Education and development

Overview

Millennium Development Goals

Millennium Development Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education -Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full

Unicef

ourse of primary schooling.

United Nations Instruments

Article 26 Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

1. “Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
   
2. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
   
3. Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children”

The enjoyment by everyone of the Right to Education is declared also in various United Nations instruments such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979), which impose obligations upon States.

Issues- Education in Developing Countries

Basic Facts:
There are still over a 100 million children out of school, of which 58 million are girls. Despite overwhelming evidence that education – particularly for girls–can break the cycle of poverty and create more prosperous nations, Official Development Assistance (ODA) for education has only increased modestly since 2000.(Source: OECD)

Over 70% of the out-of-school children are in Sub-Saharan Africa and South & West Asia. Over 15% of children in developing countries do not complete a course of primary education. In Sub-Saharan Africa, less than 60% of children complete a course of primary education.

Around the World

• In Sub-Saharan Africa, at least 40 million children are out of school, of which 22 million are girls.
• In South and West Asia, 36 million are children are out of school, of which 22 million are girls.
• In East Asia and the Pacific, there are 12 million children out of school, of which 6 million are girls.
• In the Arab States, there are 7.4 million children out of school, of which 4.5 million are girls.
• In Latin America, there are 2.5 million children out of school, of which 1.2 million are girls.

The quality of education is also poor in many developing countries. According to current estimates, by the end of four to six years of primary education, 30-50 percent of school-leavers cannot read or write confidently and lack basic numeracy skills. In the sub-Saharan African countries in particular, the poor quality of teaching results in 18 percent of children, on average, repeating a year of schooling.

Lack of access and the often poor quality of the education systems mean that in developing countries, around 16 percent of young people in the 15-24 age group are illiterate. There are 862 million adults and young people worldwide who cannot read and write, and 64 percent of them are women. The illiteracy rate dropped from 37 percent to 20 per cent worldwide between 1970 and 2000 - but due to demographic growth, the number of illiterate persons increased in absolute terms by 15 million. 98 percent of people who cannot read and write live in developing countries.

Comparisons with Ireland:
The following table provides some useful indicators on Education in Ireland compared to three African countries: 

Source: Human Development Report 2005

Country Specific Data:

• Human Development Report: provides useful statistics on education in 177 countries in the world.
• Country Profiles. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Institute for Statistics provides statistical reports by country. Basic general information, culture and communication statistics, science and technology statistics, participation rates and literacy rates are presented, with charts and graphs.
• Education for All 2000 Assessment Country Reports. Published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), these reports from the Education for All Forum Assessment in 2000 provides information on basic educational issues by country.
• Higher Education Systems Database. The International Association of Universities (IAU) is a UNESCO-based association of universities worldwide. Their Higher Education Systems Database provides information for over 180 countries on higher education. Their database exports .rtf documents that highlight national educational systems, post-secondary institutions, admissions, and student life. Regularly updated.

Donor Flows to Education

The breakdown of official donor flows by sector is provided in the annexes (Table 19) of the OECD Development Co-operation Report 2005. In 2004 Ireland spent 12.7 percent of its total bilateral aid on education of which 7.5 percent was on basic education. In France the proportion of bilateral aid allocated to education was higher at 21.8 percent of which 3.8 percent was allocated to basic education. Germany also had a large allocation to education totaling 18 percent of its bilateral budget with a much smaller share of 1.7 percent allocated to basic education. The United States has one of the lowest proportions of bilateral aid spend on education with only 2.7 percent of its budget of which the majority (2.1 percent) was spent on basic education. The UK allocated 8.0 percent of its bilateral aid budget to education with 5.7 percent going to basic education.

Trends in Donor flows to education between 1993-2003: Bilateral aid to education increased to $4.65 billion in 2003, a 31% increase over its 2000 low of US$3.55 billion but still well below the 1990 high of $5.7 billion (all at constant 2002 prices). The 2003 allocation represented 7.4% of total bilateral aid, down from 8.8% in the previous year and the lowest share in ten years. Bilateral aid to basic education almost trebled between 1998 and 2003 but still accounted for less than 2 percent of bilateral ODA. (Table 5.1) Major multilateral aid agencies committed $15.9 billion per year on average between 1999 and 2003, with education receiving 9.3 percent. Basic education received about 60% of this amount. The World Bank is the most important multilateral donor to education ($543 million per year from 1999 to 2003, equivalent to more than 40 percent of total multilateral commitments). The European Commission is an increasingly important donor to the sector at $347 million per year over the period. Combining bilateral and multilateral aid, total aid to basic education amounted to $2.1 billion in 2003, only 2.6 percent of overall aid.

Debt relief accounted for $5.9 billion of the nominal $16.6 billion increase in total bilateral aid between 2001 and 2003. To receive irrevocable debt relief, countries must usually demonstrate that they have policies and goals designed to achieve basic education objectives, among other social reforms. Examples are elimination of school fees, measures to hire teachers and provision of textbooks. Several heavily indebted poor countries have increased government expenditure on poverty reduction and indicated that they would use about 40 percent of debt relief for the education sector. In a different approach, some Latin American governments are promoting debt swaps to directly finance education programmes. Argentina negotiated with Spain for the transfer of $100 million in lieu of debt payments, to help 215,000 students in some of the poorest parts of the country to complete lower secondary education.