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Education has been promised time and time again.
Sixty years ago education was set as a basic human right for every person, and enshrined in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights in 1948.
Since then world leaders have made many promises to make this right a reality. The most significant of these, is the setting of the Education for All targets, at the World Education Forum in Dakar in 2000. These targets are set for 2015:
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Expand early childhood care and learning
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Provide free and compulsory primary Education for All
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Promote learning and life skills for young people and adults
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Increase adult literacy by 50%
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Achieve gender parity by 2005, and gender equality by 2015
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Improve the quality of education.
180 countries signed up to make these goals happen, by putting policies and finances in place so that everyone no matter what their circumstances would have an education. The richest countries pledged to help make Education for All a reality, by providing aid to the poorest countries to help them do so.
These goals were also incorporated into the UN Millennium Development Goals which were also set in 2000 for 2015. Of these eight goals two focus on education:
Progress towards these goals is painfully slow, and much stands to be done if Education for All is to be achieved. At current rates of progress Education for All will not be achieved in the next hundred years - let alone by 2015!
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94 countries missed the goal of getting an equally number of girls in boys into school by 2005.
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In order to reach the goal of everyone having a primary education by 2015, 75 million children need to start school by 2009.
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The world's poorest countries are still waiting for $9 billion from the world's richest countries that's needed to pay for all children to get educated.
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To pay for Education for all $16 billion is needed.
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An additional 18 million more teachers are needed if every child is to get a quality education.
But Education for All is possible
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