UNESCO’s EFA Global Monitoring Report 2007 Facts and Suggestions

The summary of the EFA Global Monitoring Report 2007 published by UNESCO starts with the following statement: “Time is running out to meet the EFA goals set in 2000. Despite continued overall global progress at the primary level, including for girls, too many children are not in school, drop out early or do not reach minimal learning standards. By neglecting the connections among early childhood, primary and secondary education, and adult literacy, countries are missing opportunities to improve basic education across the board – and, in the process, the prospects of children, youth and adults everywhere.”

The report by title, “Strong Foundations: Early childhood care and education” reviews the progress of EFA goals adopted in Dakar in 2000. The first goal “Expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children” has been dealt with in detail and the report clearly points out measures to be undertaken by Governments and stakeholders to address the goals in order to achieve the desired results.

The following extracts from the Global Monitoring Report 2007 help us to understand the status of general EFA and how the future campaign should proceed:

• The world net enrolment ratio stands at 86%. While grade 1 enrolments rose sharply, too many children who start school still do not reach the last primary grade.
• Data from household surveys show that many children enrolled in school do not attend regularly.
• ECCE staff in developing countries typically have minimal education and pre-service training, and are often relatively poorly remunerated.
• One of the strategies to reach ECCE goal is by “increased and better-targeted public funding of ECCE, with particular attention to poor children, children living in rural areas and those with disabilities.
• The target date for achieving the EFA goals and the Millennium Development Goals is 2015. If all children are to complete a good-quality primary education by then, those of the appropriate age must be enrolled in grade 1 by 2009. For this to happen, both domestic and external spending on basic education must increase to provide more places and more teachers.
• Girls are benefiting from the global upward trend in enrolments.
• Once in school, girls tend to stay there longer and to do as well as or outperform boys.
• Out of roughly 77 million out-of-school children in 2004, 7 million had dropped out of school, 23 million were likely to enroll late and 47 million were unlikely ever to enroll without additional incentives.
• In some countries, households contribute over 40% of total spending on education in the form of costs such as fees, textbooks, uniforms and transport.
• Unsurprisingly, children from rural areas and poor households are most likely to drop out of school early, whatever the child’s gender.
• Amid the growing demand, access to secondary education remains highly inequitable. Marginalized children (the poor, certain ethnic groups, the disabled and, often, girls) are mainly excluded.
• Recent cross-national studies of pupil achievement continue to underscore the fact that students from poorer and culturally excluded families tend to perform less well than those from better-off families belonging to the cultural mainstream.
• Improving the quality of education matters most for children from poor and disadvantaged backgrounds.
• Without sufficient secondary education opportunities, the EFA and Millennium Development Goals of universal completion of good-quality primary education are unlikely to be met.
• Since the late 1990s, major multilateral donors have encouraged governments to develop poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs) as a basis for discussion with donors on policies and programmes.
• Multilateral donors allocated 11.8% of their total aid to education in 2003-2004. Of this, 52% went to basic education. After the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA), the European Commission is the biggest multilateral donor.
• Donor presence is uneven across the world’s seventy-two poorest countries. Ethiopia, Mali, Mozambique and the United Republic of Tanzania each has between ten and twelve donors in the education sector. At the other extreme, thirty-six countries have two donors at most.
• Countries are pursuing efforts to increase the effectiveness of aid, in the spirit of the Declaration on Aid Effectiveness signed by over 100 donors and developing countries in 2005. The Fast Track Initiatives (FTI) is increasingly seen as the principal education sector vehicle, consistent with the declaration.
• Donors are more likely to honour their aid promises if they see evidence that countries are using aid effectively.
• It is all the more important to develop mechanisms with a global focus – such as an improved FTI Catalytic Fund – to channel aid to the countries where the need is greatest.
• With over thirty donors involved, the FTI has become an important coordinating mechanism for donor agencies.
• So far the amounts in the Catalytic Fund remain relatively small and a number of countries have benefited.
• As of August 2006, total donor payments into this fund came to almost US $230 million, though a further US $ 450 million has been pledged to the end of 2007. The Netherlands, the European Commission and the United Kingdom are responsible for 85% of the pledges.
• Disbursements so far amount to only US $ 96 million to eleven countries. The number of donors to the Education Programme Development Fund increased from two to eight over the past year and commitments for 2005-2007 are US $ 46 million, of which almost half is from Norway.
• Worldwide, about 86 of every 1000 children born in recent years will not reach age 5. Every day 1800 children are born infected with HIV.
• Research in diverse places consistently finds that the most disadvantaged children are the ones who draw the greatest benefit from ECCE programmes.
• Noble laureate James Heckman observes, ‘It is a rare public policy initiative that promotes fairness and social justice and at the same time promotes productivity in the economy and in society at large. Investing in disadvantaged young children is such a policy.’
• Some 738 million children – 11% of the total world population – are in the 0 to 5 age group. Their number is expected to reach by 2020.
• Local communities also play a key role in supporting young children and their families through home or community-based child care.
• As many as 85% of all children with special needs live in developing countries where the incidence of sensory problems such as childhood blindness and hearing impairment is disproportionately high.
• For disadvantaged, vulnerable and disabled children, the lack of a national ECCE policy represents a truly missed opportunity. Where ECCE does get attention, it is usually for age 3 and up, so that the opportunities for younger children are also missed.
• Non-government actors – community-based groups, NGOs, faith-based organisations and for-profit entitles – pay a large role in ECCE in many countries.
• ECCE programmes’ greatest potential is among vulnerable and disadvantaged children. But these are precisely the children least likely to have access.
• UPE has captured domestic and international agendas, but governments are not taking public responsibility for adult literacy – a staggering one in five adults lives without basic literacy skills – and ECCE.

The report ends with a caution, which is as follows: “EFA requires a more comprehensive approach and more sustained efforts. We must not let interest and momentum flag. EFA means education for all, not just education for some. It means all six goals, not just those related to primary school. It means paying particular attention to the early years, when effective steps to offset disadvantage can be taken at lowest cost, and when strong foundations are most easily laid. Failing the youngest generation today not only violates their rights, it also sows the seeds of deeper poverty and inequalities tomorrow. The challenges are clear, the agenda too. The time for action is now.”

“EFA means education for all, not just education for some” is really the concern of organisations such as the International Council for Education of Persons with Visual Impairment (ICEVI) and the World Blind Union (WBU), which reiterate that the education for all campaign should include children with visual impairment too. With this view, ICEVI acting in partnership with the WBU has launched a global campaign on education for all children with visual impairment (EFA-VI), which will work within the overall EFA framework in countries.