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Education News
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FTI Announces $303m in grants for schooling |
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 21 May 2010 The Education for All Fast Track Initiative (EFA FTI) announced grants totaling US$303 million to Ethiopia, Lao PDR, Liberia, Malawi and Togo. These grants which are focused on approximately five million out-of-school children will support programs to enroll children into school, help them complete their education and improve the quality of learning. The grant decisions were made at the EFA FTI meetings on May 7 in Washington, DC.
Read more..
Ethiopia was granted US$98 million for the period 2010 – 2012. The main focus of the Ethiopia education sector program is to improve the quality of primary and secondary education and to increase access. It supports teacher training programs, curriculum reform, textbook production and dissemination, the revision of learning assessment processes, school improvement programs and the implementation of a school grant system.
A grant of US$90 million was allocated to Malawi for its national education plan which will increase equal access to primary school for the country’s poorest children. With immensely crowded classrooms – on average one hundred children per classroom— Malawi will use the grant for constructing and renovating schools. The grant will also provide direct support to disadvantaged children including HIV/AIDS orphans. An innovative Open Distance Learning program will help recruit and train 12,000 teachers in rural areas.
Togo’s grant of US$45 million will support education activities for the years 2010 – 2013. Togo will build 815 new classrooms and facilities with access for children with disabilities, and latrines with water access (critical for girls’ attendance) in both rural and urban areas. Textbooks in core subjects (mathematics and reading) will be provided to public and community primary schools. Grants will be allocated to ensure quality enhancement at the school level. The program will also support the construction of three regional teacher training institutes.
Lao PDR received US$30 million to help increase the coverage and improve the quality of pre-primary and primary education with a focus on the most disadvantaged children. Currently there are about 315,000 school aged children out of school in the 56 target districts, with a high majority of girls. As an urgent priority, the program will provide new schools and renovate classrooms in 1,500 villages. By the end of the program, nearly half of the out-of-school children will be enrolled and many more children will complete their primary education. They will study in safe, protective and healthy environments, with access to latrines and water.
Liberia’s US$40 million grant will finance 453 new classrooms at the primary school level. It will also provide 100,000 books to pupils and 21,500 sets of teacher guides. A school health component will finance the development of learning materials, the training of about 3,000 teachers and de-worming of 300,000 primary school students.
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EFA in crisis as universal primary education falls far off target |
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 24 February 2010 Hopes for achieving universal primary education by 2015 are fading as the Education For All High Level Group (EFA-HLG) meet this week. The world is facing a US$12 billion a year funding shortfall in donor aid, and many developing country governments need to do more, according to the Global Campaign for Education (GCE).
Commenting on the EFA High Level Group meeting taking place from 23-25 February in Addis Ababa, the GCE said that with donor commitments to basic education having stalled; most G8 donors falling far short of giving their fair share of the EFA financing gap, and with aid being skewed away from those countries that need it most, urgent attention is needed to avert the brewing crisis for the EFA movement. However, a GCE ‘report card’ on the HLG calls into question its ability to hold governments accountable for delivery.
Read more..The EFA goals were adopted in 2000 at the World Education Forum in Dakar, one of these being to provide free and compulsory primary education for all by 2015. The EFA High Level Group was then created as the core mechanism to continue to leverage support from the global community. But according to UNESCO’s Global Monitoring Report released last month much is far off track. It stated that 72 million children were out of school in 2007 and that 56 million would still be out of school by 2015 if funding trends remained the same. The report also highlighted that around 54 percent of children out of school are girls; that literacy remains among the most neglected of all education goals, with about 759 million adults lacking literacy skills today, two-thirds women; that millions of children are leaving school without having acquired basic skills, and that 1.9 million new teacher posts will be required to meet universal primary education by 2015. “It is estimated that it will cost US$16 billion a year to achieve universal primary education and wider Education for All goals by 2015,” said Kailash Satyarthi, GCE President. "This figure is just two percent of the amount mobilised to bail out four banks in the UK and US. Urgent international measures are needed as the countdown to the EFA deadline really gets underway, and to date the High Level Group has not served as an effective forum for reviewing donor commitments.” The GCE, which has participated actively in the High Level Group since its inception, said that while the HLG could play a crucial role in the overall EFA architecture, it has been hampered by a number of key structural and organisational issues. These include lack of participation from donor ministers, loose agendas, limited transparency in performance benchmarking, and the absence of an implementation mechanism, resulting in a lack of action. Mr Satyarthi added: “At this pivotal moment, we need a global system fit-for-purpose of driving an ambitious and high-profile effort to put education back at the top of the global political agenda. It is increasingly clear that the recommendations of the High Level Group do not carry enough weight to ensure their implementation.” The GCE has put forward a number of recommendations, including a call for a root-and-branch review of the High Level Group to be conducted by the UNESCO Director-General, and for a vigorous effort to re-engage the Heads of the EFA agencies during 2010, to garner their support for a reformed, renewed and re-launched High Level Group in 2011. To view the EFA HLG score cards click here
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Report urges World Bank to ensure aid effectiveness for education |
Jun 2010 A report by RESULTS Educational Fund, a GCE USA member, takes a close look at trends in education financing by the World Bank's concessional lending window, the International Development Association (IDA).
The report reveals insufficient allocation of financing to sub-Saharan Africa, which raise concerns that Africa will not be able to achieve the educational gains South Asia made over the past decade. The report found that, in 2009, the poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa received less than 15 percent of World Bank education financing, despite being home to 32 million – 44 percent – of the world’s 72 million out-of-school children. In contrast to the under-funding of sub-Saharan Africa, just three countries – India, Pakistan and Bangladesh – have received over $4 billion --more than half-- of the World Bank education sector’s $8 billion in lending over the past 10 years.
Making matters worse, the World Bank has reduced the amount of IDA funds for education in a growing number of low-income countries (LICs); this reduction is primarily affecting countries that have been endorsed for funding by the Fast Track Initiative (FTI). This is especially worrisome, as the FTI is a multi-donor effort specifically designed to provide additional financing for Education for All; but the report shows that the aim of additionality is not being achieved, as IDA funds migrate away from LICs, FTI funds are increasingly the only source of education funds for them.
The report concludes with a call to donors to the WB's IDA and the FTI to correct course, including by implementing a "matching funds" approach, tapping each source (FTI and IDA) and pooling resources together in an independent global fund. |
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UNESCO: Three education institutions win prize for boosting teacher effectiveness |
Jul 2010 Education institutions in Pakistan, the Dominican Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo have been awarded the UNESCO-Hamdan Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum Prize for Outstanding Practice and Performance in Enhancing the Effectiveness of Teachers.
The value of the award is US$ 270,000 to be divided by the three winners, the Ali Institute of Education (Pakistan), the Center of Excellence for Teacher Training (Dominican Republic) and the Centre Congolais Education pour Tous (Democratic Republic of the Congo). |
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PALESTINE: World thematic Forum on Education to be held |
Jul 2010 A four-day World Education Forum will take place in Palestine from 28 October-01 November 2010. The 2010 gathering local, regional and international educators, practitioners, teachers, students, academics, decision makers and journalists for mutual enrichment and learning.
The aim of the forum is to provide a platform for cross-border dialogue, practical experience exchange, theoretical discussions, debating of ideas around the role of education and its economic, social, political and environmental impact at the local, regional and international level.
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