Achieve Universal primary education
Target 3: Ensure that by 2015 children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.
Progress
87% of children of official primary school age are enrolled in primary education but pace is too slow to achieve to ensure that, globally, children will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling by 2015.
The global primary net enrolment ratio (NER) increased from 82% in 1999 to 87% in 2007.
72 million primary school age children remain out of school. Seven out of ten of these children live in sub-Saharan Africa or South and West Asia.
Recent progress in getting children into school has benefited girls in particular, with 96 girls in school for every 100 boys in 2007 compared with 92 in 1999. Significant gender disparities remain in West Asia, Oceania and sub-Saharan Africa, where respectively 90, 89 and 90 girls are enrolled in primary school for every 100 boys.
Key issues
- Education is a basic human right and should be made available to everyone.
- Pace is too slow to achieve the MDG target of ensuring that, globally, children will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling by 2015.
- The quality of schooling and levels of learning achievement remain major issues everywhere and can have a crucial impact on the frequency and duration of school attendance.
- Educating girls and women has particular benefits for the health and prosperity of developing countries. For example in Africa, children of mothers who received five years of primary education are 40 per cent more likely to live beyond age five.
- An increasing proportion of the children remaining out of school are classified as ‘hard to reach’ and interventions to reach them will be more costly and challenging.
Facts and figures
- Globally, 693 million primary aged children are enrolled in school. But there are still around 72 million primary aged children who are not enrolled in school.
- Girls’ net enrolment ratio (NER) in primary school (as a proportion of boys’ NER) has improved from a global average of 88% in 1991 to 97% in 2006.
- Abolishing primary school user fees in Malawi, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya has helped more than one million extra children to enrol in primary school, in each country.
- More than 10.3 million teachers will be needed between 2007-2015 to provide every child with a quality primary education.
- It is estimated that at least US$9.8 billion aid is needed annually to achieve the UPE and gender goals alone.
Challenges and solutions
There is a need for significantly increased investment to improve access to all levels of schooling. Direct aid commitments for basic education increased from US$3.2 billion in 2000 to US$4.3 billion in 2007 and peaked in 2006 at US$5.5 billion. Additional financial investment needs to be within the framework of an overall National Development Strategy, such as a Poverty Reduction Strategy, and tied to a coherent education sector wide approach. Non-state providers of education, including religious organisations and the private sector, can make an important contribution.
Even with additional finance there are still nine main challenges that are hampering access to education:
Fragile States
Over half of primary aged children not in school live in Fragile States where the government is either unwilling or unable to deliver services. Many of these states are conflict affected.
Post-primary education
Greater investment is also needed in secondary, tertiary and vocational education, lifelong learning and skills; in order to increase the ability of governments and the private sector to deliver basic services and to promote sustainable growth.
Gender disparities
In many countries, girls are still given fewer opportunities than boys to complete primary school and enrol in secondary schools.
HIV/Aids
The prevalence of HIV and AIDS, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, reduces the numbers of experienced teachers and forcing children, especially girls, to drop out of school to care for sick family members. Education plays a significant role in the prevention of HIV.
Cost
Costs have a significant impact on whether and which children are educated. Costs can include: tuition fees, PTA fees, uniforms, text books, teachers’ fees, school construction and transportation.
Quality
The education received is often of a poor quality and fails to give pupils the skills and knowledge they need to help lift them and their society out of poverty. Retention and completion rates often reflect the state of learning achievement.
Drop-out rates
Getting children to school is one thing, keeping them there is quite another. In sub-Saharan Africa, less than two thirds of pupils reach the last grade in the majority of countries.
Exclusion/Access
All children, including those with disabilities or living in difficult circumstances, must have equal access to a good quality basic education.
Climate change
Climate change has the potential to erode progress in universal primary education. Extreme weather events will damage education infrastructure and disrupt learning. Reconstruction efforts will mean that education funding is focused on rebuilding to maintain base levels of provision rather than investing overall systems improvement.
In the longer-term climate change could result in deterioration in family income impacting on school enrolment and retention. Education has an important role in preparing new generations for the emerging economic and environmental challenges.
What the UK government is doing to help
DFID is providing bilateral support to education programmes in over 30 developing countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia.
The UK announced in April 2006 that it will increase its support for education to at least £8.5 billion over the next ten years. This will increase our spending to £1 billion a year by 2010.
The UK’s contribution is part of a wider donor community’s efforts to get behind agreed country processes and existing funding mechanisms. We use every opportunity to remind our G8 partners and other donors to fulfil their promises to help achieve the education goals by 2015. This helped secure the recent French commitment to support eight million children in school in Africa by 2010, the European Union commitment of €4.3 billion for education by 2010 and G8 commitments to meet the Education for All Fast Track Initiative shortfalls, estimated at US$1 billion in 2008.
On the 25th September 2008 the Education Partnership event brought together governments, multilaterals, civil society organisations, faith groups, private sector and FIFA to launch the “Class of 2015” to help accelerate progress in achieving the education and gender MDGs. The event delivered over $4.5 billion of pledges and commitments for education and the UK supported the Global Campaign for Education in making it a success.
DFID has already made ten year announcements for education in Mozambique (£46m), Ghana (£105m), Ethiopia (£240m) and Tanzania (£260m).
Sources
- UNESCO Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2008
- UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) UIS (will appear in the Education For All Global Monitoring Report 2009)
- UNICEF “The State of the World’s Children” (2004)
- UN MDG Report 2008
- UNESCO Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2006
- UNESCO Institute for Statistics Teachers and Educational Quality: Monitoring Global Needs for 2015 (2006)
- UNESCO Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2002
- For more information on Fragile States, please see DFID’s recent paper, “Why we need to work more effectively in fragile States”
- DFID Departmental Report 2006