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Pakistan, India unlikely to achieve education for all

LONDON: Pakistan, China, Bangladesh and India, home to 61 per cent of world's illiterate's adults, will not be able to achieve 'Education For All' (EFA) by 2015 unless special efforts are made, said a Global Monitoring Report here on Wednesday.

The 2002 "Education For All Global Monitoring Report: Is the World on Track" was launched at a press conference by Prof. Christopher Colclough, an eminent British education expert at UN Information Centre here today. It is prepared by an independent, international team based at UNESCO in Paris as part of the follow-up to the Dakar Forum and is funded jointly by UNESCO, unilateral and bilateral agencies.

Prof. Christopher Colclough explained the salient features of the report which has set six EFA goals at the Dakar Forum a few years back which are, to ensure that all children of primary school age would have access to and complete free schooling of acceptable quality, the gender disparities in schooling to be eliminated. Its aims include that levels of adult literacy would be halved, early childhood care and education would be expanded, learning opportunities for youth and adults would be greatly increased and all aspects of education quality would be improved.

He said 31 nations including Pakistan, China, Bangladesh and India would not be able to achieve these targets by 2015, given the current level of progress being made by them to realize the same.

A world wide extra allocation, especially in Sub-Sahara, Pakistan and India of $5.6 billion per year, would be required to achieve these goals, said the British expert.

But in fact the allocation and aid for educational sector from the developed world and international donors have fallen by 16 per cent during the past decade, he added.

Colclough said universal primary education was unlikely to be achieved by at least 57 countries. Forty-one of these countries including some Central and East European nations, have even been even moving backwards.

The goal of gender parity was supposed to have been met by 2005. The report points out that girls enrolment improved in all regions during the 1990's, 86 countries have already achieved gender parity and another 35 are close to doing so.

According to the report, 28 countries account for 26 per cent of the world's population, may not achieve any of three measurable goals, which are universal primary education, gender equality, and the halving of illiteracy rates. Two third of these countries are in Sub-Saharan Africa, but these included Pakistan and India. Another 43 countries, constituting 35.6 percent of the world's population, risk falling short of at least one of the three goals. Prof. Colclough said many countries were making good progress towards the goals set at the Dakar Forum but still others have to do a lot more. It said that almost one third of the world's population live in countries where achieving the education for all goals remain a dream, he added. He said, besides introduction of educational reforms, increased budgetary allocation would be required to achieve these goals. However, he said, increased external aid will also be required to generate the financial resources for promotion of education for all. —APP

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