Research | What Children Want

Without access to any government index, children's aggregate visual priorities independently mapped onto India's weakest measured SDGs, its unmeasured goals, and in one case, pointed beneath a strong aggregate score to institutional realities it did not capture. 

"They had no access to the data. They simply drew what they lived." 

The NITI Aayog SDG India Index 2018 and 11,170 children's drawings were produced independently and contemporaneously. When compared with a subset of 449 artworks, children's Top 6 SDG priorities corresponded with India's weakest measured goals, its unmeasured goals, and concealed deficits — across three distinct tiers.

This alignment cannot be attributed to anchoring, framing, or selection effects. It arises independently from both ends — making it an Independent Convergence Finding.

Three Convergence Tiers (Refer to table below.)

Tier 1 — Confirmed deficits  ·  SDG 5, SDG 9, SDG 11 — India's three weakest goals

Tier 2 — Marginal performance  ·  SDG 3 — lower-half Performer

Tier 3 — Beyond the Index  ·  SDG 12 — not measured at all in 2018

Analytical observation: SDG 16 — Front Runner score concealing justice deficits.