We think we can all agree on the urgent need to come up with better data and better coverage to track and monitor education goals – a need that has been intensified by the SDG 4 agenda. This agenda does not demand indicators that are necessarily more ‘difficult’ in some fundamental way. For every indicator or measurement issue, there is a model instrument or measurement tool that has been tried in the past and that could be adapted or scaled up. But the new agenda means that the task ahead is much bigger, given the demand for more nuanced data to track progress on the SDGs.