Reaching the marginalized: EFA global monitoring report, 2010; 2010

0120CHAPTER 2Education for All Global Monitoring ReportDespiteencouragingprogress, manyof the poorestcountries arestruggling toreach universalprimaryeducationUniversal primaryeducationGoal 2. Ensuring that by 2015 all children,particularly girls, children in difficultcircumstances and those belonging to ethnicminorities, have access to and complete, free andcompulsory primary education of good quality.The past decade has seen rapid progress towardsuniversal primary education. Some of the world’spoorest countries have dramatically increasedenrolment, narrowed gender gaps and extendedopportunities for disadvantaged groups. Schoolcompletion rates are also rising. Theseachievements provide a marked contrast to the‘lost decade’ of the 1990s. But there are limitsto the good news. In the midst of an increasinglyknowledge-based global economy, millions ofchildren are still out of school and countlessmillions more start school but drop out beforecompleting primary education. And there is nowa real danger that the global economic crisiswill stall, and perhaps even reverse, the gainsregistered over the past decade (see Chapter 1).The post-Dakar record has to be assessedagainst the ambition set out in Goal 2 of the DakarFramework for Action: universal primary educationby 2015. Is the goal still attainable? The answerwill depend on decisions taken over the next twoyears by national governments and aid donors.The window of opportunity for ensuring that allprimary school age children currently out ofschool complete a full cycle of primary educationis rapidly closing. Getting all children into schoolby 2015 is still feasible, but the goal will not beachieved with a business-as-usual approach.The World Education Forum (Dakar, 2000) gavenew impetus to education, both nationally andinternationally. Yet the hard fact remains that theworld will fall short of the targets set and that farmore could have been achieved. Many developingcountries could have done much more toaccelerate progress, notably through policies toovercome inequalities in education. Meanwhile,donors have a mixed record of delivery on theircollective commitment to back nationalprogrammes with increased financial support –an issue addressed in more detail in Chapter 4.This section documents progress towardsuniversal primary education. Looking behind thenational data, it provides an in-depth look at someof the crucial challenges facing governments inthe countdown to 2015. The following are amongthe key messages to emerge:Out-of-school numbers are dropping for primaryschool age children, but getting all children intoschool will require a far stronger focus on themarginalized. When the Dakar forum was held,over 100 million children of primary school agewere out of school. By 2007, the figure hadfallen to 72 million. This headline figure bearstestimony to national governments’ efforts.The bad news is that, on current trends, some56 million children could still be out of schoolin 2015. Changing this scenario will requirea far stronger commitment by governmentsto reach girls and other marginalized groups.It will also require a sharper focus on countriesaffected by conflict or engaged in post-conflictreconstruction.Progress towards universal primary enrolmenthas been partial and mixed. Despiteencouraging progress, many of the poorestcountries are struggling to reach universalenrolment. Less attention has been paid tohigher-income countries with significant outof-schoolpopulations, such as the Philippinesand Turkey. Such countries will have to targetmarginalization far more systematically todeliver on the Dakar commitments. Newresearch indicates that official enrolment datamay overstate the numbers of children in schoolat the appropriate age, suggesting that moreneeds to be done to address the problem oflate entry and dropout. Household survey datafor a number of countries indicate overestimatesof 10% or more in school attendance rates.Gender barriers remain intact. There hasbeen progress towards greater gender parityin school enrolment. Even so, being borna girl carries with it a significant educationdisadvantage in many countries. Thatdisadvantage is reflected in the fact that girlsstill account for 54% of the out-of-schoolpopulation. Moreover, out-of-school girls arefar more likely than boys never to go to school.In twenty-eight countries, there are fewer thannine girls in primary school for every ten boys.Poverty further reinforces gender disparity.54