Vol. 574 No. 3
63 Ms B. Moynihan-Cronin asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs his views on whether satisfactory progress is being made on the international Education for All programme adopted by 185 Governments in April 2000 in Dakar, Senegal; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26713/03]
The World Education Forum held in Dakar, Senegal, in April 2000 adopted six major goals for education, which are referred to as "Education for all", or EFA. Of these goals, two also became millennium development goals later in the same year. The Dakar framework for action declared that by 2015 all children of primary school age would participate in free schooling of good quality and that gender disparities in schooling would be eliminated. The gender goal was judged to be particularly urgent. It requires the achievement of parity in enrolments for girls and boys at primary and secondary levels by 2005. Levels of illiteracy are to be halved and early childhood care and education and learning opportunities for youth and adults greatly increased. It is intended that all aspects of education quality will be improved.
Monitoring of progress towards the goals is carried out by all the signatories to the Dakar framework. It is also monitored independently through the EFA global monitoring report which is prepared by a team of experts based at UNESCO headquarters. The report is the most comprehensive survey of education trends worldwide. I am pleased to announce that funding for the next three years for this report will be provided from the Development Co-operation Ireland budget. The report for 2003 tracks progress towards the achievement of the goals and focuses particularly on measuring progress toward the goal of gender equality. Launched last week in New Delhi, it concludes that while there has been some progress, this has been slow and that there are still enormous challenges.
The Report indicates that almost 60% of countries are likely to miss achieving gender parity by 2005, though in a good number of countries policies are available that are capable of delivering parity within a few years. More worryingly, 54 out of 128 countries are at risk of not achieving gender parity by 2015. These are mainly in sub-Saharan Africa. The report outlines the multiple challenges to be met if education for all is to be secured. The overriding obstacle to participation in education continues to be poverty. In our six programme countries in Africa we are fully committed to education for all and to supporting ministries of education to accelerate progress towards the goals.
