Is the World on Track to achieve Education for All goals?

	Migrant boy cow-guardian, Abalak region, Niger Photo: © Crozet M. - ILO

According to UNESCO's 2005 Education for All Global Monitoring Report, 35 countries are very far from achieving Education for All goals: primary net enrolment, levels of adult literacy, and gender parity in primary school enrolment. More than 60 percent of the countries in this high-risk group are in Sub-Saharan Africa. The high-risk category also includes Bangladesh, India and Pakistan - three E-9 countries!⁶⁷ Less than one third of the 35 countries that are very far from achieving Education for All goals are on the Fast Track list.

Governments can wait, but child laborers cannot wait. Their bodies, minds, and souls are damaged every moment. The promises of world leaders to the world's most disadvantaged children trapped in slavery, and bought and sold, are not just political, but also moral. It is unjust to children who are working instead of going to school not to demand urgent action.

What is needed to ensure Universal Primary Education?
The United Nations calculated that $10-14 billion a year is needed to achieve universal primary education by 2015. Approximately half of this (US$7 billion) must come from donors. This may sound like a lot, but it is less than:

• .02% of global income,
• 4 days of global military spending, and
• what American parents spend on Barbie dolls each year.

In 2000, external aid flows for global basic education totaled some $1.4 billion. UNESCO's 2002 Education for All Global Monitoring Report estimated that an additional $5.6 billion per year in external aid was needed to fill in the financing gap to achieve universal participation in primary education of a reasonable quality and the gender goals by 2015.⁶⁸

Governments need to increase support for primary education and ensure equal distribution of money to rich and poor areas. Once children are in school, governments need to implement strategies to retain children in school, at least until they complete primary education. Governments should also eliminate school fees, build schools closer to housing, and hire more teachers.

Donor countries need to increase their official Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) to .7 percent of their Gross National Income (GNI), as they agreed to do at the International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterey, Mexico, in 2002, and to devote at least 4.14 percent of that aid to basic education.⁶⁹

The Status of Overseas Development Assistance (ODA)
Only five countries currently give .7 percent or more of their Gross National Income in Overseas Development Assistance, or aid. Regrettably, none of the G-7 countries is a member of this 'G-.7' group, which comprises Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Luxembourg.⁷⁰

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⁶⁷ Education for All Global Monitoring Report: The Quality Imperative, UNESCO, France, 2004, p. 137 and 245.
⁶⁸ Education for All Global Monitoring Report: The Quality Imperative, UNESCO, France, 2004, p. 23 and 217.
⁶⁹ Must Try Harder, Global Campaign for Education, 2003, Brussels, Belgium, p. 30.
⁷⁰ Millennium Development Goals, UNDP web site, available from http://www.undp.org/mdg/faqs.html#Canresourcesgap; Internet accessed March 2005.