This paper seeks to take a critical and historical look at the rise and fall of the SDGs, with a particular focus on education. At the core of the argument is that the SDGs (2015–2030), their predecessor the Millennium Development Goals (2000–2015), and the Education for All movement (1990 onwards), were the product of a post-Cold War, neoliberal, development agenda whose framing and logic were constructed in a moment of uni-polar, US-led, Western hegemony, which today is collapsing around us.
