Primary education
Photo: A.M. Ahad / driknews
The Education for All Global Monitoring Report, 2010 has turned the spotlight on substantive questions of quality of teaching and learning. The report sponsored by UNESCO points out that in a large number of developing and least developed countries, the cognitive development of children remains below requisite minimum levels. Approximately 103.5 million children are still out-of-school and less than 75 per cent of those who enrol continue up to grade five in many countries. Some 800 million adults are illiterate. Seventy per cent of them live in nine countries belonging to sub-Saharan Africa and East and South Asia, notably, Bangladesh. While access to education has expanded and spending increased in recent years, the 2005 report observes, this has not been matched by an expansion of resources and facilities in these countries. Currently, international aid to basic education is estimated to be $1.5 billion a year. It is reckoned that an additional $7.6 billion in international assistance is required annually to achieve universal primary education by 2015. Recent pledges indicate that there will be a major shortfall. Nothing reveals the mismatch between stated intentions and actual practice more starkly than the global expenditure on defence. In a scenario where trade rather than aid defines relations with the industrialised world, developing countries need to build the political will to commit major additional resources to priority sectors such as basic education and public health.
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