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Time
To Put Money Where Your Mouth Is, NGOs Tell Govts in Mexico
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
Inter Press Service
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 MEXICO
CITY, Apr 25 (IPS World Desk) - Forget empty rhetoric; focus
on the bottom line. That, in essence, is what an international
coalition of education activists have called for on the eve
of the World Education Forum, in Senegal, on Apr. 26.. |
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What is more, the Global Campaign for Education (GCE), which
heads this coalition, has already released a set of nine demands,
five of which deal with the financial issues it has in mind.
They clamour for, among others, a commitment by governments
to publicly guarantee ''their part of the necessary resources
for basic education''.
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According
to the GCE, such a financial commitment, requiring an increase
in the proportion of the gross national product (GNP) allocated
to basic education, cannot be ignored if the Dakar gathering
is to achieve its objective of basic education all over the
world by 2015.
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''National
strategies should include costed and practical steps to address
the need to bring high-quality teaching skills and active
learning to every public school,'' it added in a statement
directed to national education leaders from 180 countries
due to attend the three-day conference in Dakar.
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To do otherwise will result in the Forum ''delivering nothing,''
says Oxfam, a London-based NGO partner of the GCE.
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According
to Kevin Watkins, a senior policy advisor at Oxfam, ''The
point of the meeting is not just to talk, but to come up with
practical ways of achieving education for all.''
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What
Oxfam wants to avoid is a repetition of the scenario that
followed the World Conference on Education for All in Jomtien,
Thailand, 10 years ago. At that meeting, 155 countries pledged
to provide all children with good quality basic education
by 2000.
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However,
as Oxfam revealed in February this year, governments ''shamefully
failed to deliver on the commitments they made 10 years ago.''
And a study done by it on the current state of education compelled
it to conclude, ''We're a long way off meeting the targets.''
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Early
this month, the GCE spelled out the financial package it had
in mind when it launched the Global Action Plan for Education.
It estimated that 8 billion dollars will have to be invested
annually for 10 years in the developing world to ensure children
receive quality education for the first eight years in school.''
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Governments
in the developing countries, it added, will have to raise
half of this amount through ''increased resource mobilisation
and the redistribution of wasteful public spending, such as
military expenditure.''.
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For
that, the GCE expects at least six percent of a country's
GNP to be set aside annually for education. Such a figure
has been based on the recommendations made by the International
Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century (also
known as the Delors Commission).
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The
rest of the funding, declares GCE's plan, will have to flow
from the international community. Increased development assistance,
in its view, will have to make a substantial contribution.
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According
to its calculations, ''allocating eight percent of aid budgets
to basic education would mobilise an additional 3 billion
dollars. Currently the share of OECD Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development) aid budgets allocated to basic
education is only around two percent of the total.''
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For
Sheldon Shaeffer, who heads the education section at the United
Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the GCE's expectations from
developing countries is a ''reasonable'' one.
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''As
a general guideline,'' he says, ''six percent is widely regarded
as a reasonable proportion for allocation to the whole education
sector.''
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He
adds, however, that the figure is ''a crude measure'', since
it does not reflect the level of the GNP, nor how that expenditure
''is spread across the education sector''.
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Over
the last 10 years, the manner in which Third World governments
have invested in education has varied from region to region..
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Cuba
and Costa Rica, for instance, have been setting aside 6 percent
of their GNP annually for education, as against Brazil, which
has been spending in the neighbourhood of 4.8 percent. But
three other countries in Latin America, El Salvador, Guatemala
and Peru, have averaged less than 2.5 percent..
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In Asia, on the other hand, funding ranges from the People's
Democratic Republic of Lao, which has allocated as little
as 0.5 percent, as against a country like Bangladesh, which
has come close to investing 6 percent.
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According
to Shaeffer, South Africa has consistently spent more than
6 percent of its GNP on education. By contrast, Cote d'Ivoire
has come close to 4.5 percent.
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Still,
UNICEF believes that for all countries there is a strong case
for advocating an increase in funds for education, since there
are a number of governments that are ''spending less than
2 percent of GNP on (basic) education.''.
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And
the consequence of that is evident by the number of adults
and children who have had no formal education. UNICEF offers
one illustration: Nearly a billion people entered the 21st
century ''unable to read a book or sign their names much less
operate a computer or understand a simple application form.''
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And
the consequence of that is evident by the number of adults
and children who have had no formal education. UNICEF offers
one illustration: Nearly a billion people entered the 21st
century ''unable to read a book or sign their names much less
operate a computer or understand a simple application form.''
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Of
that number, close to 880 million were illiterate adults,
two-thirds of whom were women, and the rest were illiterate
children, 60 percent of whom were girls.
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Oxfam provides more: In Vietnam, 68 percent of families living
in poverty are headed by someone with no education; in Peru,
about two-thirds of extremely poor families are headed by someone
with no education. |
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And in Zambia, rural women with no education are twice as likely
to be living in extreme poverty as those who have benefited
from eight and 12 years of education. . |
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Only through clear commitments, asserts the GCE, can governments
transform such a story of failure. What matters, in its view,
is the bottom line linking finance to the policies needed
to deliver on the promise of education for all.
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This article
is free of copyright restrictions and can be reproduced provided
that Inter Press Service is credited. |
