Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2008 – UNESCO – Girls & Women
Author: Womens UN Report Network
Date: November 26, 2007
WUNRN
“Girls
still account for 60% of out-of-school children in the Arab States and 66% in
South and West Asia. Projections show that on current trends the goal of
eliminating gender disparities at both primary and secondary levels will be
missed in 2015 in over 90 countries out of 172.”
UNESCO Education for All – Global Monitoring
Report 2008
EDUCATION FOR ALL
BY 2015:
WILL WE MAKE IT?
Just released!
A mid-term assessment of where the world stands on its commitment to provide
basic education for all children, youth and adults by 2015.
What education policies and programmes have been successful? What are the main
challenges? How much aid is needed? Is aid being properly targeted?
Summary Report FR – SP – CH – RU
Education
for All on the Right Track Finds Global Monitoring Report 2008 Launched By
UNESCO
The
number of children starting primary school has increased sharply since 2000,
there are more girls in school than ever before and spending on education and
aid has risen. That’s the good news, according to the sixth edition of the
Education for All Global Monitoring Report, released by UNESCO today. But on
the down side, poor quality, the high cost of schooling and persisting high
levels of adult illiteracy are undermining the chances of achieving education
for all* by 2015.
“We are steering the right course
but as education systems expand, they face more complex and more specific challenges,”
says Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO. “The latest EFA report
clearly identifies these challenges: reaching the most vulnerable and
disadvantaged, improving learning conditions, and increasing aid”
“At this midway point, our assessment leans towards the positive but much more
remains to be done if the goals are to be met by their target date of 2015.
Countries and regions farthest from education for all have moved ahead much
faster than in the 1990s,” says Nicholas Burnett, director of the 2008 report
and recently appointed UNESCO Assistant Director General for Education. “Good
national policies and higher domestic spending supported by external aid are
clearly making a difference to the lives of millions of children, for example in
Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, India, Mozambique, United Republic of Tanzania, Yemen
and Zambia.”
The report shows that primary school enrolment increased by 36% in sub-Saharan
Africa and 22% in South and West Asia between 1999 and 2005. Governments in 14
countries abolished primary school tuition fees, a measure that has favoured
access for the most disadvantaged. Worldwide, the number of out-of-school
children dropped sharply from 96 million in 1999 to 72 million in 2005.
Countries where primary school enrolments rose sharply generally increased
their education spending as a share of GNP. Public expenditure on education
increased by over 5% annually in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia,
the two regions farthest from achieving Education for All.
Between 1999 and 2005, 17 additional countries achieved gender parity in
primary education, with equal numbers of boys and girls attending school. These
include Ghana, Senegal, Malawi, Mauritania and Uganda; 19 reached parity at
secondary level, including Bolivia, Peru and Viet Nam. As a result, gender
parity in education was achieved in 63% of countries at the primary level and
37% at secondary in 2005.
Aid to basic education in low-income countries more than doubled between 2000
and 2004 before falling back in 2005. In 2005, low-income countries received
US$2.3 billion for basic education, up fromUS$1.6 billion in 1999.
Yet despite this encouraging progress, the finish line remains distant. The
Education for All Development Index (EDI), calculated for 129 countries, shows
that 25 are far from achieving EFA. About two-thirds of these are in
sub-Saharan Africa, but Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Mauritania, Morocco and
Pakistan are also included. (The report cautions that the number of
low-achieving countries would be larger if data were available for all
countries, including conflict or post-conflict countries with low levels of
education development.)
Fifty-three countries are in an intermediate position. In this group,
participation rates in primary education are often high, but the EDI value is
pulled down by low education quality or low adult literacy levels. In addition,
based on projections from current trends, 58 of the 86 countries that have not
reached universal primary education will not achieve it by 2015.
Meanwhile girls still account for 60% of out-of-school children in the Arab
States and 66% in South and West Asia. Projections show that on current trends
the goal of eliminating gender disparities at both primary and secondary levels
will be missed in 2015 in over 90 countries out of 172. (In a number of them,
however, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean, and in North America
and Western Europe, this is because girls outnumber boys in secondary
education.)
Cost continues to limit access. Despite constitutional provisions in most
countries guaranteeing free primary education, a majority of children in public
primary schools face some type of charge, sometimes representing up to
one-third of household income.
Poor education quality is a global issue that is gaining increased policy
attention. Among developing countries in particular, the challenge to improve
quality involves addressing high drop-out rates, weak pupil performance,
teacher shortage and insufficient instructional time. Although the proportion
has improved slightly since 1999, less than 63% of pupils reached the last
grade of primary school in 17 sub-Saharan African countries with data, while
under 80% did so in half the countries of South and West Asia. In several
African countries fewer than half the pupils who start primary school reach the
last grade. Furthermore, national learning assessments from several developing
countries find that up to 40% of students do not reach minimum achievement
standards in language and mathematics.
To cope with enrolment increases, most developing regions face the need to hire
new teachers. Overall the world will need more than 18 million new primary
education teachers by 2015. Sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia and the Pacific and
South and West Asia will each require nearly four million new primary school
teachers.
Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa rely widely on contract teachers to fill
the shortage. Sometimes accounting for more than 50% of all teachers, they
typically receive less training and lower pay than their civil service
counterparts. The report calls for policies to upgrade and professionalize
untrained contract teachers and, in the long run, to integrate them into one
career stream.
The report regrets that national governments and donors have emphasized formal
primary schooling at the expense of early childhood and adult literacy
programmes. These programmes have a direct impact on achieving universal
primary education and gender parity, and more broadly on poverty reduction.
Children from the poorest backgrounds are those who stand to benefit most from
early childhood care and education programmes. Despite measures in many
countries to expand access to pre-primary education, participation levels
remain below 20% in the Arab States and sub-Saharan Africa, and under 40% in
South and West Asia on average.
Governments, the report finds, are also neglecting adult literacy: worldwide
774 million adults – nearly 1 in 5 – lack basic literacy skills. More than
three-quarters live in only 15 countries. Women’s literacy in particular has a
strong influence on a child’s education and health yet they still account for
64% of adults who are not literate worldwide. On current trends 72 out of 101
countries for which projections were calculated will not succeed in halving
adult literacy rates by 2015.
External financing for basic education remains far short of the US$11 billion
required annually to reach EFA in low-income countries. It is insufficiently
targeted to countries of sub-Saharan Africa and to countries facing conditions
of fragility. France, Germany, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom
are the five largest donors to education but the first three allocate less than
one-third of their education aid to the basic level. The report states that too
many donors are putting excessive priority on post-secondary.
Most countries that have achieved EFA or are close to doing so are in North
America and Europe but this category also includes Argentina, Brunei
Darussalam, Bahrain, Mexico and the Republic of Korea. Norway tops the
Education for All Development Index followed by United Kingdom, Slovenia,
Sweden, the Republic of Korea and Italy.
*The EFA Global Monitoring Report is an annual
publication prepared by an independent team based at UNESCO. It monitors
progress towards the six Education for All goals adopted in Dakar, Senegal in
2000:
1) expand and improve early childhood care and education
2) provide free and compulsory universal primary education by 2015
3) equitable access to learning and life-skills programmes
4) achieve a 50% improvement in adult literacy rates
5) eliminate gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005 and
at all levels by 2015
6) improve all aspects of the quality of education
UNESCO as the lead coordinating agency for the Education for All movement is
mobilizing and harmonizing international efforts by governments, development
agencies, civil society, non-government organizations and the media, to reach
these goals.
================================================================
To leave the list, send your request by email to:
wunrn_listserve-request@lists.wunrn.com. Thank you.
Categories: Releases