Aid flows are rising, but the Education for All (EFA) goals cannot be met from current disbursements and domestic resources. US$11 billion of external support per year – three times the current level – is needed if early childhood and adult literacy programmes are to expand and all children are to complete primary school by 2015.

The 2007 EFA Global Monitoring Report ‘Strong foundations: early childhood care and education’, prepared by an independent team and published by UNESCO, reviews trends in education aid and warns that time is running out to meet the EFA goals set in 2000 in Dakar. Despite continued progress at the primary level, including for girls, too many children are still not in school, drop out early or do not reach minimal learning standards.

Aid commitments directly to the education sector in developing countries expanded between 2000 and 2004, from US$4.6 billion to US$8.5 billion – an increase of 85 percent. Education’s share of all sector aid to least developed countries rose from 12.7 percent in 2000 to 17.3 percent in 2004.

However, half of all bilateral donors allocate at least half of their education aid to middle-income developing countries and almost half allocate less than one-quarter directly to basic education. Early childhood care and education (ECCE) is not a donor priority: half of education aid providers allocate ECCE less than two per cent of the aid they give to primary education.

A third of those children who enrol in grade one in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) do not complete primary school. In 2004 of 77 million primary school aged children out of school, half were in SSA. Africa has a chronic shortage of qualified and motivated teachers and far too few women teachers to attract girls to school and retain them.

Literacy targets have not been achieved. One in five adults lack minimum literacy skills. Women comprise two thirds of the estimated 781 million illiterate adults. On current trends, by 2015 the global number of adult illiterates will have dropped by only 100 million.

The EFA Global Monitoring Report notes that:

• In many countries school fees remain a major obstacle to the enrolment and continued participation of poor students in primary school.
• Teacher absenteeism is often a serious problem.
• Low numbers of secondary places slow the achievement of universal primary education because they reduce the incentive to complete primary schooling.
• While there are now 94 girls in primary school for every 100 boys, progress towards gender parity in tertiary education remains slow: stereotypes persist in learning materials and too many teachers still have differing expectations of male and female students.

It calls for:

• donor activities to be better aligned with national education programmes
• governments of low-income countries to give greater priority to education in their discussions with donors, and to allocate education a greater share of the savings from debt relief
• shorter pre-service teacher training with more on-the-job practice and professional development, and incentives for teachers to work in remote and rural areas
• tackling exclusion through the abolition of school fees, income support for rural households dependent on child labour, more mother tongue teaching and offering education opportunities for disabled children and those affected by HIV/AIDS and conflict.

Source(s):
‘International Support: Making Better Use of More Aid’, chapter four, in ‘Strong Foundations: Early Childhood Care and Education. Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2007’, UNESCO Publishing, October 2006 (PDF) Full document.
‘Strong Foundations: Early Childhood Care and Education. Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2007’, UNESCO Publishing, October 2006 (PDF) Full document.

Funded by: Several bilateral donors and UNESCO

id21 Research Highlight: 28 November 2006

Further Information:
Nicholas Burnett, Director
EFA Global Monitoring Report Team
UNESCO
7, place de Fontenoy
75352 Paris 07 SP, France

Tel: +33 1 45 68 21 28
Fax: +33 1 45 68 56 27
Contact the contributor: efareport@unesco.org

EFA Monitoring Report Team, UNESCO

Other related links:
'Are donors offering the right support for basic education?'

'Is the international community getting serious about EFA?'

'Some progress but Education for All can do better'

'Bringing the hardest to reach into the classroom'