Education for All > Background Documents > Mid-Decade Meeting 1996 > Speech Uunited Nations Educational, Scientific and Cutlural Organization Address by Mr Federico Mayor Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at the opening of the Mid-Decade Meeting of the International Consultative Forum on Education for All Amman, 16 June 1996 Your Majesty (on behalf), Distinguished Ministers and Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen, On behalf of UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Bank, I am honoured to open the Mid-Decade Meeting of the International Consultative Forum on Education for All. I wish to express my sincere gratitude to his Majesty and to the Jordanian Government for the gracious hospitality extended to us. This meeting has been called to assess what the international community - countries, donors, non-governmental organizations and other partners - has achieved in basic education since the World Conference on Education for All held in Jomtien, Thailand in 1990. This was a landmark occasion: political leaders, the educational community and representatives of civil society agreed for the first time on a worldwide action plan to provide basic education for all children and massively reduce illiteracy among youth and adults. But where do we stand, six years after Jomtien? Did the nations of the world, along with the donor community, live up to their commitments? I am happy to announce today that Jomtien has indeed made a difference. The results of the Mid-Decade Review of Progress towards Education for All , a world-wide exercise carried out over the last year, show that there has been definite progress in basic education. Not in every country, certainly not as much as we had hoped, but significant steps have been taken towards the goal of Education for All. A concerted effort by education ministries, international agencies, researchers and educationalists has enable us to diagnose the state of education in the developing world at mid-point between Jomtien and the year 2000. This assessment is more complete and up-to-date than ever before, and this is in itself a significant achievement. First and foremost, primary enrolments in 80 per cent of all developing countries have been steadily growing since 1990. This is perhaps the single most positive and significant feature of the balance sheet. Despite the economic crisis affecting so many of the poorer countries in the '90s, the downward trend of falling enrolments that we witnessed during the '80s has been reversed. Between 1990 and 1995, enrolment in all developing countries together grew by 50 million pupils, that is to say at double the pace in the '80s. South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa are the two regions that enrolled the most additional pupils - a combined total of some 33 million. That is quite an achievement. The first half of the 1990s has proved to be a period of educational recovery. These positive trends are even more encouraging when we look at the proportion of school-age children for whom school places have been provided. The net enrolment ratio - the proportion of the official primary school-age group actually attending school - has risen in all developing regions. Progress ranges from the 60 per cent net enrolment ratio achieved in sub-Saharan Africa to the even higher rates in Latin America and East Asia, which will surpass the 90 per cent mark before the turn of the century. But what about the out-of-school children? Has the world community delivered on its promise to reach out to them? At the time of the Jomtien Conference, assessments indicated that the number of children who did not have a place in school was expected to grow from 128 million to some 148 million by the year 2000. However, our latest data permit a more optimistic assessment: for the first time, the number of out-of-school girls and boys is actually decreasing; it is estimated at some 110 million in 1995 and that number should continue to fall. There is positive news about early childhood development, so central for preparing children for life and learning. Since 1990, reported enrolments in early childhood programmes have grown by some 20 per cent, now reaching 56 million young children, or one out of five children between 3 and 6 years of age . Girls make up nearly half of all enrolments. While resources for this expanding area are still insufficient, they now constitute 4 per cent of national education budgets. More attention is also given to children at risk - street children, refugees, war-victims - many of whom have been reached effectively through programmes combining education, health and nutrition. Dedicated non-governmental organizations deserve much of the credit for their commitment and spirit of innovation in striving for the global goal of Education for All. Following Jomtien, a growing number of donors have also reoriented their policies to give priority to basic education. A survey conducted by UNESCO in 1995 found that aggregate donor commitments and disbursements for basic education had risen in relative terms. Some donor countries, such as Germany and the Netherlands, increased their funding to basic education very significantly. UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF, and the World Bank, together with UNFPA, have reinforced their partnership and each has increased its support for basic education. The EFA Summit of Nine High Population countries in New Delhi 1993, the most visible initiative across regions since 1990, has been supported jointly by UNESCO, UNICEF, UNFPA and UNDP. And these nine countries, I am pleased to report, will be meeting here tomorrow as they did in Copenhagen in March 1995 in the occasion of the Social Development Summit, to reaffirm their commitment and discuss further co-operation and action to achieve Education for All. All in all, the record is positive, and we should take pride in what has been achieved. But we know that there is still much more to be done to meet the basic learning needs of people in all countries - North and South. It is clear, for a start, that we are not doing enough to reach the millions of children who still work in the fields or in factories, or who roam the streets in major cities. In Africa, for example, although a growing proportion of children are now enrolled in school, the number of children in the 6 to 11 age-group still out of school grew by some 2 million since 1990, totalling 39.3 million, and two-thirds of them are girls. This is simply unacceptable. The most important thing we can do for these children - who lack most other things - is to provide them with basic education adapted to their specific needs. It is their right, and it is our duty. We are also not doing enough for the millions of teachers on the front-line of education, too often working in difficult conditions, in overcrowded classrooms, for inadequate pay. A recent meeting organized by the International Labour Organization on the impact of structural adjustment on teachers stressed that currency devaluations and the freezing of salaries force many teachers to take up a second job or leave the profession altogether. In October this year, Ministers of Education from around the world will gather in Geneva at the 45th session of the International Conference of Education to discuss the role of teachers in a changing world. I sincerely hope that this year's focus on teachers will help draw international attention to their deteriorating working conditions, and also help identify solutions. We are not doing enough to make sure that the children who do manage to get a place in school actually learn something useful. The quality of the education they receive is often of an unacceptably low level, and most developing countries still lack the capacity to monitor learning in the classroom. Repetition and drop-out - which is not only a tremendous waste of public resources, but also a tragic waste of talent and morale among learners - is a major problem that needs to be tackled with determination in the years to come. We are not doing enough to close the gender gap. Despite the solemn declarations by world leaders to invest in women and girls, gender disparities are still the main constraint to achieving Education for All. There are fewer girls than boys enrolled in schools, and two-third of the world's illiterate adults, 565 million, are women. We have said it many times before, but we must say it again with even greater force: a society which fails to care for the education of its daughters handicaps its future. Finally, we are not doing enough to provide literacy and non-formal skills training for young people and adults. The absolute number of illiterate adults, is estimated 885 million today. Measured against this huge number, the resources devoted to literacy work remain wholly inadequate. The continuing shortcomings of educational provision worldwide should make us pause before we congratulate ourselves on the progress made in basic education in recent years. Such credit as is due should really go to the millions of children, adult learners, parents and teachers who, despite great difficulties, have consistently demonstrated their faith in education. Paolo Freire has said that "so often do the poor hear that they are good for nothing, know nothing, and are incapable of anything that in the end they may become convinced of their own unfitness..." Yet the positive educational balance-sheet we bring to this Conference tells us that, despite low self-esteem, economic difficulties, and poor quality of education, there is a tremendous belief out there that education matters. It is this faith on the part of learners that underpins the educational recovery we are witnessing. Tomorrow afternoon we will meet some of those children, men and women, who have demonstrated this strong belief in education. I am extremely happy that these "voices from the grassroots" have agreed to be with us and share in our dialogue. After all, education is not the business only of ministers, specialists, UN experts, or donor representatives, or educational officials. Education involves a true partnership between educators, children, youths, and adult learners, parents and teachers. We need to listen to their concerns. And we need to match their determination and faith in education. Education for All, by All, with All. Yes, education is a fundamental right and all social actors must guarantee the full exercise of this right: the Parliament, the municipalities, the churches, and the armed forces. What can and should be done, then, to accelerate and strengthen progress towards our goals ? I would like to point to six areas that need your close attention not only during the next three days, but, crucially, during the years to come. First, the "expanded vision of Jomtien" must find more effective expression in both policy and practice. We need to move beyond the confines of the classroom and reach those right to education is being denied. We have to provide learning opportunities for all, regardless of age, geographical location, and socio-economic status. Meeting the real and diverse learning needs of these learners will not be possible through a "more of the same" approach. Education for All can only be achieved if we put into place a genuine system of "Learning without Frontiers". The opportunity to learn must be available to everybody, at any time, anywhere, at any age and in any circumstance. And technology - while no panacea - can help overcome the barriers of conventional schooling and contribute to a system of lifelong open learning. To include the excluded, we must reach the yet unreached: broadcasting, audio-visuals, interactive CD-Roms, must become available to all, including those living in dispersed human settlements. Today, we must be at the forefront of the super highways of communications. But we must be also in the byways in these 600,000 villages in the world without electricity. The last advancements in solar energy, or other sources must be provided. Second, more resources must be found for basic education, and they need to be better used. Several of the least developed countries spend more than five per cent of their national budgets on education, and yet only manage to reach a fraction of school-age children, despite this proportionally large investment. Many of the poorest countries, especially those emerging from civil wars, will need far more support from the international community. The far-reaching political changes that have taken place since Jomtien - the end of the cold war, the peace process in the Middle East, and the spread of democracy in South Africa and many other countries, have opened windows of opportunity. Yet we often hear that public funding for education is limited by the scarcity of state resources. Is it really so? Or is it also a matter of choice? At the 1993 Education for All Summit of Nine High Population Countries, Mahbub ul Haq, Director of UNDP's Human Development Report, stated: "Let us not forget that the cost of each jet fighter equals one million children in primary school. If only the leaders of the nine summit countries would commit themselves today that in the next seven years, they will buy only 75 fewer jets, the targets of basic education for all would be met." The choice is ours to make. Recently, I have published altogether with the President of the World Bank, the Executive Administrator of UNICEF, UNDP and UNFPA one article in the International Herald Tribune entitled: "Education: the best investment". If by the 2000, all the countries in the world could invest from their own budget at least six per cent of the GNP, the dawn of the new century will be really a turning point. The funds exist. It is now a matter of priorities. The threats are different from those that prevailed during the Cold War. All armements of mass destruction must be now banned as well as perverse devices as such as anti-personal mines. The military industry will in the next years undertake profound transformations in order to contribute to addressing worldwide challenges such as urban transport, water channelling, etc...We need stable democracies and the armed forces defend the rule of justice, freedom and human rights. But we need the peace dividend that today is necessary to develop the human resources and to forge the attitudes that are indispensible for peace and security. There is only one kind of pedagogy of the example. We cannot offer to our children the bad examples of laundring of money from unknown sources that favours drug addiction. We cannot promise peace and development without sharing better and reshaping our national priorities. Another way to secure funds for education would be through innovative arrangements to ease the crippling burden of debt. According to the 1995 Human Development Report, the external debt of developing countries amounted to more than 1.8 trillion US dollars in 1993, and debt service consumed 22 per cent of export earnings. Creditors and debtors must seek imaginative ways to ease these burdens, and in particular to promote debt swaps for education. Another good news is that recently the World Bank has announced its readiness to take special measures to decrease or even eliminate the debts in case of the Least Developed Countries. Third, the recruitment, training, working conditions and status of teachers must receive a real boost. Special incentives are needed to attract and retain good teachers, especially women and those willing to teach in rural areas. We need more to benefit from the experience of teachers. We must learn to listen to them. They need our advice on the latest technological achievements that we can provide them, but the updating of the teachers must be an interactive process with reciprocal advantages. Fourth, much more must be done to provide adolescents and adults with literacy and life skills, to cope with change and contribute to a sustainable development. My views are that we can progressively use the audio-visual technology for intensive learning of skills in their own language. In this way, they can better undertake the process of literacy. This is particularly important when personalized approaches of education are needed after civil strive in order to facilitate social rearticulation and national reconciliation. Fifth, the quality of teaching and learning, in terms of both content and methods, must be improved to enhance educational achievement. Real learning, not merely enrolment figures, is the true measures of progress. Real learning is to instill in all the principles and values that will allow them to be themselves, to design their own destiny, to make their own choices, to saveguard diversity and to live altogether. This is what it means to build peace. Sixth and most importantly, much more needs to be done to make education accessible to girls and women. There are many successful experiences that can and must be built on, especially those bringing together decision-makers, community leaders, parents and young girls - to remove gender biases in schools. It is not a technical barrier, it is much more complex than this. The prerequisite is not to discriminate against women in order to benefit from all educational opportunities that are accessible to them. What is being advocated here is much more than education for education's sake. Education is the single most effective means to curb population growth, reduce child mortality, eradicate poverty and ensure democracy, peace, and sustainable development. It is important that this message should be conveyed insistently to the world's decision-makers and that they should recognize education for what it is - a key to the achievement of the goals for which the United Nations was created. This message has in fact found strong endorsement at some of the major UN Conferences organized over the last five years: the Earth Summit in Rio, the UN Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, the World Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, the World Conference on Social Development in Copenhagen, and the Women's Conference in Beijing. All reaffirmed education's central role in achieving the goals of justice, equality, development and peace. Investing in education is investing in people, and as such takes a long time to yield visible results. That is why strengthening our human resource base will require a sustained effort over several decades. It is time for action. The success of this meeting will not be measured by our resolutions here, but by our actions and achievements in the months and years ahead. I can assure you that all the sponsors of the Jomtien Conference, together with our multi-lateral and bi-lateral partners, are ready to play their full part in this effort. All together, with commitment and imagination, we can accelerate our progress towards Education for All and thereby significantly advance the cause of peace, justice, equality and freedom for All.