Education: the challenge of universality
Extracted from the Social Watch Report 2006
September 2006
The emergence of the information society has opened up new possibilities in education but it has also exposed some basic deficiencies. While illiteracy is now almost negligible in the developed countries it is still only too prevalent in the poorest nations. Although indicators show that overall progress has been made, future demographic growth is going to cause serious problems in some parts of the world. The educational systems in the developing countries are in urgent need of greater public investment and contributions from the international community.
Improving education has been on the agenda of international bodies, governments and civil society organizations for decades. Education is a basic instrument for eradicating poverty, constructing citizenship and improving people’s ability to control their own futures, and it has attracted the attention of numerous actors and given rise to policies to tackle the main problems. Good progress has been made overall, but in the background we can still discern serious inequalities. The new systems of production and new kinds of culture that the information society has brought in its wake have helped to push education back into the spotlight of world interest, but the response to this challenge from the decision-makers has been fragmented and inadequate.
In the modern world there is an unprecedented flow of information, but paradoxically some of the major problems facing education on a global level have still not been overcome. For example, many countries have virtually banished illiteracy, but many others are still struggling to establish universal literacy. There are nearly 800 million illiterate adults in the world today (two thirds of whom are women) and more than 100 million children who do not go to school (80% of them in Africa), so this challenge involves huge swathes of the world’s population.(1)
The Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, has made the point that teaching people to read and write is not just an end in itself, it is also a vital tool for eradicating poverty, promoting gender equity, improving health, fostering political participation and improving people’s lives in many other dimensions. It is a basic human right, and as such it cannot be renounced.
The developed countries have achieved almost universal literacy but the poorest countries are still plagued with widespread illiteracy. In India more than a third of the people cannot read or write, and this problem is also severe in sub-Saharan Africa, the Arab world and large parts of Asia.
Of the ten countries with the highest illiteracy rates, eight are in sub-Saharan Africa, which is the by far the most deficient region in this respect.
It is vitally important that enrolment rates in formal education be raised, because there are still more than 100 million children growing up without any primary education, which is a serious deficit for humankind. However, in many cases the task of extending the coverage of formal educational systems is complicated since it can be difficult to reach children in rural areas or with special needs, or children who belong to cultural or linguistic minorities.
Continues...
View the complete analysis including tables and charts (PDF)
Additional resources
Table on the progress in education worldwide(PDF)
See the complete table of contents of the Social Watch Report 2006
-----------------------------------
(1) Henceforth the figures given are taken from various
UNESCO reports.
