Literacy rates are rising – but not fast enough

New data released by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics show that literacy rates for adults and youth are continuing to rise. But 775 million adults still cannot read and write – and many countries are unlikely to meet the Education for All goal of halving adult illiteracy by 2015. The new data show that the [...]

From education to the economy, malnutrition threatens Africa’s progress

By Ricardo Fuentes-Nieva Anyone who has gone without food for a couple of days knows the debilitating effects of hunger. For many of us, the experience is transient – we fail to eat during a trip or a long working day, for example – and infrequent. But for 220 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, hunger [...]

Africa Progress Report calls for big push on education

Urgent action is needed to tackle a “twin crisis” in access to education and the quality of teaching, according to the 2012 Africa Progress Report, Jobs, Justice and Equity: Seizing Opportunities in Times of Global Change, which was launched on Friday at the World Economic Forum on Africa, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. “With 30 million [...]

BRIEFLY: Measuring education quality in Africa

To improve the quality of education, first you have to be able to measure it, but education quality is notoriously difficult to define and measure, as was pointed out on this blog last week. The UNESCO Institute of Statistics has taken a step forward in developing a new regional data collection to monitor progress on [...]

Où va l’aide française à l’éducation? À la France, en grande partie

Par Elise Legault, chargée de recherche, Rapport mondial de suivi sur l’Éducation pour tous L’aide internationale devrait être destinée aux pays étrangers. Pourtant il existe plusieurs zones grises quant à ce qui peut être considéré comme de l’aide, et quels pays peuvent être classés comme récipiendaires. Par exemple, un coup d’œil aux données de l’aide [...]

Where is French aid to education going? To France, mostly

By Elise Legault, research officer, Education for All Global Monitoring Report Foreign aid is supposed to go to foreign countries. But there are many grey areas in terms of what can be counted as aid, and who can be classified as a recipient. Figures on total aid to education, for example, suggest France is a [...]

Without skills, no lasting spring for Arab youth

Arab countries must provide the right skills for their large youth population if the Arab Spring is to have lasting effects, according to the 2010/2011 Arab Knowledge Report, a collaboration between the United Nations Development Programme and the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation, which was launched in Dubai last week. The crucial role of [...]

Rural women miss out on education — and decent jobs

By Pauline Rose, director of the Education for All Global Monitoring Report The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day on March 8, “Empower Rural Women,” sheds light on the struggle that many poor, rural women face in completing even the most basic education — a finding that is backed up by new data analysis [...]

The struggle to learn skills in the city

UNICEF’s flagship annual report, launched today, focuses on the lives of marginalized children in urban areas. The State of the World’s Children 2012 finds that children in urban environments are often denied their right to education, leaving many without the skills they need to find a good job. Almost half of the world’s children now [...]

Why school should speak your language

People whose mother tongue is different from their country’s official language can find this a barrier to thriving in society. But does that mean children should be educated only in the official language? It’s a complex question. As we found in the 2010 Education for All Global Monitoring Report: Reaching the Marginalized, educating children in their [...]