MDG2 Digest 1

“Education… should never be an accident of circumstance. Nor is it a privilege to be distributed on the basis of wealth, gender, race, ethnicity or language,”    – UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Overall, access to schools in developing countries have improved since 1990. Around 47 out of 163 countries have achieved universal primary education and an additional 20 countries are estimated to be on track to achieve this by 2015. Enrollment in primary education has risen to 89% from the 82% that was recorded in 1990.

Unfortunately, the pace of progress is not sufficient to ensure that by 2015, every boy and girl will have completed primary school. There are still 44 countries, most of which are in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, which are not on track and have huge obstacles to overcome.

The 2015 cut off date is no longer feasible for these countries since all children at the official entry age for primary school would have had to be attending classes by 2009 in order for it to be realized. Sadly, in half of the sub-Saharan African countries with available data, at least one in four children of primary-school age were out of school in 2008 and more than 30% dropped out before reaching the final grade.

Click here for the EFA Global Monitoring Report

Despite this, the progress achieved has been significant – it means that if the world’s primary-school-age population remains constant or decreases between 2000 and 2005, the number of children out of primary school may be below 100 million for the first time since this data has been recorded.

A recurring point which comes up when discussing any of the MDGs is the trustworthiness of statistics. Numbers are imperative when comparing and evaluating progress and change, but they comes with its own set of problems. The year 1990 is used as a baseline with which to measure advances in the MDGs, but in many less developed or developing countries, the data is often simply unavailable. Also, when it comes to the MDG indicators, it often can’t be compared across countries or time periods. For example, trying to compile literacy rates might require difference concepts and standards in South Asia than it does in Eastern Europe. This also applies to international and national methodology. International official data sources, such as the World Bank, UNESCO, or UNICEF often differ from national level data. These differences and inconsistencies can often result in problems and incompatible information.

Click here for the Measuring the Millennium Development Indicators Report

There are a number of issues that are strongly linked with disadvantages in education.

The recent global food crisis and financial crisis has affected and left aftershocks that continue to affect the education process in a number of different ways. Though the poverty rate has fallen worldwide, the number of hungry people has risen. According to a 2009 report by the FAO, by the end of 2008, the prices of domestic staple foods of a large group of developing countries rose on an average of 24% than two years before. This has a devastating effect on the goal of universal primary education. Money allocated for schooling takes a backseat to the more pressing need for food, or in the context of public policy, financing budgets for schools and teachers are reassessed and cut back. As a result of this, there aren’t enough teachers, materials or classrooms to meet demand. Presently, in sub-Saharan Africa, the number of new teacher needed to meet the target in 2015 equals the current amount of teachers presently working. 

Click here for The 2010 Millennium Development Goals Report.

Elements of corruption in the education field that can retard the progress of universal education. This is an unfortunate problem that can be found in a lot of developing countries. These include teacher absenteeism, poor quality of instructors and instruction, and deficient information and resource flow. The Africa Development Indicators Report submitted by the World Bank found that in Uganda, only 13% of resources intended for schools were reaching their destination in 1990. In Tanzania and Uganda, a survey showed that that more than half the teachers were absent one day in the previous week and about a quarter of teachers were absent for two or more days.

Click here for Africa Development Indicators 2010

Conflict is a major hurdle in the education process. All around the world, nearly 14 million children are being displaced within countries or across borders by conflict Other than the impact on school attendance and rudimentary learning facilities are the effects of trauma caused by armed conflict on a child’s ability to learn. In 2008 and 2009, Israeli military actions in Gaza resulted in the deaths of 164 students and 12 teachers, and severely damaged or destroyed 280 schools and kindergartens. In an area where 69% of adolescents were already reported as experiencing post-traumatic stress, many more children returned to school carrying with them the effects of anxiety and emotional shock.

An important facet of achieving this particular MDG is for children of both sexes to be able to obtain primary education. The percentage of girls who are out of school as compared to boys has dropped from 57% to 53% between 1999 to 2008. However, this percentage applies globally. In certain areas, the gender gap is much wider. In Northern Africa, 66% of those out of school are girls. There are a number of factors that have a part to play in gender inequality. Poverty contributes to this tremendously. The UN MDG 2010 report highlights that 20% of girls in poverty stricken households have the least chance of getting an education; they are 3.5 times more likely to be out of school than girls in the richest households and four times than boys.

Social and cultural disadvantages are another strong link to the slump in education. In a lot of areas, the education of girls is valued a lot less than that of boys. In Malawi, a disabled child is twice as unlikely to every attend school. Livelihoods and location are also linked with social disadvantage in education. Pastoralists in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa have poor primary education because their livelihoods require traveling long distances. Slums are also prime for education deprivation. The reasons for this not only stem from poverty but because a lot of governments do not provide slum dwellers with legal rights which are required to establish an entitlement to education.

At the Gleneagles Summit in 2005, donor countries pledged to increase total aid to $130 billion by 2010, but the estimates from the OECD shows that this target will be missed by some $18 billion. For the first time since, aid towards basic education stagnated at $4.7 billion in 2008 from 2007 while only $2 billion of this aid went to the poorest countries compared to the $16 billion in aid required annually for these countries to meet their basic education goals by 2015. Their pledge made to double aid to Africa will also remain unfulfilled. It will only get half what was promised while aid decreased from $1.72 billion in 2007 to $1.65 billion in 2008. This represents a 4% drop and taking into account the increased enrolment in primary schools, a 7% reduction in aid per primary school pupil.

However while there are stories of failure or problems, there are still many success stories that give hope.

Millennium Villages provides nutritious meals to school children in Africa to promote attendance and promote nutrition, resulting in better school performance. The introduction of school meals has resulted in increased enrolment of 45% in participating Ugandan and Senegalese villages, and of 43% in Ghanaian villages. In addition, the villages were provided with farming subsidies, with the agreement that parents would contribute 10% of the surplus crop to the School Meals programme, which not only helps to sustain the programme, but also establishes local ownership.

Click here for link to the news report.

In Burundi, primary school enrollment increased three-fold after school fees were abolished by the government. Before the elimination of fees, many parents could not afford the $1.50 a year expense to send their children to school, especially if they had several children since many only earned $1 a day. This move resulted in 99% enrollment in 2008.

Click here for link to the news report.

Despite all the challenges and setbacks, a lot of good has been accomplished since the MDGs were set up in 2000. Though enrolment into primary school in sub-Saharan Africa is the lowest of all regions, it did increase from 58% to 76% between 1999 and 2008. In Southern Asia and Northern Africa, enrolment also increased significantly—11% and 8% respectively. Even if the target set for 2015 can’t be reached, the number of children our of school has decreased drastically—from 106 million in 1999 to 69 million in 2008.

Azalea Lee, July 2010