Have you noticed that the “back-to-school” shopping frenzy is in full swing? Do you happen to know any children who are dragging their heels at the thought of going back to school?
Unlike their lucky, even-if-they-don’t-know-it Canadian counterparts, there are 113 million kids who would just love to, but won’t be, heading off to school at the beginning of September.
Despite the substantial progress made in the push to achieve universal primary education, about one seventh of the world’s children between the ages of six and eleven are not in school, and 875 million adults remain functionally illiterate in developing countries.
For the children, two-thirds of whom are girls, an education would provide long-term economic benefits and improve productivity in rural and urban self-employment. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), education results in a clear economic payoff, boosting output per capita by 4 to 7 per cent for each year of schooling (in OECD countries). As well, education has as a powerful synergistic effect on other developmental goals. Education is linked to better health, empowerment, good governance, and promotes sounder management of environmental resources.
This is true for all children, but for girls, education has been found to be even more crucial. Girls who receive a primary education are more likely to marry later, space their pregnancies, have fewer and healthier children and lower maternal mortality rates, understand personal hygiene, and send their own children to school.
“Education is the single highest yielding investment that a developing country can make” according to research by the World Bank.
The goal of education for all has been spelled-out, established, and agreed-to a number of times. At the World Conference on Education for All in Jomtien, Thailand in 1990, participants, including Canada, pledged to provide primary education for all children by the end of the decade. This did not happen.
In 2000, in Dakar, Canada and the other participants of the World Education Forum set the goal of eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005 and ensuring that by 2015 all children, particularly girls, have access to a complete, free and compulsory primary education of good quality. Canada has again affirmed these goals as part of our commitment to the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Susan Whelan, the Minister for International Cooperation said, “The challenge is immense, and time is of the essence if we are to meet our goal” (of quality universal primary education for all by 2015) when the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) quadrupled its investment in basic education, for a total expenditure of $555 million for the period 2000 -2005.
Unfortunately, according to a recent report from UNESCO, at least 28 countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa but also including India and Pakistan, are at serious risk of not achieving any of the goals for primary net enrolment, adult literacy or gender parity in primary enrolment.
CIDA has acknowledged that “ultimately, progress toward the full realization of Education for All will be apparent in both quantitative and qualitative measures” and recent research from the Institute of Development Studies reinforced this concept by noting “that achievement of the MDGs will require more than just increases in expenditure on primary education.”
As the world is not on track to achieve universal primary education, Canada will obviously need to review the quantitative and qualitative measures they have set to decide now whether or not we are fulfilling our portion of the commitments we have made to gender equity by 2005 and universal access by 2015. If we, and other donor countries, are not each prepared to accept the responsibility for ensuring that a specific proportion of the goals are achieved, for instance a certain number of girls receiving a quality primary education, then it will not be surprising if these goals that we have so often committed to verbally are never realized.
An education is a fundamental right that not only allows for the growth of human mind, but also provides an effective way of achieving higher economic growth and social well-being. As Nelson Mandela said, “Education is the most powerful weapon that you can use to change the world.”
