9 July 2014: Our fears have been confirmed. There is no chance that every child will be in primary education by the end of 2015. The promise that governments made in 2000 will officially be broken.
This harsh reality should not disempower any of us. The global failure of Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 2 is, in many ways, the result of 7 lost years. The last 7 years - in which progress on access was negligible, in which aid to education fell, and in which governments grew lethargic and momentum slowed.
This failure should not snatch away our hope: it should shock and outrage us – it should make our voices louder, and further strengthen our resolve to cure this injustice. Now is not the time for complacency but for urgent and strategic action.
This failure should not snatch away our hope: it should shock and outrage us – it should make our voices louder, and further strengthen our resolve to cure this injustice. Now is not the time for complacency but for urgent and strategic action.
We’re currently wide of our target by about 58 million children, 1 million more than we were last year. The fact that governments cannot now physically get out-of-school numbers to zero does not mean they shouldn’t be trying their absolute best to get as close to it as they possibly can. As advocates, we need to make that happen.
Asia leads the way
Credit must be given where it is due. Amongst all this inertia and stagnation, some developing countries, especially in West and South Asia, have worked hard to keep their promise, translating their verbal commitments into tangible change. 17 countries have reduced their out-of-school populations by more than 90% in total in just over 10 years.
We can and should applaud them for their efforts – but, as they become more prosperous and socially developed nations, their investment will continue to pay dividends for long after our applause has died down.
By abolishing school fees, working meticulously on teacher training and education quality, designing relevant and inclusive curricula and investing in opportunities for the most marginalised – and especially girls – they’ve come a long way. They have shown it can be done.
The most practical and meaningful thing that other developing countries can do now – and especially the ones in sub-Saharan Africa where the largest out-of-school populations reside – is to learn the valuable lessons from the experiences of those countries that have been at the forefront of progress.
They must work to replicate their successes and use their proven strategies in their own countries and amidst their own unique, national contexts. They need to recognise the progress that has been made as evidence that with political will, financial commitment and the right techniques, great gains can be made and our goals can be met.
Plan’s commitment
Plan is committed to helping them do that. In addition to spending €402 million on education programmes over the next 4 years, we will be working with developing country governments to help strengthen their education systems – making them more inclusive, gender-sensitive, accountable and effective.
Through partnership of non-governmental organisations, international organisations and governments, we can strengthen developing country capacity to respond to the learning crisis and make progress at a faster pace and on a larger scale.
As a child-centred organisation, Plan is passionate about youth leadership. Another way that Plan, alongside the United Nations Secretary-General’s Education First Initiative Youth Advocacy Group, of which I am a part, is working to ignite real change is by providing young people around the world with the tools they need to apply pressure to their government and to hold them accountable for their commitments.
The youth advocacy toolkit has been designed by and for young people, drawing upon our experiences advocating from the grassroots to the international stage. We are working to support youth all over the globe to tell their governments that the painfully slow pace of progress we’ve seen for the last 7 years is simply not acceptable – to show them that, as the key stakeholders in the classroom, they deserve to be listened to, and as the citizens of tomorrow, their ambitions must be realised.
Translating words into actions
On 26 June, at the replenishment conference for the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), developing countries committed to mobilise $26 billion of their own, domestic resources, allocating it to the education of their people. This is unprecedented: a massive 25% increase on the last conference, and an excellent start of the next chapter of our journey to getting every child into school.
But actions speak louder than words. For the girl whose once vibrant ambitions have been shattered by the realities of child marriage, words mean little. For the boy locked out of the classroom by the need to work and support his family, promises have come and gone. For the children whose fees are unaffordable or whose teacher hasn’t been properly trained – for the children who have been trapped in a cycle of poverty by the global community’s failure – yet another promise, made at the GPE replenishment or within the post-2015 agenda – will provide little comfort and invoke little faith.
Time to get down to business
If the Global Partnership for Education had a dollar for every time the words ‘access’, ‘quality’ and ‘equity’ were mentioned at a conference or summit, it would have enough money today to meet its replenishment target.
Practically every minister seated around the table on 26 June uttered these words in their remarks. Developing countries have shown they are really willing to step up, but now it’s time to get down to business.
Now it’s time for action, for governments to follow through: to spend funds wisely and effectively, prioritise what we know works to boost access and improve quality, and put equity and inclusivity at the heart of their education systems.
If they don’t, I fear that in 2030 I will find myself writing a very similar blog post.
Take action - join Plan’s Because I am a Girl campaign for girls’ education
