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The global financial crisis – another step back for Education for All?
While the financial crisis is still prominent in the headlines, the fact that 75 million children are out of school worldwide remains a silent emergency, says Kevin Watkins, Director of the Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report. He talks to EduInfo about the 2009 report and how the economic crisis will impact on the 2015 EFA goals.
“It will be a sad indictment of rich countries if the way they cope with the financial crisis is to load the cost onto the world’s poor instead of tackling inequalities,” says Kevin Watkins as UNESCO launches the 2009 edition of the Global Monitoring Report at the International Conference on Education in Geneva later this month.
At the World Education Forum in Dakar in 2000, the international community made commitments to achieve six Education for All goals by 2015. Donor countries pledged that no country would want for financial support in meeting those goals. Although remarkable progress has been made in some corners of the world, a ‘business as usual’ approach will mean the targets are missed and the financial squeeze can only make things worse.
One of the key messages of the 2009 Report, subtitled, “Overcoming inequality: why governance matters,” is that the goal of Education for All by 2015 will not be met unless governments work to reduce massive inequalities in society.
“The international community has a long and undistinguished history in setting targets and not keeping them and low-income countries are not spending enough on education.
All governments say they are committed to Education for All but fail to tackle persistent inequalities based on wealth, location, gender, race, ethnicity, language and disability,” said Mr Watkins.
“Education reforms are not reducing inequalities. Often governments have a poverty plan and an education plan and no bridge between them. Education has to be integrated into a wider poverty reduction strategy.”
In South Asia, several high-population countries continue to spend under or just over 3 per cent of their GNP on education.
Aid to basic education, meanwhile, is stagnating. It needs to triple to reach the estimated $11 billion required annually to finance a narrow range of goals in low-income countries.
“The amounts of money needed to fund EFA goals in low-income countries are very small in relation to the financial crisis. Most recent figures suggest that governments need to spend 1½ trillion dollars to stabilise financial systems,” he said.
When donors do make aid to education a priority, it does not always reach those who need it most.
“Aid is not always going where it should. Some countries give the large part of their aid to low-income countries but others direct theirs to sponsoring students in their own countries,” he said.
The Report documents success stories too.
“Remarkable progress has been made towards some of the EFA goals with some of the world’s poorest countries demonstrating that political leadership and practical policies make a difference,” he said. “Who would have said six years ago that Tanzania would get anywhere near universal primary education by 2015?”
Ethiopia had cut the numbers of out-of-school children by about 3 million since 1999 and had built 6000 schools in mostly rural areas since 1997 thanks to increased public spending on education. Bangladesh had reached gender parity in primary and secondary education and special measures like scholarship programmes have increased the enrolment of girls and low-caste children.
The report also details how girls remain disadvantaged when it comes to access to education and the differences in access at primary and secondary education level.
The report stresses the part good governance has to play in progress. To move forward on the EFA agenda, Governments need to:
• Increase financial resources allocated to education
• Target the poor with social protection programmes
• Establish pro-poor governance
• Phase out education fees
• Create incentives for enrolling and retaining disadvantaged children
Ground roots projects like the Bolsa Familia (Family Fund) scheme in Brazil makes cash transfers to poor families allowing them to nourish their children in return for making sure they go to school. The broad consensus among experts is that children who suffer malnutrition not only suffer immediate health risks but suffer long term handicaps into primary school.
“All countries develop differently but when countries and donors are committed to make it happen, universal primary education is a lot less difficult to achieve than restabilising the global financial system,” he said.
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