The international community promised to provide universal primary education at the 2000 World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal, where world leaders made commitments to education and our world’s most valuable resource — children. But a decade later the basic human right to education for all is still denied. Despite the countless summits, high-level meetings and high-blown rhetoric, progress toward the United Nations’ Education for All goal of universal primary education by 2015 has been disappointing, and as the Global Monitoring Report ominously cites, “We are heading steadfastly for an avoidable failure.”
As I stated in my previous post, while education has been placed high on the platform the actions following the agenda to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MGDs), have not succeeded in keeping pace. The issue of education is more than just simply sending children to school, but it is the key to reducing gender inequities as has been stressed by its inclusion in the The MDGs which called for the elimination of gender disparity in all levels of education, another goal which we are failing to gain adequate speed achieving. Education, and gender equality, is also about reducing global poverty, however as Desmond Tutu so blatantly pointed out, we are a long way from seeing that all children have fair and equal access to adequate education across the globe anytime soon, let alone by 2015. Education must truly be at the forefront of any relief, aid and community development programs both in regards to educating communities on the impact and harm of gender inequality and violence as well as in regards to access to adequate primary and secondary education for all.
Tutu and Van Roekel ended with a plea urging U.S. citizens to add their voices to urging ‘the Obama Administration and your member of Congress to help create a better, safer and more just world for every child. We hope that President Obama attends President Zuma’s Education Summit at the World Cup and follows through on his inspired commitment of $2 billion to establish the Global Fund for Education. Congress must create a foundation for this effort by supporting Congresswoman Nita Lowey’s “Education for All Act of 2010.'”