. This paper argues that the UN Sustainability Goals are deeply embedded in neoliberal goals for sustainable development. The result is that the goals require commitment to contradictory ends: achieving climate goals, while also working to continue economic growth. Education is the focus of SDG4, which features an emphasis on STEM subjects, and the same nod to sustainable development that underpins many of the other 17 goals. Philosophy of education remains one of the most powerful tools available to rethink societal and educational futures.