Progress in access to primary education, says 2013 MDGs Report
The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has launched the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Report 2013 in Geneva, Switzerland. This report features a collection of key MDG statistics for each Goal and analysis to be utilised across the UN system in the lead-up to the September special event on MDGs.
On 1st July, Ban underlined the successes of the MDGs, the major progress that has been made in all regions under the MDGs, and said that there is still time to accelerate action towards achieving many of the targets. For example, in 2011, 57 million children of primary school age were out of school. Progress on primary school enrolment has slowed, clearly indicating that, on current trends, the education MDGs will not be achieved.
Ensure access to all level of education
“Less than a thousand days before the deadline given to world’s governments to achieve education for all, it is crucial to reiterate our commitment to achieve free public quality education for all,” said EI General Secretary, Fred van Leeuwen, commenting on the report. “EI believes that governments must guarantee access not only to primary education, but also to quality early childhood, lower and upper secondary education, vocational education and training and higher education, as well as long-life learning.”
He added: “We urge governments and the international community to commit themselves to a final push to achieve MDGs before the 2015 deadline”.
“The post-2015 agenda, currently under discussion, must put free quality education at the core of the new development strategy”, he said. “The new agenda for education must place students and teachers at the centre of efforts to ensure equity and quality in education”, van Leeuwen went on.
Van Leeuwen challenged the narrow reductionist approach to education, being promoted by some as a way for improving educational quality. ”The notion that educational quality is just about reading, writing, counting and testing negates the very essence of education, which is to enable young people to achieve their potential and contribute positively as members of society” he said. “In addition to basic literacy and numeracy skills, we also need to look at problem solving, global citizenship, creativity, and artistic skills.”
Van Leeuwen announced that EI will be launching its Mobilising for Quality Education initiative on 4 October in New York and Paris.
To read the report, please click here
