The Case for Universal Education: Free, Quality, Universal Education For All

1. The Case for Universal Education:Free, Quality, Universal Education For All Prepared by Gene Sperling Chair, United States Global Campaign for Education Director, Center for Universal Education | Council on Foreign Relations

2. The State of Universal Education: A Global Overview Over 72 million children around the world do not attend primary school; hundreds of millions more lack access to secondary school or suffer from a poor quality education.

3. The State of Universal Education • More than 78 countries are at risk of not achieving the goal of universal primary education by 2015 • The most high-risk countries are primarily in sub-Saharan Africa but also include India and Pakistan • About 70 countries failed to meet the gender parity goal for primary and secondary education by 2005 • Only 18 have a good chance of making this goal by 2015 • The majority of low-performing countries are in sub-Saharan Africa. Others include Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen (All Statistics: EFA GMR, 2008)

4. Developing Countries with Over 500,000 Out-of-School Children, 2004 (EFA GMR, 2007) Total: 43.3 Million children out of school in 28 countries. A Global Education Overview Children out of school: Just over 72 million childrenare out of school throughout the world. • Roughly 33 millionof them are in sub-Saharan Africa. • There are 23 developing countries that have over half a million out of school children each – two of these countries are in Latin America. • India, Nigeria, and Pakistan account for 27% of the world’s out-of-school children • Over 226 million children are not enrolled in secondary school. • Hundreds of millions of children go to school but receive a poor quality education.(All Statistics: EFA GMR, 2008)

5. Where Are Children Out of Primary School? Central/Eastern Europe 2.5% Central Asia <1% North America/Western Europe 2.4% East Asia/Pacific 12.5% Arab States 8.5% South Asia 20.3% Latin America/Caribbean 3.5% Sub-Saharan Africa 49% Percentage of the Global Total Number of Young People Out of Primary School by Region 2007 EFA Global Monitoring Report – “Out of School Children” based on a total of 76.8million

6. How Many Children Enroll in Secondary School? (All Statistics: EFA GMR, 2007: Net Enrolment Ratios in Secondary Education)

7. Why Invest in Education?

8. Benefits of Education Basic education is the building block for national development. Education has the power to: • Reduce infant mortality • Reduce risk of AIDS • Boost income growth • Increase agricultural productivity • Foster democracy • No country has ever achieved continuous and rapid economic growth without first having at least a 40% adult literacy rate (Center for Global Development, 2007). • Studies show that a single year of primary school increases the wages people earn later in life by 5 to 15 % for boys and even more for girls (CFR, 2004). • For each additional year of secondary school, an individual's wages increase by 15-25% (CFR, 2004). • A 65-country analysis finds that doubling the proportion of women with a secondary education would reduce average fertility rates from 5.3 to 3.9 children per woman (CFR, 2004). • In Africa, children of mothers who receive five years of primary education are 40 % more likely to live beyond age five (CFR, 2004). • More productive farming due to increased female education accounts for 43 percent of the decline in malnutrition achieved between 1970 and 1995 (CFR, 2004).

9. Wages and Productivity • Educated women are more likely to enter the formal labor market, where they reap greater wage gains than the informal sector. A study in Brazil confirmed this correlation; by facilitating the transition to the formal labor sector, education helped promote higher wages (Malhotra, 2003). Education leads to higher wages. Studies show that a single year of primary school increases the wages people earn later in life by 5-15% for boys and even more for girls (CFR, 2004). Returns to secondary education are even greater. For instance, returns to girls’ secondary education were shown to be 15-25% in a recent study (CFR, 2004). More education leads to more productive and efficient farming. A 63-country study found that more productive farming due to increased female education accounted for 43% of the decline in malnutrition achieved between 1970 and 1995 (CFR, 2004).

10. Education and Health • An extra year of girls’ education can reduce infant mortality by 5–10 percent. This link “is especially striking in low income countries (CFR,2004).” • Multi-country data shows educated mothers are 50 percent more likely to immunize their children than uneducated mothers (CFR, 2004). • In Brazil and Peru women with no education have about 6 children, while women with a secondary education only have about 3 (CFR 2004, UNICEF 2007). • When women gain four years more education, fertility per woman drops by roughly one birth, according to a 100-country World Bank study (CFR, 2004). • A 65-country analysis finds that doubling the proportion of women with a secondary education would reduce average fertility rates from 5.3 to 3.9 children per woman (CFR, 2004).

11. Education and Health: HIV/AIDS Educated girls are less likely to contract HIV/AIDS: • A study in Zambia found that AIDS spreads twice as slow among educated girls (CFR, 2004). • Young rural Ugandans with secondary education are three times less likely than those with no education to contract HIV/AIDS (CFR, 2004). • A review of 113 studies indicates that school-based AIDS education programs are effective in reducing early sexual activity and high-risk behavior (CFR, 2004). • A study shows that HIV/AIDS education leads to a 65% decrease in pregnancy among young girls from riskier, older partners (sugar daddies). High risk sexual activities are the main drivers of the spread of HIV/AIDS in this population (MIT, 2006).

12. Every Child Deserves a Fair Chance Education is a human right. • In 1948, the United Nations General Assembly signed the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. The Declaration states that, “Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.” • The Convention on the Rights of the Child was agreed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1989 and was ratified by 191 out of 193 countries, making it a truly global bill of rights. The Convention on the Rights of the Child states that countries should make “primary education compulsory and available free to all.” Education is one of the eight Millennium Development Goals: by 2015, all children should complete a full course of primary schooling. In 2007, the world reached the halfway point in moving toward this goal.

13. The State of Global Funding for Education

14. Fast-Track Initiative • Global compact of developing and donor countries and agencies to support global EFA goals by focusing on accelerating progress towards universal primary school completion by 2015 • Launched in 2002 and housed at the World Bank but not owned by a specific institution • The FTI is a “virtual fund” designed to be a global compact for education: developing countries present strong EFA plans and donors harness resources to cover the financing gap in a single process

15. Currently 36 FTI Countries with endorsed national education sector plans 30 more are pending endorsement in 2007 & 2008 Three of currently endorsed countries – Guyana, Honduras and Nicaragua – are in Latin America FTI-Endorsed Countries Burkina Faso Guinea Guyana Honduras Mauritania Nicaragua Niger The Gambia Mozambique Senegal Liberia Georgia Vietnam Yemen Ghana Ethiopia Kenya Lesotho Madagascar Moldova Tajikistan Benin Central African Rep. Timor Leste Albania Cambodia Cameroon Djibouti Kyrgyz Rep. Mali Mongolia Rwanda Sierra Leone Haiti Sao Tome & Principe Fast-Track Initiative Catalytic Fund Provides funding in the form of grants to help close the financing gap for countries with limited donor presence. Commitments total about US$ 1.2 billion over 2003-2009 (All Statistics: FTI, 2007)

16. Currently, government donors commit approximately $2.5 billion to education all children in the world The U.S. gives just $460 million/year, about what it spends to build 25 high schools Conservative estimates show a $5.6 billion financing gap to cover 6 years of education for all the world’s children To cover the 8 years necessary for real proficiency, the gap is probably closer to $10 billion Two donors currently leading on education funding are the Netherlands and the United Kingdom A $10 Billion Financing Gap Remains Recently, the UK committed to spending $1.5 billion per year – $15 billion over ten years – to ensure countries long-term, predictable funding for education • Some examples of the UK’s Commitment: • Mozambique will receive ~$91m over 10 years • to help provide a national bursary for orphans • and girls in rural areas, and to reduce classroom • sizes in primary schools. • Tanzania ~$515m from 2007-2017 to support • their national education program. • India with ~$395m from 2007-2011.

17. Key Issues in Education

18. Key Issues: Quality There is some good news - several countries have made significant progress: • Brazil has launched an initiative – FUNDEF – to reduce regional funding inequities. Proformação is a program started to train unlicensed teachers using distance learning. • South Africa instituted incentives for better-trained teachers to work in poorer schools • Chile has been adopting more participatory learning methods to replace “rote” learning Major quality challenges include: • Class size • In countries with the highest pupil-teacher ratios, barely one in three students who start primary reach grade 5. • Teacher education • In Tanzania and Ghana, less than 20% of all teachers have formal training • Resources • Over half of sixth graders in major African nations are in classrooms without a single textbook Other factors of quality: pedagogy, language of instruction and school facilities. A Southern Africa Consortium Study found that in four out of seven countries, fewer than half of sixth-graders achieved minimum competence in reading. 2005 Global Monitoring Report – Summary: The Quality Imperative

19. Key Issues: Avoiding the Access/Quality Tradeoff • Major expansion of access to education can suffer serious declines in quality—the student-teacher ratio may zoom to 100:1 from 50:1 in ill-equipped classrooms (IMF, 2005). • The heads of state in Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania all made major commitments in recent years to abolish fees and saw enrollments skyrocket by millions overnight. • In Kenya, enrollment increased from 5.9 million to 7.2 million yet they added no new net teachers (UN Millennium Project, 2005) • Without long-term, predictable funding, Ministries are hesitant to add new teachers because salaries are reoccurring costs that constitute the largest component of an expansion—usually averaging over 80 percent of education budgets in major developing nations (IMF, 2005).

20. Key Issues: School Fees In 2005, of 94 poor countries surveyed, only 16 charged no fees at all Yet, countries have made strides. Strategies include: • Eliminating Fees: Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, and Tanzania • Enrollment of the poorest girls in Uganda nearly doubled when fees were eliminated – from 46 to 82% • Reduction of Fees: Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nepal, Peru, China, and Senegal • Scholarship Programs: Bangladesh, Mexico, and Brazil • Mexico’s Progressa program gives cash grants to the poorest families to offset the opportunity costs of schooling. Enrolments have increased 8% for boys and 14% for girls • Meal Programs: Kenya International Food Policy Research Institute: Mexico Progresa

21. Key Issues: School Fees • Households spent significant amounts of money on school fees • Generally, 5-10% of annual income, but up to 20-30% in poorer households (CFR, 2004). • In some cases, fees can cost up to a month’s salary (UN Millennium Project, 2005). • Even when direct fees are eliminated, other costs remain: • School uniforms • Transportation • Learning materials • Opportunity cost of child not working/helping at home • Parent/Teacher Associations or community fees

22. In Brazil, illiterate mothers have an average of six children while literate mothers choose to have less than three children and are better able to care for and invest in their children's well-being. Educated women in Bangladesh are three times more likely to participate in political meetings. Key Issues: Girls Education • Investing in girls empowers women throughout • their lifetime. • Even a few years of education helps young • women: • - make informed choices that promote • sustainable families • - improve their own health and well-being • - achieve economic self-sufficiency, and • - even increase their political participation. • A single year of primary education correlates with a 10-20% increase in women's wages later in life. The return to a year of secondary education for girls is even higher, in the 15-25% range. • Educated girls are more likely to delay sexual activity and have fewer sexual partners over their lifetime, reducing her risk of disease. • (All Statistics: CFR, 2004)

23. Teachers in Rural Areas Teacher shortages in rural areas, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, are a major barrier to education. Studies show that working in rural schools is more difficult and less motivating than teaching in urban schools, mainly because of poor living and working conditions As a result, rural schools have: relatively fewer qualified and experienced teachers higher turnover (UN Millennium Project, 2005) Key Issues: Rural Education • Place of residence largely determines school enrollment: • Over 80% of out-of-school children in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia live in rural areas (EFA GMR, 2007). • The share of children out of school is at least twice as large in rural areas as in urban areas in twenty-four of the eighty countries analyzed in a recent study (EFA GMR, 2006) • The share of rural out-of-school children is even higher in some countries: • Ethiopia (96%), Burkina Faso (95%), Malawi (94%), Bangladesh (84%) and India (84%) (EFA GMR, 2007). • In Ethiopia, rural children were sixty times more likely to drop out than urban children(EFA GMR, 2007).

24. Key Issues: Incentives • Eliminate Fees: Eliminating fees has a dramatic effect on encouraging parents to send their children to school: yet unless donors and governments work to find new resources to make up for lost revenue from fees and to pay for the additional teachers to meet rising enrollments, class sizes can escalate and quality can suffer. • Scholarship and Stipend Programs: Programs that reduce direct and opportunity costs by not only paying for books, tuition, and fees, but also for lost labor time have been very effective in Brazil, Bangladesh and elsewhere. • Safe Schools, Close to Home – When school is nearby, roughly 1 kilometer or less from home, school seems more accessible and parents are more willing to send their children to school. • Making Schools Girl Friendly: For girls, a crucial aspect of making schools safe and accessible is ensuring female teachers are present – especially when girls are older – and providing private latrines.(Source: CFR, 2004)

25. Key Issues: Incentives • Community Involvement – Many African and Latin American countries have made great strides with “parent-teacher management committees” that allow parents to be involved in monitoring school quality and education spending. • Active learning and good use of time – Moving away from rote learning to active problem-solving is consistently effective across cultures – from Colombia to Egypt to Bangladesh, programs that put the child at the center improve achievement. • Health services as incentives – School meals and take-home rations also help improve attendance, especially for girls. Programs to de-worm children or provide vaccinations or micronutrients at school, for instance, can also help parents see short-term benefits. (Source: CFR, 2004)

26. Key Issues: Teachers • Not enough teachers • Class sizes are at 100 students per teacher in Uganda and other African countries; in Chad they can reach up to 200 • Estimated 15 million more teachers needed worldwide • Teachers’ low attendance • Worse in rural areas • Low enforcement of attendance • Poorly trained teachers • Teachers’ level of education and training linked with students’ enrollment and attainment • Rote learning methods (All Statistics: EFA GMR, 2007)

27. Key Issues: Conflict 25 million children are refugees or live in conflict areas • Education Funding for Children of Conflict often Falls through the Cracks • Education is not seen as “life-saving” like food or shelter and therefore does not receive emergency aid funding • Donors are often hesitant to invest in conflict and post-conflict countries because the governments are considered “fragile” (Sperling, 2007). • Although education for children of conflict is often forgotten, it is critical. It can: • Be crucial for healing • Bring a sense of normalcy to a chaotic situation • Prepare children for reintegration to society upon return home

28. Only 6 % of all refugee girls are enrolled in secondary education (Women’s Commission, 2004). With more than three million reported internally displaced persons —and many more unreported—Colombia has the second-highest population of IDPs in the world after the Sudan (Women’s Commission, 2004). The UNDP and NGO sources believe that youth comprise 50% of the internally displaced population in Colombia (UNDP, 2006) Schools are often not safe for refugee and internally displaced children. Unsafe schools can place girls at risk for sexual abuse and boys at risk for military recruitment Key Issues: Conflict

29. Key Issues: HIV/AIDS as an Obstacle to Education • Children affected by AIDS are less likely to attend school or remain at the appropriate grade level • HIV/AIDS creates a new class of vulnerable children • 14 million children under the age of 15 have lost one or both parents to AIDS. • By 2010, this number is expected to exceed 25 million. • AIDS Kills Teachers • In Zambia in 2000, approximately 815 primary school teachers died as result of AIDS – the equivalent of 45% of the teachers that were trained that year • AIDS Leads to Absenteeism, as teachers attend funerals, care for the sick, or become ill themselves • In high prevalence countries HIV/AIDS can account for up to 77% of absenteeism (All Statistics: CFR, 2004)

30. Regional Overviews

31. Spotlight: Sub-Saharan Africa • Sub-Saharan Africa is home to about half the world’s out-of-school children – 38 million. • 6.5 million of these children live in Nigeria; 2.6 million live in Ethiopia • 80% of children not enrolled in school live in rural areas • The combined effects of exclusionare staggering: In Guinea, an urban boy with an educated mother and belonging to the wealthiest quintile is 126 times more likely to attend school than a rural girl from the poorest quintile with an uneducated mother. • Only 21% of girls are enrolled in secondary school • In Burkina Faso, Mali and Mozambique, only 10% of children from the poorest 40% of households who entered primary school managed to complete it • Teacher-to-student ratios are 70:1 or higher in Chad, the Congo, Ethiopia and Malawi. Some classrooms have upwards of 150 students • Several countries have more than 1 million children out of school: Burkina Faso, Mali and the Niger 2007 Global Monitoring Report – Regional Overview: Sub-Saharan Africa

32. Spotlight: South Asia • 16 million children in South and West Asia are not enrolled in primary school • 4.5 million live in India; 6.5 million live in Pakistan • Over 80% of the children who are not enrolled live in rural areas • Over three-quarters of the 16 million South and West Asian children who are out of school have never been enrolled and may never go to school; the rest either have been enrolled but dropped out or are likely to enter school but at an age beyond the official entry age • Only 16% of Afghani children enroll in secondary school • Children in the poorest 20% of households are three times as likely to be out of school as children from the wealthiest 20% • Almosthalf of the world’s illiterate adult population – nearly 400 million – live in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan • In Nepal: 43% of pupils repeat grade 1; only 31% of teachers are trained 2007 Global Monitoring Report – Regional Overview: South/West Asia

33. Spotlight: The Arab States • About 6 million children are not enrolled in primary school • 59% of them are girls • 70% of out-of-school children live in rural areas. • Gender parity remains low in the region– for every 100 boys only 90 girls enroll in primary school, the gap is even larger in secondary school • Children from the poorest income group are more than 3 times as likely to be out of school than those from the wealthiest category, the ratio gap being particularly large in Algeria (6.4) and Sudan (5.5). • A child whose mother has no education is twice as likely to be out of school as one with an educated mother. The ratio is close to 2.8 in Iraq. • School retention is high, more than 94% of students reach the last grade of primary education. However, only 48% of those students complete primary school. 2007 Global Monitoring Report – Regional Overview: The Arab States

34. Spotlight: Latin America/Caribbean • About 95% of children are enrolled in primary school • 2.7 million children are out-of-school • 800,000 of these children live in Brazil; 700,000 live in Colombia • 60% of out-of-school children live in rural areas. • Despite high enrollment, retention and completion remain a major issue. For example, about 500,000 children in Central America drop out of school each year • Secondary School is a Bigger Challenge: Only 65% of boys and 69% of girls enroll in secondary school • The Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Guatemala have some of the lowest rates of public spending on education – hovering between 1-3% • In most Latin American countries, less than 80% of teachers have been trained • Less than 60% of teachers have been trained in Ecuador and Peru. 2007 Global Monitoring Report – Regional Overview: Latin America/Caribbean

35. References • Center for Global Development, Rich World, Poor World: Education and the Developing World, 2007. • Duryea and Pages, Human Capital Policies: What they Can and Cannot do for Productivity and Poverty-reduction in Latin America, Inter-American Development Bank, 2002. • Fast Track Initiative Website, www.fasttrackinitiative.org, 2007 • Hall, G. and Harry Patrinos, Indigenous Peoples, Poverty and Human Development in Latin America: 1994-2004, The World Bank, 2005 • Herz, B. and Gene B. Sperling, What Works in Girls Education: Evidence and Policies from the Developing World, Council on Foreign Relations, 2004. • Human Rights Watch, Colombia: Displaced and Discarded - The Plight of Internally Displaced Persons in Bogotá and Cartagena, 2005. • Malhotra, Anju, Rohini Pande and Caren Grown, Impact of Investments in Female Education and Gender Equality, paper commissioned by the World Bank Gender and Development Group, 2003. • Norwegian Refugee Council and Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre Report, 2006. • Sperling, G., Closing the Trust Gaps: Unlocking Financing for Education in Fragile States, Council on Foreign Relations, 2006. • UNESCO, Education for All Global Monitoring Report, Literacy for Life, 2006. • UNESCO, Education for All Global Monitoring Report, The Quality Imperative, 2005. • UNESCO, Education for All Global Monitoring Report, Strong Foundations: Early Childhood Care and Education, 2007.

36. References, Continued • UNESCO, Education for All Global Monitoring Report, Regional Overview: The Arab States, 2007. • UNESCO, Education for All Global Monitoring Report, Regional Overview: Latin America, 2007. • UNESCO, Education for All Global Monitoring Report, Regional Overview: Sub-Saharan Africa, 2007. • UNESCO, Education for All Global Monitoring Report, Regional Overview: South/West Asia, 2007. • UNHCR, The State of the World's Refugees, 2006. • UNICEF, Colombia Statistics, 2007. • UNICEF, State of the World’s Children Report, 2007. • UNICEF, Nutrition Fact Sheet: Latin America, 2006. • Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children, Colombia’s War on Children, 2004. • Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children, Q&A: Education in Emergencies for Displaced Children and Youth, 2006. • World Bank, Child Labor: Regional Activities, 2007. • World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report, 2006-2007. • World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report, 2005-2006.