De Montfort University is a global academic hub chair and as such publishes a progress report on both the individual United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as well as a comprehensive report on all the goals.

Our 2025 report will show what the university has been doing in terms of research, teaching, partnerships and engagement in helping to meet those targets and raising awareness of the progress towards the 2030 aims.

This is the progress report for SDG 4 Quality Education. The full report on all the SDGs can be viewed here.

UN PROGRESS REPORT ON SDG 4 in 2025

EDUCATION is vital for sustainable development, yet progress remains off track with 15% of tracks expected to be met by 2030 and another 12.5% showing only moderate progress.

However, 15% of the targets show regression, a further 40% show stagnation and a further 12.5% just marginal progress.

The UN progress report for 2025 says: “While enrolment and completion rates have improved since 2015, with girls outperforming boys in most regions, progress is slowing.

“Meanwhile, 272 million children and youth remained out of school. Learning outcomes are declining in many countries. Although literacy has improved modestly, hundreds of millions of people remain illiterate, with women disproportionately affected.

“Deep inequalities persist due to gender, wealth and geography. To accelerate Goal 4, countries must prioritise inclusive policies and financing that simultaneously address access, learning and equity.”

 

MAJOR DMU NEWS ON SDG 4 IN 2025

Easy access for local people to university libraries

UNIVERSITIES in Leicester and Leicestershire are opening up their libraries to public users.

A new partnership between De Montfort University, Leicester, (DMU), the University of Leicester (UoL) and Loughborough University (LU), together with local councils, means anyone aged 18+ and living in the city, county or Rutland will easily be able to access university libraries and borrow up to 10 books at a time.

Local people will now be able to become members of the university libraries for free, benefitting from access to new resources, study spaces, longer opening hours and increased availability of library services.

 

DMU donates computer equipment to Cuban university

A DELEGATION from DMU Visited a Cuban university to support reconstruction efforts following the destruction of much of their campus in a recent hurricane.

Led by Dr Rosi Smith, Senior Lecturer in Education, DMU donated 12 surplus laptops that would otherwise have been disposed to the Municipal University Center of San Antonio del Sur, Cuba, which lost all of its existing tech as well as its books.

 

DMU wins seed funding to support transformative teaching

DMU has become one of just four UK universities to be awarded funding by the United Nations’ PRME Seed Fund to support transformative teaching.

Students will work with researchers to develop new resources for impacts that align with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), global goals to tackle issues facing the planet. By working alongside university students directly affected by related challenges, this project aims to develop participants’ awareness of social policy development and foster values-driven leadership skills.

 

DMU leading the 'Change to Block: Symposium' in front of an international audience

DMU hosted academics and professional support colleagues from universities across the globe for our ‘Symposium: Leading the Change to Block.’

DMU’s block teaching model allows students to focus on one subject at a time, with assessments at the end of each block instead of traditional exams.

Throughout the day, we heard from a panel of DMU students, Professors from Southern Cross and Victoria University in Australia and the University of Central Lancashire.

 

OfS Chief hails DMU's Digital Learning Tech Hub

THE Chief Executive of the Office for Students has praised DMU for “creating opportunities for students” following her visit to the university’s Digital Learning Tech Hub.

The £6.5m hub was created with funding support from the OfS and was designed to meet the growing demand for advanced digital skills (such as cyber defence, artificial intelligence, data science, virtual production, creative technologies) and prepare students for highly skilled roles.

Susan Lapworth and her senior advisor, Mike Spooner, were invited to see cutting-edge technology in action and talk to both staff and students about its impact on teaching.

 

MAJOR DMU RESEARCH ON SDG 4 IN 2025

A Novel Fuzzy Logic Framework for Model Reliability Evaluation in Permeability Prediction using GPR

Lawal, Ahmad; Yang, Yingjie; Baisa, Nathanael L.; He, Hongmei (2025)

THIS study proposes a novel approach using fuzzy logic to compute a single, comprehensive metric that accounts for model reliability.

Our method incorporates human input and reasoning into the modelling process, enhancing the model’s interpretability and its ability to handle uncertainty. Additionally, we introduce a new visualization technique to simplify the understanding of fuzzy logic outputs for non-technical stakeholders.

The proposed methodology demonstrates that GPR achieves a higher reliability level (0.89) compared to traditional machine learning counterparts, which are typically neutral to uncertainties.

https://doi.org/10.1109/cicn63059.2024.10847526

 

Educational Impact and Ethical Considerations in Using Chatbots in Academia

Ibrahim, Dina M.: Al-Harbi, Njood K.: Al-Shargabi, Amal A. (2025)

CHATBOTS are getting better every day due to the advancements in their capabilities in today’s technological age. This study aims to assess the efficacy of ChatGPT-4 and Gemini in producing scientific articles.

Two types of prompts are given: direct questions and complete scenarios. Subsequently, we evaluate the educational and ethical aspects of the produced material by employing statistical analysis.

We verify the credibility of references, detect any instances of plagiarism, and ensure the precision of the articles generated by the chatbot.

https://doi.org/10.11591/ijeecs.v37.i2.pp1150-1167

 

Developing Design Guidelines for Educational Robots: Insights from User Research with Preschool Children

Zhu, Yuqi (2025)

CHILDREN aged 4–6 are in a key stage of brain development. During this period, the prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain that controls important skills like paying attention and controlling behaviour—undergoes major changes (Moriguchi & Hiraki, 2020).

In China, parents are increasingly focused on their children’s learning during these years, leading to high demand for educational tools like robots.

Research shows robots work better than screen-based tools (e.g., tablets) for keeping children engaged and social (Belpaeme et al., 2018). However, many parents and teachers worry about the quality of existing robots, as there are no clear design rules.

Developing Design Guidelines for Educational Robots: Insights from User Research with Preschool Children

 

Enhancing Basic Education as a Foundation for Resilience and Sustainability in Low-Income Mega-Cities: the Case of Lagos, Nigeria

Okoya, S.A., Reeves, A., Younie, S. and Kolade, S. (2025)

THE provision of quality basic education is critical for building resilient and prosperous communities.

This is particularly needed in low-income settings, where enhancing education can develop human capital and the development of sustainable infrastructures for energy, the built environment, sanitation and more.

Nigeria as home to the world’s largest population of out-of-school children and the mega-city of Lagos State can shed light on the challenge of education provision in comparable cities across the globe.

10.5281/zenodo.17041983

 

Enhancing Virtual Reality Experiences in Architectural Visualization of an Academic Environment

Durojaye, A., Kolahdooz, A. and Hajfathalian, A. (2025)

VIRTUAL Reality (VR) technology possesses the capability to transport users into immersive, alternative environments, providing them with a convincing sense of presence within a simulated world.

This project leverages VR to develop an interactive, educational system centered around the De Montfort University Queens Building, simulating key facilities and infrastructure through the integration of 360-degree imagery and Adobe Captivate software.

https://doi.org/10.4108/airo.8051

 

A solution space partitioning based multi-population method for dynamic optimization

Peng, M., Li, C., Wang, J., Cai, X., Zeng, S. and Yang, S. (2025)

DYNAMIC optimization focuses on solving problems where the search space changes over time. The multi-population method is the most widely used approach for addressing such problems.

Traditional multi-population methods often lack a deep understanding of the problem’s structural characteristics, such as the boundaries of basins of attraction (BoAs), which leads to redundant searches in less promising regions.

Without guidance from these structural features, most populations are regenerated randomly, resulting in inefficient exploration.

https://doi.org/10.1109/TEVC.2025.3597453

 

Transnational education as ecosystem: Rethinking sustainability and equity

Wang, J. (2025)

TRANSNATIONAL education (TNE) continues to expand globally, yet many partnerships remain fragile, short-lived or insufficiently connected to local contexts.

This study argues that TNE must be reimagined not as a transactional delivery model but as a dynamic ecosystem grounded in equity, sustainability and mutual capacity-building.

Drawing on 245 survey responses, 20 stakeholder interviews and more than 1000 regulatory audit findings, the analysis identifies systemic barriers including weak institutional integration, rigid curriculum transfer and fragmented support for students and staff.

https://doi.org/10.1111/hequ.70099