Enabling ‘Quality Society’ through quality education for sustainable development

The United Nations’ Agenda 2030 for sustainable development is the action plan with the ambitious goals and targets for transforming our world. According to UNESCO, education for everybody is at the heart of the sustainable development, and quality of the education is imperative. Sustainability and sustainable development are ambiguous concepts, and the whole is difficult to discern. Here in this article, we examine them comprehensively and systematically and clarify their elements and relationship in the broader concept of 'quality society'. Quality of the society and education, are dealt with in the professional and standardized way. Great variety of possibilities for formal, non-formal and informal education are available in our societies. Although certain organizations of the society have a strong influence on the prevailing situation and its development, ultimately the education and learning, and also the sustainable development of the society depend on people and their activity. Universities have the special role in the development of civilization towards the advanced human society and the high level of culture, science, industry, and government. Development of the society takes place in the local communities, municipalities, countries, regions and in the whole world. Fast and versatile technical implementations and urbanization set particular requirements on the educational solutions and societal development.


Introduction
The United Nations' Agenda 2030 [1]  which we understand as a part of quality management.
Quality society and quality education and learning cannot happen by chance, but it requires a consistent and systematic approach. In this article, quality of the society and education are dealt in the professional and standardized way.

Education and learning
During their whole lifetime people's learning takes place as individuals and members of different organizations and societies through the formal, non-formal and informal education and learning provided by our society: • General education from kindergartens and primary schools to universities: Preparing for becoming and growing as a member of society and the citizenship, and contributing to the working life in the society and the world.
• Training and education of young people in vocational schools: Preparing for an occupation and profession for the needs and expectations of the society and its organizations, and person's career development.
• Training and education in adult education centres: Getting specialized knowledge and skills for citizenship and wellbeing.  The early definitions of sustainability emphasized human aspects.
Later the focus has shifted more to the organizational questions, business advantages and challenges [14], and collaboration [15]. In general, this trend is strongly highlighted in the widely referenced and used three pillars [16]  Recently also many other areas, viewpoints and methodological tools [19] are linked together with sustainability including corporate social responsibility [20], risks [21] and resilience [22]. Also, the • Ecology (*) • Economy (*) and efficiency and cost of poor quality Sustainable development pillars (*) are here included in the concept of quality as the subset.
Societies are scale-free networks [24]; they are unplanned and emergent entities, and their growth is sporadic and self-organizing.
Each actor of the society can impact in the network and its

The professional quality approaches
The most central general concepts, quality and quality management, form the basis of the professional quality approach. They are suitable also when considering the quality of society and quality of education and learning.
Quality experts have during circa 100 years presented different definitions for the concept of quality, which also has led to methodological fragmentation in practical quality implementations.
For instance, the recognized report of UNESCO [25] considers quality in the education sector from many different and significant viewpoints, but the definition of the concept itself has left unclear. professionally. This definition is used around the world and in millions of organizations and it has been developed collaboratively during more than 30 years by the international experts. According to this definition, the quality of an object means the degree to which the object fulfils the needs and expectations of all those parties being interested in the object [27]. In another article we have justified that this definition is valid and advisable also from the scientific point of view [28]. This definition of the concept of quality is very suitable even in the context of society, education and learning.
Quality management is defined as management of the organization with regard to quality [29]. Quality management is the professional way to get quality related measures implemented in practice in organizations. It is not any separate function but seamlessly integrated with the general management of the organizations.
Quality management is also the framework to realize sustainable development and its result sustainability.
Quality improvement is an important part of quality management, and it is defined as increasing abilities to meet the needs and expectations of the interested parties [30]. In the organizations, quality improvement particularly consists of the performance improvement of the business processes and products. According to the conceptual definition, quality improvement is closely related to human and organizational learning and innovation, and this same can also be inferred from the practical experiences [31].
In the case of education and learning, the object of quality consists of all outcomes of the education providing organization. Education providers have many different interested parties, but the teacher and student are the most important ones. Quality of the education implies satisfaction of both the learner and the teacher. Quality of learning is to fulfil the learner's needs and expectations for his/her satisfaction, although all the needs and expectations cannot be explicitly articulated. Quality is a person's subjective combination of rational, non-rational (emotional), and irrational (spiritual) perceptions.

Conclusion
The United Nations has set very ambitious multi-dimensional goals globally for the sustainable development of the societies. However, conceptually sustainable development is too vague for the overall governance of the subject. Hence, this article brings up the broader concept of the 'quality society', which takes into account the society as a whole and in particular highlights the degree to which the needs and expectations of society's members and other stakeholders are being fulfilled. Society is a network that is not managed, but all of the network members, particularly different organizations, have their inherent potential to influence on the society's positive development.
It is a matter of culture and civilization, how willingly and efficiently organizations are committed to social responsibility and take account of sustainable development and the quality of society in their own activities. The governing bodies and authorities of the society can promote this with appropriate incentives and restrictions.
Societies develop in terms of quality and sustainability through the learning of the society-members and through the diffusion effect.
However, ultimately the awareness, attitude, know-how and action of people of all ages is crucial. Increasing awareness is achieved through many-sided formal, non-formal and informal education and lifelong learning, whereby the quality of education is imperative.