Financial crisis threatens to set back education

UNESCO Bangkok Press Release

Financial crisis threatens to set back education worldwide, UNESCO report warns

Bangkok, 23 June 2010 – The aftershock of the global financial crisis threatens to deprive millions of children in the world’s poorest countries of an education, warns the 2010 Education for All Global Monitoring Report – Reaching the Marginalized, to be launched on 25 June 2010 , in Bangkok, Thailand.

The UNESCO commissioned report warns that progress towards the EFA (Education For All) goals is being undermined due to failure of governments to tackle persistent inequalities based on income, gender, location, ethnicity, language, disability and other markers for disadvantage.

“While rich countries nurture their economic recovery, many poor countries face the imminent prospect of education reversals. We cannot afford to create a lost generation of children deprived of their chance for an education that might lift them out of poverty,” said UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova.

The Global Monitoring Report, developed annually by an independent team and published by UNESCO, assesses progress towards the six Education For All goals to which 164 countries committed themselves in 2000.
The 2010 report, Reaching the Marginalized, charts some striking advances in education over the past decade. Despite these gains, however, the world is not on track to achieve the goal of universal primary education by 2015. The document highlights the ongoing failure of governments to address extreme national inequalities and of donors to mobilize resources on the required scale. The authors estimate the annual financing gap for key education goals at USD$16 billion – a significant increase over previous assessments.

Education For All is an international commitment agreed upon by governments, INGOs, UN agencies and development partners. The six EFA goals include: the expansion and improvement of early childhood care and education (ECCE); achievement of universal primary education (UPE); lifelong learning and life skills; adult and youth literacy; elimination of gender disparities in primary and secondary education; and improvement in all aspects of quality of education. The goals are directly linked to the Millennium Development Goals.

The 2010 Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report will be launched in Thailand on 25 June 2010 from 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon at the Maha Chulalongkorn Building, Room 105, 1st Floor, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok.

ENDS

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