7 Days to Go: 8 MDG. MDG 2- Children everywhere able to complete primary schooling
Spotlight onto Millennium Development Goal 2 today:
Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling
The United Nations provides sobering advice about the likely success of this goal:
- Hope dims for universal education by 2015, even as many poor countries make tremendous strides
- Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia are home to the vast majority of children out of school
- Inequality thwarts progress towards universal education
Some of the broader metrics are presented here:
- Enrolment in primary education in developing regions reached 89 per cent in 2008, up from 83 per cent in 2000
- The current pace of progress is insufficient to meet the target by 2015
- About 69 million school-age children are not in school. Almost half of them (31 million) are in sub-Saharan Africa, and more than a quarter (18 million) are in Southern Asia.
Education is something so many of us just take for granted. It seems so simple. And the reality is that it can be a tough decision if the money available does not extend far enough to educate your children. Abolishing school fees in some of the poorest countries has made a big difference. Significant and important gender issues are being addressed through tackling this goal.
Building Bridges 