Education for All has been taken as a compelling goal in Eritrea because it improves both the lives of people and the economic growth and social welfare of the country hard hit by long war and devastation. This above all is largely concerned with the Universalization of Primary Education because in a situation where the main economy is based on agriculture and with a large rural population, the social returns to the investments is considered to be very high. UPE is the first cycle in the formal basic education strategy and is very crucial in the development of a literate work force and as a minimum requirement for the promotion of basic education in the country. In general assessing the impact of the educational opportunity created, improvements made in quality, efforts conducted at standardizing the formal school system and monitoring aspects are some of the basic dimensions that need to be raised in addressing the goals of EFA in Eritrea.

The growth in school enrollments in Eritrea during the last eight years is unparalleled at any time in the colonial history of the country. In the years after independence major efforts to improve accessibility, coverage and relevance were considered as essential dimensions of the promotion of equal educational opportunity. Enrolment has been steadily growing and has been made to follow the normal pattern of positive growth at primary and the irregular pattern more pronounced at middle level. The indicated low rate of primary level in 1996/97 academic year is attributed to the decline of school construction rates in 1995. This is also related to the high boom in junior level as a result of the primary school level expansion and the subsequent reduction in intakes in grade one. As is indicated in table 7, the pattern of growth have normalized at all levels in which a 6.1% average at primary, 14.9% at middle was achieved since the 1996/97 academic year.

Thus quantitative expansion has been particularly impressive at basic education level. In terms of growth and development the rapid change of the levels beyond the primary is of major concern as is indicated in the table below. The analysis of the present situation as will be indicated latter on, however, show that there is a growing concern in the quality, which would require the prioritization and the revitalization of basic inputs at all levels. The massive educational expansion has been in line with the human capital strategy of the government to improve the human capital stock of the nation. Today there are about 114,043 more children and young people enrolled in schools at basic education than in 1998/99 in the country which is about 54% more than what was in 1992/93. This is considered a major breakthrough in satisfying the educational demands of children and is seen in respect to the educational recovery in the country and the promotion of equity of social services through the provision of free and compulsory basic education. Education is provided free at basic education level, though no efforts have been made to compel children or parents to send their children to school. Persuasion and sensitization has so far been the major strategy of convincing parents to send their children to school.

In general, to achieve the desired trend of growth in the last eight years schools have been built yearly at the rate of 22.5% at primary, 6.4% at middle and 10.5% at secondary levels and the national average growth of schools is 19.4% yearly. The contribution of the non-government sector in this growth is insignificant (2.8% at primary, 0.6% at middle and 10.55% at secondary level while the national average is only 2.1%). It has been assessed that great mobilization and awareness for the greater private sector and community involvement in school construction is required to ease the responsibility from government shoulder. The percentage of the private schools was about 13% in 1998/99 and is considerably very low.

In terms of social impact the expansion of the school system has opened a gate for substantial social and cultural influences in even the remote rural and periphery areas of the country, and the educational demands of citizens in many marginalized areas has taken shape. Furthermore, it also reflects the right of the child to education on the basis of equal opportunity and the enormous commitment the government has for the basic right of children. The overall indication is that culturally the trust and interest of people in education have grown stronger.

Despite major interventions and the lack to achieve planned substantial targets, rejection of children by many schools has been a major social problem. Preliminary data indicates that in the last 4 years schools have rejected more than 60,083 students an average of about 12,017 children every year which implies that about 12 additional elementary schools of five classrooms each were needed with 500 students capacity and working in double shift. While the problem still persists in four out of the six regions, it has been declining yearly from about 22,472 in 1995/96 (50.5% of the new intakes) to 7,311 (to 13% of the new intakes) in 1998/99.

An important phenomenon very much related is the AIR and this could be seen in relation to the number of children returned. At national level it could be said that AIR has grown by about 5.1% since 1993 and about 19.8% yearly since 1996. Another proof for the educational recovery of the country is the improvement in the NIR that has grown from 12.8% in 1993 to 20.2% in 1998. When data is disaggregated at regional level, however, the indication is that the apparent intake rate has decreased substantially in all the regions except in the Central region. The Central zone has made great progress in AIR in the 1998 due to the influx of deportees from Ethiopia after the border war with Ethiopia. A particular concern is the deteriorating intake rate in the Southern Red Sea region.

There has been a 5.1% yearly average intake increase in grade 1 in the last 6 years (it would have reached about 38.1 if all those rejected since 1995 were accepted). This is seen in relation to the already existing serious problem of enrolment in children particularly at primary level. In general, there are several distinct policy issues that need to be considered in relation to the sociological dimensions of enrolment. First, there is the great need to maintain healthy intake rates especially in the lowland areas and strong measures for planned interventions and alternative strategies of access in these places should be considered highly. One of these is the need to consolidate the effort at bringing the school nearer to the communities. Second, is the need to reduce repetition in grade 1. Raising the participation of the community in promoting access is also one of the necessary measures.

A major concern in enrolment is the age for new entrants at grade 1. In the context of addressing equal opportunity at the right age and reducing opportunity cost, the enrolment age for new intake is the 6^th birthday though in many areas this has not been implemented strictly. An age limit for grade 1 between 7-9 age was introduced taking into consideration the social, cultural and economic situation of the rural and nomadic areas. More than 68.4% of the new entrants were not of the official admission age in 1998 as compared to 78% in 1993. In grade 1 in general 2.4% were under aged and about 75.9% over aged in 1993 as compared to 4.6% and 66.9% in 1998. This would require a greater mobilization of resources, sensitization of the community, a rapid growth of the school system and management changes in enrolment so that schools do not favor older children.

With respect to the improvement in accessibility, it is assessed that substantial improvement in school coverage and distribution has been achieved in the last eight years especially at elementary level. The major issue of concern in the overall strategy is the need to address gender, regional, and urban/rural disparity. The overall standard demographic indicators of school distribution are given in the table 11. What needs to be considered is that besides the rapid population growth, there has been a rapid decline in mortality rates in the last eight years. By the year 2003 there will be about 735,086 children at the Basic Education school age and about 852,792 by the year 2009. This would suggest more demand for learning provision and the allocation of greater resources for education. Furthermore, there is the general indication that a great deal of regional and cultural disparity in terms of coverage of educational opportunity. Taking the demographic indicators of density of population and beneficiary families, the regions of Maekel, N R Sea, S R Sea and Gash Barka need greater attention to improve the school to family ratio at elementary level. The same regions except Maekel and Debub also are also targets at junior and senior level.

In general, despite remarkable achievements in a relatively short time, the major concerns in terms of coverage are the situation in gross and net enrolment rates, regional disparity, the rural/urban settings and the distribution of opportunities across the various mother tongue schools. The government has given emphasis to favor girls and marginalized areas in the planning and implementation process. Thus, it could be said that the GER and NER have changed smoothly particularly in the last 3 years as a result of the planned and targeted expansion made at all levels of basic education. GER has risen 4.5 percentage points at elementary and 7.6 percentage points at basic education level. NER has increased by 7.7 percentage points at primary and by 5.8 percentage points at basic education level.

A good progress has been made in terms of enrolling children of the official admission age at the primary level. A comparison of the growth in the primary and middle levels shows that many of the regions with a very low rate of primary level expansion in 1996 have generally improved their status of basic education coverage. A more rapid and greater expansion of the middle level has been done at the expense of the primary level in many places. This is a critical policy issue that needs to be addressed, as this experience need not be repeated in the future. In addition the deteriorating situation in the S R Sea region is of special concern and special measures need to be introduced here while all the lowland regions of Gash Barka, and Northern Red Sea are also important priorities together with the lowland areas of Anseba.