The Challenge of Universal Primary Education
The Challenge of Gender Equality in School Education
The Challenge of Literacy
The Challenge of Skills and Knowledge for Sustainable Livelihoods
Constraints to Meeting the Challenges
Effective and equitable universal primary education is an essential foundation for creating and sustaining education for all.
There have been remarkable successes in increasing the access of children to school. Approximately 75% of school age children are enrolled in the primary schools of developing countries. The figure was below 50% in 1960.
50 million more children were enrolled in 1996 than 1990. However, many countries will fail to achieve the 1990 EFA commitment of universal access to, and completion of, primary education by the year 2000. Without clear and strongly directed strategies they will remain off course to meet the IDG target by 2015.
More than 130 million children do not attend primary school at all; 21% of the primary school age population. Of this figure, 73 million are girls and in countries where overall enrolment is low, girls' enrolment is likely to be lower than boys'. In sub-Saharan Africa the out of school population aged between 6 to 11 is expected to increase by 44% during the 1990s, primarily as a result of population growth. Girls will outnumber boys in this out of school population.
There are many groups of children whose chances of gaining access to primary education are slim: those who live in poor, isolated rural communities, AIDS orphans (8 million in sub-Saharan Africa), children involved in armed conflict, the disabled, street children and disadvantaged ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities. It is estimated that there are 250 million children working full or part time in developing countries.
Reaching these "missing children" is a challenge which requires resources, political commitment and will, and a flexibility of response to match specific circumstances.
Increasing the availability of a school education and raising enrolment levels is the first step to achieving UPE; retaining children in school in order that they may acquire a meaningful basic education which helps to equip them to lead productive and enriched lives is the real goal. It is not easy to keep children who live in poverty, at school, for a full cycle of basic education. In South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean only two thirds of the children who start primary school reach the fifth year of primary education. A complex mixture of supply and demand factors means the poverty of communities and the poor quality of schooling threaten attendance and limit meaningful learning. A range of school-based and out of school strategies are needed to ensure that schools offer an education which is relevant for every child and for the community from which she or he comes. In some countries, NGOs, working alongside governments, help to provide and sustain primary education through a mix of formal and non-formal programmes. Early childhood care and development, including pre-school education, is an important contribution to early learning and basic education but is uneven in its coverage and variable in its quality.
Figure C - Estimated Number of 6-11 old children out of school in the 2000
UNICEF and World Bank 1998"...the evidence suggests that, except in the very poorest settings, the key to closing wealth gaps in enrolment and attainment will require actions which raise the demand for schooling of the poor. Raising the quality of schooling received at the primary level is likely to be the key ingredient to attract and retain poor children in school."
Filmer and Pritchett 1998
For the majority of boys and girls from poor households, primary education is the one chance they will have to acquire basic literacy, numeracy and some essential life skills to enhance their chances of a sustainable livelihood. For some, it will provide a platform for further, formal learning opportunities. Improving the quality of primary education is central to ensuring that these life chances are real and enriching. Attendance at school does not always mean that learning takes place. Attendance without learning ultimately wastes extremely scarce resources.
Understanding and implementing strategies which are effective in improving the quality of schooling is one of the greatest challenges facing developing countries in their quest for UPE. Poor quality schooling depresses the demand for education and limits the impact which UPE can have on the elimination of poverty and economic growth.
Gender equality is a strategic objective for "people-centred" development.
Gender equality in education, and in development more generally, has been reflected and promoted in a sequence of major international conventions and declarations. The external benefits which flow from the education of girls are well documented. But translating the commitments and the research evidence into policies and practice remains a significant challenge.
There is a need for specific targets for achieving equality in the involvement of women and girls in education, as well as very practical approaches to improving the integration of gender into the mechanisms of policy development and implementation. It is important to understand the web of issues, constraints and power relationships that affect the schooling of girls - within families, communities, schools, cultures and societies, and within governments - if practical solutions are to be defined, shared and implemented.
There is a major challenge too for women working in education systems. Women teachers are important role models in many societies. But their professional and career opportunities are rarely as good as those of their male counterparts.
In some countries the gender balance tilts in the opposite direction. In the Caribbean, it is boys who drop out of school and male youths who experience the poverty of being unemployed and unskilled.
Literacy in its many forms and uses is an essential component of pro-poor development.
Literacy is difficult to define and to measure and figures need to be treated with caution. A widely used estimate is that there are 900 million people over the age of 15 who cannot read or write, two thirds of whom are women. This figure is based on a definition of functional literacy: the ability to use reading and writing skills effectively in a local context. There is little or no global evidence about numeracy. There are large and deeply embedded disparities across and within countries: it is estimated (UNESCO 1995) that over 55% of adult illiterates (471 million) are in South Asia. World Bank sources (1998) suggest that 45% of-women and 24% of men in low income economies are illiterate.
While effective UPE is the long-term answer to the eradication of illiteracy, primary education is more effective for children who have literate parents and guardians. Literate parents are more likely to ensure that their children attend school; effective adult literacy programmes contribute to effective UPE. This gives added importance to enabling out of school youth and adults, particularly women, to acquire forms of literacy that give them greater control over their lives. One literate person in a household has the potential to make a substantial difference for each illiterate member, in providing access to information and accomplishing tasks that require literacy skills.
"Literacy in itself is not sufficient to empower people unless conscious and planned efforts are made to interweave it with a participatory and empowering development process."
Phnuyal 1998
"The basic learning needs of youth and adults are diverse....literacy programmes are indispensible because literacy is a necessary skill in itself and the foundation of other life skills."
World Declaration on Education for All 1990
Few governments have accorded adult literacy high priority. Neither have donor agencies. National literacy campaigns have often been poorly resourced or ill-managed, lacking direct relevance to the circumstances of people. Islands of adult literacy, resulting from the initiative of community or civil society organisations lie in a sea of inactivity. Sustaining literacy within communities has received little attention.
There is no single strategy to meet the needs and circumstances of illiterate people. There is a requirement to search for imaginative ways of responding to the learning needs of adults in a manner that accepts that a basic education is as much the right of women and men as it is of children. It was for this reason that the World Declaration on Education for All (1990) included a commitment to reducing adult illiteracy by one half from 1990 to 2000.
Skills Development and Knowledge Creation
Secondary and Higher Education
Effective UPE, progress towards gender equality, and adult literacy are all essential planks in the platform of learning opportunities for all. They are priorities which respond to the learning needs and aspirations of poor people. They are a major and necessary contribution to education for sustainable livelihoods. They provide basic skills. But they are not the whole of the story.
Two of the six goals of the World Declaration on Education for All (1990) recognise the importance of basic education and training for youth and adults and the importance of improved dissemination of the knowledge, skills and values required for better living and for sustainable development.
The World Development Report: Knowledge for Development (1998/99) addresses the need for human capital, as well as physical, social and economic wealth. It identifies the difference between the poor and the rich, both countries and people, not only in terms of wealth, but also knowledge. Closing the knowledge gap and enhancing the capacity of institutions and individuals in poorer countries to create and apply knowledge is a challenge which extends well beyond the boundaries of formal education systems
Devising productive linkages between formal, school-based education, skills training and creating opportunities for economically sustainable livelihoods are elements in a complex debate which is active in all countries. Developing skills training policy and practice to meet the needs of both the formal and informal sectors and to give priority to the most economically disadvantaged, leads to a variety of models and systems - public and private. Policy and practice do not sit neatly within a single sector. Training is more heterogeneous than general education and there are few examples of genuinely comparable national training systems.
There is a growing number of countries in which there are pressing demands for training systems to reach socio-economic excluded groups, in spite of the generally disappointing results of these programmes. A new clientele of increasing importance is those in or about to enter the informal sector. Lifelong learning rather than once and for all skill acquisition is increasingly finding favour with governments
(Fluitman 1998)
DFID's evolving Skills for Development programme is being designed to address some of these challenges. It recognises four broad categories of skills needed by individuals and the societies within which they live:
· those enabling or empowering the individual to escape from poverty;
· those promoting the development of scientific, technological and technical skills for employment;
· enhanced professional skills; and
· higher level policy, analytical and planning skills.
A further challenge is the need to impart the knowledge and skills in the secondary and tertiary levels of education which will develop capabilities and capacities to contribute directly and substantively to economic growth and the elimination of poverty.
In many education systems there is no overt distinction between primary and junior secondary education. Basic education is often defined to include the junior years of secondary education; seven to nine years of schooling in all. The two greatest challenges for the secondary level are to absorb the growing numbers of students from expanded primary systems and to provide a quality of education which will build on their basic knowledge and skills, broaden their competencies and enhance their employment opportunities. Many developing countries start from a low base: 23% secondary Gross Enrolment Rate for boys and 14% for girls in the least developed countries in 1995. Figure D provides examples.
Secondary education builds on the basic skills of literacy and numeracy. It focuses on discipline-based study and should enhance social and scientific awareness. At best, it is a preparation for higher education, lifelong learning and the world of work. The skills and competencies required to lessen young people's vulnerability to poverty and provide skills which are meaningful for economic development in a global world, highlight the importance of secondary education.
Higher education too is vital for a learning society and yet tertiary enrolment in developing countries stands at 8.8% compared with 59.6% in industrialised countries. The World Conference on Higher Education (UNESCO Paris 1998) sought to shape a new international vision for higher education:
Figure D - Secondary School Gross Enrolment Rate 1990-1996
UNESCO 1998"There needs to be a more realistic assessment of the relationships between various modalities of education for all and versions of productive work for all....Too little is known about the extent to which what goes on in education and training institutions provides valuable learning for sustainable livelihoods."
King and McGrath 1999
"The aggressive investment in tertiary education that many of the East Asian economies made enabled them to sustain the new industries that provided the basis of their later growth. Thanks to these education investments, these economies were able to sustain their strategy of technology adoption in a world of constantly shifting knowledge."
World Development Report 1998/99
Without adequate higher education and research institutions providing a critical mass of skilled and educated people, no country can ensure endogenous and sustainable development and, in particular, developing countries... cannot reduce the gap separating them from the industrially developed ones. Sharing knowledge, international co-operation and new technologies can offer new opportunities to reduce this gap.
(World Declaration on Higher Education for the Twenty First Century: Vision and Action. UNESCO 1998)
The need of developing countries to absorb and exploit global knowledge and new technologies, requires the capacity to assess, adapt and develop appropriate national responses. This requires investment in higher education which may be difficult to sustain given the necessary demands of basic education, hard decisions about the areas of study to which tertiary education should give priority and clarity on how best to create productive links with the world of work and with other parts of the education system. And it points to the importance of research and knowledge generation which is directly relevant to poverty elimination and economic growth.
The role of universities and other higher education institutions is clear: they provide the essential skills needed to build a critical mass for the professions - law, teaching, medicine, economics - and the sciences - natural, social and applied - which contribute to the creation of human capacities and capabilities. Countries' economic development correlates with their ability to adopt and adapt new technologies. This capacity needs to be fostered in a properly resourced and managed environment of open intellectual enquiry. In many poorer countries this environment is fragile or may hardly exist.
Creating opportunities to acquire and apply knowledge and skills for the elimination of poverty requires responsive, comprehensive and well-managed national education systems.
The challenges are formidable and take different forms in different societies. They are inter-related and their significance and the priority which is accorded to one or more of them will be context specific and will change over time.
There are major constraints to be overcome. Figure E summarises some of the more important of these in relation to the challenges of UPE and gender equality in schooling. The absence of coherent policy and the limitations of much of the practice are not peculiar to education. However the nature of education - its timing, its duration, its processes and its objectives - requires strong, long-term advocacy and commitment, clarity and consistency of policy and sustained, well-managed provision of financial and human resources.
Figure E
Major constraints in achieving UPE and gender equality in school education
|
Policy |
Practice |
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· lack of political commitment to UPE and gender equality |
· insufficient and/or inappropriate budgetary allocations -geographically and sub-sectorally |
|
· inappropriate, non poverty-focused priorities: e.g defence |
· placing the financial burden on parents (directly and indirectly) with strong negative impact on education, particularly for girls. |
|
· inter and intra-sector budgetary imbalances |
· highly centralised and inefficient management systems: failure to involve primary stakeholders and school-based personnel |
|
· the absence of development related education objectives |
· the failure to place the child and the school at the heart of the education enterprise: the lack of a whole school improvement ethic; insufficient focus on the process of learning in classrooms |
|
· goals which fail to take into account the different needs of women and men |
· the absence of minimum learning packages - poorly motivated teachers, a dearth of learning materials, poor or dangerous learning environments |
|
· policy which is not grounded in a consultative process |
· inflexible school schedules which may discriminate against girls and severely disadvantaged communities |
|
· the lack of medium-term programming |
· insufficient attention to health, nutrition, sanitation and safe water |
|
· the absence of cross sector linkages |
· inappropriate curricula; a lack of gender awareness or the reinforcement of gender bias |
|
· lack of reliable and gender-disaggregated data |
· ill co-ordinated, time consuming donor supported projects |
|
· failure to learn from the experience and from the aspirations of the poor, women and men; to understand the nature of the demand for education |
· inconsistent NGO practices |
|
· the absence of policy advocates and champions |
· the lack of meaningful innovation, research and impact study |
|
· a slow move into UPE and girls' education by bilateral aid agencies: duplication; poor co-ordination |
· the absence of cross sectoral approaches to education at community level |
|
· failure to respond to the diversity of geographical, economic, social, religious and cultural circumstances in defining policy/practice |
|
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· the weak exploitation of partnerships - local, national and international - in the definition of policy |
"A problem analysis phase, including stakeholder participation, is underway to generate a better understanding of the primary education system, especially how it relates to ethnic minority groups and the poor in Vietnam. It may identify possible changes to policies, including those that affect cost recovery, hours spent in the classroom by pupils and teachers, and matters that bear on repetition rates."
DFID Country Strategy Paper Vietnam 1998
There is growing evidence in many developing countries of a shift towards giving greater priority to the educational challenges and priorities identified above and of a serious intent to address some of the constraints set out in Figure E. There are indications too of a willingness on the part of the international community to bring greater coherence and coordination to its collective efforts in support of education for poverty elimination and sustainable economic growth.
These opportunities need to be exploited. The collective agreements enshrined in international conventions and expressed in specific goals and targets provide frameworks for action. The progressive policies of countries prepared to commit themselves strongly to UPE, gender equality, literacy and skills development should be supported, studied and their positive experiences shared.
Governments developing policy and practice in a consultative and truly participatory way, responsive to a diversity of circumstances, and willing to devolve management to those directly involved in educational activity, deserve international encouragement and support.
Strong national commitment to clearly defined education goals and objectives, set within a long-term, nation-wide, sector policy and underpinned by a viable budgetary framework can provide an important vehicle for sustained and meaningful support to education.
Opportunities and benefits from cross-sectoral linkage are increasingly being identified and exploited. The nexus of education, health, water and sanitation is one important grouping. Established connections between girls' education, improved levels of nutrition, family planning and economic productivity, provide external impetus for ensuring that every girl is able to capitalise on her right to education. Policy and practice in respect of girls' education should reflect and support these complex inter-relationships.
Literacy is by no means the preserve of the formal education system. Many literacy programmes are embedded in the needs of other activities - agriculture, health and civil rights. Or they grow from the expressed concerns of individuals and communities.
Skills development and knowledge creation cut across ministries, the private sector and community-based organisations. These range from the acquisition of simple technical skills to the application of sophisticated technologies for national programmes. The process of generating knowledge and disseminating information exists within communities as it does through government and private sector systems. The diversity of contexts within which the acquisition of literacy, skills and knowledge are set, necessitates a policy environment which enables a mix of responses, which is sensitive to circumstance and need.
