Chapter 2. Progress towards the EFA goals - Unesco

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0 0 1 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 64
PROGRESS TOWARDS THE EFA GOALS Universal primary education Figure 2.16: The relationship between enrolment and gender parity varies across countries Net enrolment ratios and gender parity in primary education, 2007 100 Gender parity Net enrolment ratios (%) 90 80 70 60 Higher enrolment C. A. R. Yemen Mali Iraq Benin Pakistan Togo Mozambique Guinea Nigeria Ethiopia Burkina Faso Morocco Lao PDR Cambodia India Swaziland Cape Verde Dominican Rep. Burundi Grenada Antigua/Barbuda Equat. Guinea Timor-Leste Congo Ghana Senegal Oman Nepal Malawi Mauritania Turks/Caicos Is Nauru Gambia Bangladesh 50 Niger Djibouti 40 Eritrea 30 Liberia Girls disadvantaged Boys disadvantaged 20 0.60 0.70 0.80 0.90 1.00 1.10 Gender parity index Note: Gender parity in primary education is measured by the gender parity index of gross enrolment ratios. See annex for details. Source: Annex, Statistical Table 5. in 1999 to an equal number of girls and boys in 2007. However, not all progress towards gender parity has positive origins. In Equatorial Guinea, Liberia and Togo, greater parity has been driven not by expansion of the education system but by the fact that boys’ enrolment has declined (Figure 2.17). With some of the world’s largest gender gaps, several countries in West Africa have adopted policies aimed at strengthening parity as part of the wider strategy for achieving universal primary education. Some of these policies focus on removing one of the greatest obstacles to gender equity: attitudes on girls’ and women’s place in society. Working through village heads and religious leaders, governments have mounted campaigns to communicate to parents the importance of educating daughters. Other strategies include paying financial incentives, providing water and sanitation in schools (including separate latrines for boys and girls), recruiting female teachers and providing incentives for their deployment to rural areas, and giving teachers gender sensitization training (UNESCO-IIEP, 2009). In remote rural areas, distance to school is often a major security concern for parents of young girls. Governments Senegal reached gender parity in 2007 in the space of one primary school generation 65
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