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 [...]

EU review says need for skills is urgent

Another strong argument for the importance of developing young people’s skills –the subject of the forthcoming 2012 Education for All Global Monitoring Report – comes from a new review by the European Commission, which warns that the recession has made it even more urgent to improve skills across the board. Like the OECD report on [...]

World AIDS Day: When education helps to save lives

On World AIDS Day, it’s vital to remember that education has a key role to play in reaching the goal of “zero new infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths.” Every day, about 1,000 children are infected with HIV. Almost all of them contract the virus during their mother’s pregnancy, during childbirth or when they [...]

Beyond Busan 2: Should imputed student costs and scholarships be counted as aid?

By Elise Legault, research officer, Education for All Global Monitoring Report team Aid analyses by the Education for All Global Monitoring Report tend to put greater emphasis on basic education than on the whole sector. One reason is that the Education for All and Millennium Development Goal movements have focused on increasing access to basic [...]

BRIEFLY: Secondary school, a bridge to the world of work

As many countries succeed in expanding access to primary schooling, demand for secondary school places is building. The latest edition of the Global Education Digest, published by the UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS), highlights the number of children who are unable to enter secondary school. The problem is particularly acute in sub-Saharan Africa, where only [...]

More teachers, please! And in Africa, women especially

Français | Español World Teachers’ Day on October 5 is an opportunity to celebrate teachers and to promote international standards for the profession. This year’s theme, “Teachers for gender equality,” serves as a reminder that recruiting and training more teachers – especially women – is crucial if we are to achieve the Education for All [...]

Education failures fan the flames in the Arab world

Français | Español | العربية By Kevin Watkins, director, Education for All Global Monitoring Report No one could have predicted that, in the space of a few months, the death by self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old Tunisian struggling to make a living as a fruit vendor, would have sent such shock waves across the [...]

Who’s at school, and who’s missing out?

By Pauline Rose, senior policy analyst, Global Monitoring Report team How many children are not in school? The figure we give in the 2010 Education for All Global Monitoring Report, which has been widely picked up around the world, is 72 million. This figure was established by the UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS) drawing on [...]