2009 EFA Global Monitoring Report launched
The 2009 Education for All Global Monitoring Report – Overcoming Inequality: Why governance matters – warns that ‘unacceptable’ national and global education disparities are undermining efforts to achieve international development goals. The failure of governments across the world to tackle deep and persistent inequalities in education is consigning millions of children to lives of poverty and diminished opportunity, according to the report published by UNESCO.
A combination of political indifference, weak domestic policies, and the failure of aid donors to act on commitments means that a ‘vast gulf’ continues to exist in educational opportunity separating rich and poor countries. Despite the efforts made by some of the planet’s poorest countries to improve access to education, inequalities are still entrenched around the globe. At the same time, international aid for education is in danger of decreasing due to the current financial crisis, the report warns.
"This report is an urgent wake-up call at this, the half way point towards our goal of achieving education for all by 2015. On current trends, despite important progress, by 2015 at least 30 million children in some of the world's poorest countries will still be out of school. Education is absolutely central to achieving all of our development goals - we know that progress in education is a vital tool in making progress in poverty reduction, heath and nutrition. And education will be the only way to deliver sustainable change, opportunity and hope for all the world's children. At this time of global downturn, we cannot forget our promises to build a better future for them. The price of failure is simply too great."
Gordon Brown on the occasion of the GMR 2009
The 2009 Education for All Global Monitoring Report was launched at the International Conference on Education, taking place in Geneva from 25 to 28 November. Koïchiro Matsuura, the Director-General of UNESCO, and Kevin Watkins, Director of the Report, attended the launch.
Published every year since 2002, the Education For All Global Monitoring Report is prepared by a team of independent experts and published by UNESCO. Following up the World Education Forum in Dakar (Senegal) in 2000, the Report assesses progress towards reaching Education For All goals by the deadline of 2015.
Written: 25/11/2008 , last modified: 25/11/2008
