Educating out of Poverty? A Synthesis Report on Ghana, India ... - DfID

networks. By providing a more sophisticated appreciation <strong>of</strong> educational complementarities
and <strong>of</strong> the need for ‘enabling environments’ that transform educational processes into positive
developmental <strong>out</strong>comes we hope to provide input to national and international policy
considerations ab<strong>out</strong> the balances, mixes, and sequencing <strong>of</strong> different forms <strong>of</strong> education in
particular contexts. Education, therefore, is a necessary but not sufficient condition for
poverty reduction.
1.3 What is ‘Basic Education’?
Chapter 1: Introduction
The World Conference on Education for All (WCEFA, 1990) stressed the need for universal
basic education for all. The rise <strong>of</strong> the term basic education was partly due to a rejection <strong>of</strong> the
term primary education, which was seen to imply preparation for further education rather than
for life. It was also used to stress that provision <strong>of</strong> ‘basic needs’ in education should not mean
primary schooling alone but should include other aspects such as pre-primary and adult literacy
classes. A decade later, at the World Education Forum in Dakar (WEF, 2000), the term basic
education was still in use, although it had been displaced by ‘primary’ in the target setting, as it
would be also in the MDGs later that same year. In the Regional Framework for Sub-Saharan
Africa (WEF, 2000), the two terms are used almost interchangeably, <strong>of</strong>ten written as ‘primary
(basic) education’.
Given the wide range <strong>of</strong> different national education systems, these international documents
have stopped short <strong>of</strong> giving a definition <strong>of</strong> basic education linking it to any specific stage or
minimum number <strong>of</strong> years <strong>of</strong> education. The 2003/4 Global Monitoring <strong>Report</strong> defines it as:
The whole range <strong>of</strong> educational activities, taking place in various settings (formal, nonformal
and informal), that aim to meet basic learning needs. It has considerable overlap with the
earlier concept ‘fundamental education’. According to the ISCED, 5 basic education
comprises primary education (first stage <strong>of</strong> basic education) and lower secondary education
(second stage) (UNESCO, 2003: 418).
For the countries within this study, post-primary education is <strong>of</strong>ten far from universal and the
term ‘basic education’ was <strong>of</strong>ten treated as synonymous with primary education. As education
systems expand and access to secondary education increases, the number <strong>of</strong> years <strong>of</strong> education
considered to constitute basic education within the national policy literature has been extended.
In some countries, like Ghana, Tanzania and Rwanda, lower secondary education is specifically
mentioned as part <strong>of</strong> basic education. The Rwandan government, for example, has recently
redefined its concept <strong>of</strong> basic education. It now seeks to achieve not just UPE but universal basic
education, including three years <strong>of</strong> fee-free lower secondary (GoR/Mineduc, 2003a).
The term basic education has consequently come to include lower secondary, with upper
secondary and tertiary considered as post-basic. In Tanzania, the Minister for Education and
Culture recommended in 2005 that the next government should go well beyond the MDGs by
aiming for universal secondary education by 2015 (Mungai, 2005).
5 International Standard Classification <strong>of</strong> Education.
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