The Global Education for All Meeting, which took place this week in Muscat, Oman, was the last major international gathering to help shape a post-2015 agenda before next year’s World Education Conference in Incheon, Republic of Korea. The meeting aimed to reach a provisional agreement on the post-2015 global education agenda based on the goal and seven targets of the EFA Steering Committee Joint Proposal.
The Republic of Korea is an ideal choice for a showcase global education meeting, given its exemplary achievements over the past two generations. But the choice of Oman for such a meeting was equally apt. Back in 1970, just over a generation ago, the female adult literacy rate was an astonishingly low 12%. In 2010, it was 82%.
The hosts certainly understated their achievements, which show what can be done with strong will and with financial support that matches such ambition. Yet at the meeting, the reasons for Oman’s progress in education did not seem to have resonated with some of the participants, as was made obvious by some of the bones of contention.
One clear area where differing opinions are apparent is on how goals are to be financed. Poorer countries expressed their commitment to sign up to a target that will make their governments increase their spending on education. However, they pointed out that the target was not balanced: even if they increase spending, some of them will not be able to afford fast progress based on their own resources only. They asked for the target to include a commitment from richer countries to help fill the gap – but some richer countries would not accept such a clause in the final statement.
No comments:
Post a Comment