Chapter 2. Progress towards the EFA goals - Unesco

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CHAPTER 2
2
Education for All Global Monitoring Report
Twenty-eight
countries have
still not achieved
the 2005 goal
of gender parity
in primary
schooling
Box 2.6: Benin — on the right track, but tackling marginalization is a priority
Benin has been among the world’s fastest moving
countries on primary enrolment, with the net
enrolment ratio rising from 50% in 1999 to 80%
in 2007. The gender gap also narrowed, from just
67 girls for every 100 boys in school in 1999 to
83 girls in 2006. On current trends, Benin could
achieve universal primary enrolment by 2015.
Maintaining the trends will be difficult, however.
As in other countries, rapid progress in scaling up
enrolment has brought new policy challenges:
Raising completion rates. Achieving Benin’s goal
of 100% primary school completion by 2015 will
require far-reaching measures to ensure that
children enrol on time and complete a full primary
cycle. Over-age entry remains a significant problem.
The gross intake rate into the first grade is 115%,
while in 2005 the net intake rate was less than
50%. The disparity points to a concentration of
children over 6 years of age in the first grade.
Getting children into school on time is important
for increasing completion. Fewer than 20% of those
who start school complete it at the correct age.
Addressing population pressures. With a population
growth rate of 3.2% and almost half of the
population under 15 years, Benin’s education system
will need to expand just to stay in the same
position.
Reducing regional disparities. There are marked
inequalities across Benin. The gross intake rate
for the last grade of primary is only 36% in Alibori
Province (one of the poorest regions, with
particularly high levels of severe malnutrition for
children under 5) compared with a national average
of 66%. Reaching vulnerable communities is vital
to sustained progress.
Tackling poverty. More than half of Benin’s rural
population lives in extreme poverty. Children from
the wealthiest quintile are at least twice as likely to
complete the primary cycle as those in the poorest
quintile. This has the effect of skewing education
financing towards children from the richest 20% of
households, who receive 57% of public expenditure
on education compared with just 5% for the poorest.
The government has taken steps in its ten-year
education plan (2006–2015) to redress imbalances,
including affirmative action for girls and
disadvantaged groups and regions — and strong
budget commitments. Education spending accounted
for 3.9% of GNP and 18% of budget spending in 2006.
Just over half of the education budget is directed to
primary schooling. To ensure that Benin can go the
final step towards universal primary education,
international aid donors need to back up this national
financing commitment.
Sources: World Bank (2009g); Benin Government (2008).
Does the scaling down of ambitions mark
an unwarranted retreat from the political
commitments made at Dakar? Each country has
to assess what is achievable in the light of where
it currently stands, and the human and financial
resources it has available. However, there is
strong evidence from several countries that
political commitment allied to strong aid
partnerships can generate rapid progress.
Gender parity — some progress
but a long way to go
The expansion of primary education has gone
hand in hand with progress towards greater
gender parity, but there are marked differences
across and within regions, as witnessed by the
gender parity index (GPI).
Twenty-eight countries had GPIs of less than 0.90 in
2007; of these, eighteen are in sub-Saharan Africa.
These countries have not yet achieved the goal of
gender parity in primary schooling, set for 2005.
There are also marked gender disparities in the
Arab States, though the largest gap is found in a
South Asian country: Afghanistan, with just 63 girls
enrolled in school for every 100 boys. Large gender
disparities are inconsistent with sustained rapid
progress towards universal primary enrolment.
In countries at low levels of enrolment, such as
Burkina Faso, Ethiopia and Yemen, moves towards
gender parity from a low starting point have helped
generate large increases in primary enrolment.
The experience of Yemen demonstrates that rapid
progress towards gender parity from a low base
is possible and that sustained progress requires
a strong political commitment to equity (Box 2.7).
Gender parity is usually inversely related to
enrolment: the lower the enrolment, the greater
the gender disparity (Figure 2.16). An exception
is Senegal; while the country still has low net
enrolment (72% in 2007), in the space of one
primary school generation, the country has moved
from a gender parity index of 86 girls per 100 boys
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