Chapter 2. Progress towards the EFA goals - Unesco

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CHAPTER 2
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Education for All Global Monitoring Report
An estimated
56 million
children could
still be out of
school in 2015
5. This figure should not
be compared with the
partial projection in the
EFA Global Monitoring
Report 2009, which
treated a smaller group of
countries using a different
methodology, and did not
include countries such as
the Democratic Republic
of the Congo and the
Sudan.
The gender gap is shrinking. The share of girls
in the out-of-school population declined from
58% to 54%.
South and West Asia have achieved rapid
progress. The region more than halved its
out-of-school population – a decline of 21 million.
The region also cut the share of girls in the
out-of-school total, from 63% to 58%.
Sub-Saharan Africa has registered strong
progress. During a period in which the size of its
school age population increased by 20 million,
sub-Saharan Africa reduced its out-of-school
population by almost 13 million, or 28%. The
strength of the region’s progress can be gauged
by a comparison with the 1990s. Had the region
progressed at the same pace as in the 1990s,
18 million more children would be out of school.
The limits to progress also have to be
acknowledged. Not only is the world off track
for the Dakar commitments, but there is cause
for concern over the pace of change:
The 2015 target will be missed. If the world
were to continue the linear trend for 1999–2007,
an estimated 56 million children would still be
out of school in 2015. 5 Slower economic growth,
pressure on education budgets and rising poverty
Figure 2.7: Numbers of out-of-school children are declining
Out-of-school children by region, 1999 and 2007
Out-of-school children (millions)
120
100
80
60
40
20
105 million
4
8
6
39
45
72 million
3
6
9
18
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Central Asia
North America and Western Europe
Central and Eastern Europe
Latin America and the Caribbean
Arab States
East Asia and the Pacific
South and West Asia
Sub-Saharan Africa
associated with the global economic crisis could
significantly inflate this figure (Figure 2.8).
Progress has slowed. The post-1999 overview
provides a positive gloss on some disturbing
underlying trends. Two-thirds of the total decline
in out-of-school numbers took place during the
two years to 2004, when the numbers dropped
by 22 million. In the three years to 2007, the
out-of-school population fell by just 8 million.
The slowdown illustrates one of the central
challenges now facing governments: the closer
countries get to universal primary education,
the harder it becomes to reach children still out
of school. That is why sustained progress will
require a stronger focus on marginalization.
South and West Asia dominated the reduction.
Much of the decline took place in India, which
reported a fall of almost 15 million in out-ofschool
numbers in the two years after the 2001
launch of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (universal
primary education) programme. 6
The deficit in sub-Saharan Africa remains large.
Fully one-quarter of sub-Saharan Africa’s
primary school age children were out of school in
2007 – and the region accounted for nearly 45%
of the global out-of-school population. Half of the
twenty countries with more than 500,000 children
out of school were in sub-Saharan Africa (see
Figure 2.12 below). Nigeria alone contributed
over 10% of the global total. Progress in the
region has been uneven. Some countries with
large out-of-school populations in 1999 have
made major advances; examples include
Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, the United
Republic of Tanzania and Zambia. Ethiopia and
the United Republic of Tanzania each reduced
out-of-school numbers by over 3 million between
1999 and 2007. Countries making only limited
progress include Liberia, Malawi and Nigeria.
Conflict remains a major barrier. Children living
in countries enduring or recovering from conflict
are less likely to be in school. Many such
countries lack publicly available data and so
receive less prominence in international debates
than they merit. But a lack of reliable data should
not deflect attention from the scale of the
0
1999 2007
Source: Annex, Statistical Table 5.
6. The key aim of the programme is to universalize elementary
education by 2010. Commitments include constructing and improving
infrastructure in deprived areas, along with measures targeted towards
areas with large marginalized populations (scheduled castes, scheduled
tribes, Muslims) or low female literacy (Ayyar, 2008; Govinda, 2009);
see also Chapter 3.
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