Education for All > Background Documents > Mid-Decade Meeting 1996 > Press Release The Mid-Decade Meeting of the Education for All Forum Debate on Girls' Education and the Plight of Teachers Amman, 18 June 1996 - Participants in the Mid-Decade meeting of the International Consultative Forum on Education for All today brain-stormed on the ways and means to ensure that the international goal of "education for all" will be achieved on target. The Amman meeting is convened by UNESCO, UNICEF, UNDP and the World Bank. Following yesterday's assessment of what has been achieved since the 1990 World Conference on Education for All, held in Jomtien, Thailand, the 250 delegates from over 70 countries debated issues such as the challenge of educating girls, building partnerships for education for all, the role of education in emergency situations and the role and status of teachers. At Jomtien, 155 governments pledged to provide primary education to all children and reduce illiteracy before the year 2000. In a roundtable on girls' education, organized by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), participants stressed certain constraints to educating girls, such as early pregnancy and marriage, poverty, lack of women teachers, and cultural attitudes that discriminate against girls. Recent data indicate that, despite an increase in female enrolment over the last six years - from 226 million in 1990, to an estimated 254 million in 1995 - nearly three girls (6-11 years) out of ten are still not in school, compared to one out of ten boys of the same age. "Let's be honest about why so may girls are still not in school", said Carolyn McAskie, Vice-President of the Africa and Middle East Branch of CIDA. "It's a matter of systematic discrimination." Ms Aicha Bah Diallo, Minister of pre-university education in Guinea, spoke passionately about her country's efforts to boost girls' enrolment. By involving religious leaders, by ensuring that all teachers on the payroll actually teach, and by mobilizing local communities, Guinea has increased girls' enrolment from 24 to 45 per cent over the past three years. Another roundtable stressed the importance of building partnerships in education between governments, non-governmental organizations, religious bodies, the media, and private businesses. "Governments cannot do the job alone", said Faiza Kefi, Vice-President of the Tunisian Parliament. She added that schools have a "hard time dealing with government bureacracies" and underlined the urgency in forming "close ties" between ministries of education, non-governmental organizations, schools, parents and community leaders. "We don't have a choice", she said. "If education for all is to be achieved, all sectors of society have to work together." A roundtable organized by UNICEF debated how basic education can be effectively delivered in emergency situations. After a massacre, a devasting cyclone or a refugee crisis, saving lives is obviously the first priority. But participants underscored the major role that education plays in healing and rehabiliting. Despite the horrors of war, the process of reconstruction can be an opportunity for major reform. In Sudan, several donor-supported programmes educate nomads, children and youngsters who have suffered from the crises. In Bosnia, the government has made education a top-priority in the transition from war to peace, and in war-torm Afghanistan, the BBC and UNESCO have launched radio soap operas which provide basic education through entertaining drama. The rountable stressed that education in emergencies and transition periods must be a long-term business aiming to rebuild the education system. "We have to make sure that education is maintained in a situation of crisis", said Fay Chung, Chief of the Education Cluster at UNICEF. The plight of teachers was debated in a roundtable organized by Education International, an umbrella organization for some 258 national teachers' unions. Participants stressed that the teacher remains a crucial and indispensable actor for achieving education for all. Technological advances and educational reforms are calling for teachers to work longer hours and to have better qualifications, yet, according to the working document of the meeting, the working conditions of many of the world's 50 million teachers have deteriorated rapidly in recent years. "While preparing and equipping teachers to play a multiplier role in society, governments should also take into account their well-being", said Rex Nettleford, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, in Kingston, Jamaica. "One cannot expect people - in this case teachers - employed under conditions of slave labour, to produce better than slaves". He continued that investing in human beings is the most fundamental and beneficial business a society can engage in.