What is the EFA 2000 Assessment?

The Assessment is an inter-agency sponsored, global exercise to take stock of the current status of basic education in each country and to assess the progress that has been achieved during the 1990s since the World Conference on Education for All (Jomtien, Thailand, March 1990). This assessment process will thus generate the information needed to plan further action at the beginning of the 21st Century to meet the basic learning needs of all children, youth and adults.

Why undertake the Assessment?

The 1990 Jomtien Conference was convened at the initiative of the executive heads of four of the agencies, With UNFPA as a co-sponsor. The Framework for Action to Meet Basic Learning Needs, which was agreed by the Conference, foresaw the need for comprehensive policy reviews at the end of the 1990s to enable countries to assess the effectiveness of their efforts to reach their own Education for All goals and to revise their plans accordingly. Then, on 12 December 1997, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution A/52/84 on Education for All, which contains the following two operative paragraphs:

• 8. Recommends that all Member States, and relevant agencies of the United Nations, as well as non-governmental organizations, provide the necessary information on the implementation of the strategies of education for all to the Secretary-General of United Nations and the Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization so as to enable them to report on the overall progress achieved and the shortfalls encountered in attaining the goal of education for all;

• 9. Requests the Secretary-General, in cooperation with the Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and in consultation with Member States, to consider effective ways and means for achieving the goal of education for all, including the desirability and the feasibility of launching a United Nations decade to eradicate illiteracy, and to report thereupon to the General Assembly at its fifty-fourth session, through the Economic and Social Council;
  

Subsequently, in response to General Assembly resolution, the executive heads of UNDP, UNFPA, UNESCO, UNICEF and World Bank met in Geneva on 30 March 1998 as the Convenors of the International Consultative Forum on Education for All, which they had established to guide and monitor follow-up action to the Jomtien Conference. They endorsed plans for the Assessment and agreed that the five agencies will work together to carry it out, particularly through their country and regional offices. They also agreed that the results of the Assessment will be examined at the fourth global meeting of the Forum, in Dakar, Senegal April 26-28, 2000.

Following are some of the Assessments done in the Caribbean and Dakar.

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Draft Dakar Framework for Action

• Executive Summary
• Preliminary Discussion Document

Education for All in the Caribbean: Assessment 2000 Monograph Series.

Errol Miller

Education for All in the Caribbean: Assessment 2000 Subregional Synthesis Report Vol.I. Summary.

Vena Jules and Aignald Panneflek

The State of Education in the Caribbean in the 1990s Sub-regional Synthesis and Annexes. Sub-regional Report Volume II

Vena Junes & Aignald Panneflek

List of Monographs and Case Studies

1.     Dr. Zellyne Jennings

        Phoenix in the Ashes: Adult Literacy in the Commonwealth Caribbean

2.     Mr. Anthony Griffith

        Social Studies in Caribbean Schools: Some Challenges for Instruction and Assessment

3.     Dr. Godfrey Steele

        Communication and Education About AIDS: A study of Medical Students Views in the Context of Actual Strategies Adopted         in Trinidad and Tobago

4.     Dr. Vena Jules

        Students' Affective Reactions to their Early Secondary Schooling in Trinidad and Tobago

5.     Mr. Leon Charles

        An Assessment of Progress in Early Childhood Care and Development in the Caribbean

6.     Dr. Vena Jules

        Survivors of the Experience: The Firsst three years of secondary Schooling in Trinidad and Tobago

7.     Dr. G. Howe & Dr. D. Marshall

        Citizenship Education , Democracy and Global Shifts: Rethinking Caribbean Social Studies

8.     Dr. S. Griffith

        The Caribbean Examination Counil: Responding to the Educational Needs of the Region

9.     Dr. J. Alexander Bennett

        Belize Primary Education Development Project: Improving Quality in the Provision of Education for All in Belize:
        An Examination of the Impact of a Basic Education Project

10.     Dr. June George & Dr. Joyce Glasgow

         The Boundaries Between Caribbean Beliefs and Practices and Conventional Science: Implications for Science Education
         in the Caribbean

11.     Ms. Diane Thurab-Nkhosi

         Improving Quality and Increasing Access in 2000: The Role of Distance Education

12.     Dr. Hyacinth Evans

         Gender Differences in Education in Jamaica

13.     Ms. Sandra Gift

         UNESCO Associated Schools Project Network (ASPnet) and Education for All

14.     Dr. Joceline Clemencia

         Language is more than Language in the Development of Curacao

15.     Dr. Barbara Bailey

         Issues of Gender and Education in Jamaica: What About the Boys?

18.     Mr. Bernard Hadjadj

         L'Education pour Tous en Haiti Durant les 20 Dernieres Annes

19.     Mr. Errol Miller

         Education For All in the Caribbean in the 1990s: Retrospect and Prospect

20.     Colleen Winter-Brathwaite

         Changing the Culture of the Classroom

Dr. V. Jules & Dr. A Panneflek

         Lighting the Way Forward: Sub-Regional Report Vol. 1. The State of Education in the Caribbean in the 1990s:
         Sub-Regional Report.

         Vol ll. Netherlands Antilles Case Study Literacy and Non-formal Education in the Caribbean: Netherland Antilles

AT THE PUBLISHER

16.     Ms. Asha Kambon & Lance Busby

         Education and its impact on poverty

17.     Ministry of Education, Haiti

         The problem of Overage Students in the Haitian Education System: An Overview

21.     Mrs. Lynda Quamina-Aiyejina

         Educational Quality and the Impact of Interventions in Education in the Caribbean: Annotated Bibliography

23.     Samuel Lochan

         Education and Work: Case Studies of Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and Barbados

22.     Ms. P. Daley-Morris

         Introduction of Information Technology to Schools in Jamaica.