Education for All (EFA) and ICT

“Basic learning needs comprise both essential learning tools and the basic learning content required by human beings to be able to survive, to develop their full capacities, to live and work in dignity, to participate fully in development, to improve the quality of their lives, to make informed decisions, and to continue learning.”

(World Declaration on Education for All, Article 1, paragraph 1).

Education for All is a basic human right at the heart of development. It must be a national and international priority that requires a strong and sustained political commitment, enhanced financial allocations and the participation of all EFA partners in the processes of policy design, strategic planning and the implementation of programmes.

The movement was launched at the World Conference on Education for All in 1990 by UNESCO, UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF and the World Bank. Participants endorsed an expanded vision of learning and pledged to universalize primary education and massively reduce illiteracy by the end of the decade.

The Education for All (EFA) movement is a global commitment to provide quality basic education for all children, youth and adults. 164 governments pledged to achieve EFA. Governments, development agencies, civil society and the private sector are working together to reach the EFA goals.

As the lead agency, UNESCO has been mandated to coordinate the international efforts to reach Education for All. Governments, development agencies, civil society, non-government organizations and the media are but some of the partners working toward reaching these goals.

Ten years later, with many countries far from having reached this goal, the international community met again in Dakar, Senegal, and affirmed their commitment to achieving Education for All by the year 2015. They identified six key education goals which aim to meet the learning needs of all children, youth and adults by 2015.

Six internationally agreed education goals aim to meet the learning needs of all children, youth and adults by 2015:

• Expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children.
• Ensuring that by 2015 all children, particularly girls, children in difficult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities, have access to, and complete, free and compulsory primary education of good quality.
• Ensuring that the learning needs of all young people and adults are met through equitable access to appropriate learning and life-skills programmes.
• Achieving a 50 per cent improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015, especially for women, and equitable access to basic and continuing education for all adults.
• Eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, and achieving gender equality in education by 2015, with a focus on ensuring girls’ full and equal access to and achievement in basic education of good quality.
• Improving all aspects of the quality of education and ensuring excellence of all so that recognized and measurable learning outcomes are achieved by all, especially in literacy, numeracy and essential life skills.

At the start of the new century, governments and the international community set targets to dramatically improve educational opportunities for children, youth and adults over the next 15 years. They underscored that education is vital to reducing world poverty and fostering a more equitable, peaceful and sustainable future.

Are they living up to their promises? The Education for All Global Monitoring Report, an annual independent publication, aims to hold the global community to account by rigorously assessing progress, analyzing effective policies, and spreading knowledge about good practice, and alerting the world to emerging challenges.

Information and communication technologies (ICT) must be harnessed to support EFA goals at an affordable cost. These technologies have great potential for knowledge dissemination, effective learning and the development of more efficient education services. This potential will not be realized unless the new technologies serve rather than drive the implementation of education strategies.

To be effective, especially in developing countries, ICTs should be combined with more traditional technologies such as books and radios, and be more extensively applied to the training of teachers.

The swiftness of ICT developments, their increasing spread and availability, the nature of their content and their declining prices are having major implications for learning. They may tend to increase disparities, weaken social bonds and threaten cultural cohesion.

Governments will therefore need to establish clearer policies in regard to science and technology, and undertake critical assessments of ICT experiences and options. These should include their resource implications in relation to the provision of basic education, emphasizing choices that bridge the ’digital divide’, increase access and quality, and reduce inequity.

There is need to tap the potential of ICT to enhance data collection and analysis, and to strengthen management systems, from central ministries through sub-national levels to the school; to improve access to education by remote and disadvantaged communities; to support initial and continuing professional development of teachers; and to provide opportunities to communicate across classrooms and cultures.

News media should also be engaged to create and strengthen partnerships with education systems, through the promotion of local newspapers, informed coverage of education issues and continuing education programmes via public service broadcasting.

Education for All can only be achieved through broad partnerships between governments, bilateral agencies, civil society groups and the private sector. The development of capacity at the national level to plan and manage education systems is crucial for advancing towards the EFA goals.

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 1014