Education for All by 2015: Will We Make It?
Seven years ago 164 governments, together with partner organizations from around the world, made a collective commitment to dramatically expand educational opportunities for children, youth and adults by 2015.
Participants at the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal, endorsed a comprehensive vision of education, anchored in human rights, affirming the importance of learning at all ages and emphasizing the need for special measures to reach the poorest, most vulnerable and most disadvantaged groups in society.
This sixth edition of the EFA Global Monitoring Report assesses the extent to which these commitments are being met. There is clearly a 'Dakar effect', evidence that rallying around common goals can mobilize countries to empower individual lives. Partly because of the abolition of tuition fees, more children are enrolled in school than in 2000, with the sharpest increases in the regions farthest from the goals set in Dakar. Many governments have introduced targeted strategies to reach the poorest households and to encourage girls' schooling. A growing number are conducting national assessments to measure pupils' learning achievement, valuable evidence for improving education quality. Though a recent downturn is cause for concern, aid to basic education has increased rapidly since 2000.
