Julia Gillard: the world must target quality education for all children
|
Version 0 of 1. The world must commit to quality education for millions of children, while maintaining the drive for universal access to primary schools, according to Julia Gillard, the former Australian prime minister. Gillard, the chair of the board of directors of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), hoped the sustainable development goals (SDGs), a set of global targets that will be finalised later this year, would contain clear objectives and receive solid funding to turn promises into reality. “Fifteen years ago we promised the children of the world that they would get to go to primary school. We are still 58 million kids short of that promise and around 250 million are getting some education but not achieving the most basic literacy and numeracy,” Gillard said before giving a speech in Brussels as part of the Kapuscinski development lectures. “Target-setting is good, delivery is better and this year, having learned from the millennium development goals [MDGs], I hope our targets are ambitious and clear and then we give people the means to achieve them.” The 17 draft SDGs, due to be finalised by the UN in September, include specific targets to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Gillard said the emphasis on quality primary education had to go hand-in-hand with the drive for universal access. “We can’t forget about access and just go, ‘Job done’ when we know there are 58 million children who aren’t getting access to primary school and 30 million of them are in sub-Saharan Africa … but there is no point at the end of the day having kids sitting in something called a school if they are not learning,” Gillard said. Teacher training and professional development, curriculum and assessment practices, instructional materials, books, and the appropriate use of information technology would help tackle what she called a “learning quality crisis”. Measurement and assessment were also key. Since 2002, GPE has allocated $4.3bn (£279.5m) to developing country partners and programmes. It now works with 60 countries, bringing together donors, governments, teachers, civil society, the private sector and multilateral organisations. There is no point having kids sitting in something called a school if they are not learning For developing country partners to access funds from the GPE, they must pledge an increase in their domestic education budgets. “We recommend that people make their way to 20% of their domestic budget being expended on education … obviously, not everybody can get to 20% in one big leap. It’s getting to 20% over time,” Gillard said. According to GPE data, developing country partners spent an average of 4.77% of gross domestic product on education in 2012, though there were significant variations: Burundi spent 5.8% and Rwanda 4.2%, but Pakistan’s outlay was only 2.2%. At a replenishment conference last June to raise more funds for GPE, donors pledged $2.1bn while developing countries approved pledges of $26bn over four years in increased education expenditure. Gillard said GPE had also introduced a results-based funding model with “potentially 30% of the funding at risk depending on performance”. The first grants under this new model are being negotiated. “We’re in the early days but clearly it won’t be one-size-fits-all. The benchmarks of success for different nations will vary but, for many nations, that 30% of funding will be associated with benchmarks that are about quality and improving the quality of learning,” she said. GPE works with supervising bodies, such as the World Bank or Britain’s Department for International Development, to monitor action on education plans and measure performance in partner countries. Gillard arrived in Brussels from Kigali, Rwanda where she attended a meeting of the sub-Saharan Africa regional education conference, held in preparation for the World Education Forum in the Republic of Korea in May. In her speech, Gillard noted that education’s share in global humanitarian funding had declined, from 2.4% in 2011 to 1.4% in 2012. Aid to education had fallen by almost 10% since 2010 compared with a 1.3% decline in overall development assistance worldwide. “The sharp decline in global aid to education must be reversed. We must push for the political will to reprioritise education aid,” she said. The need to refocus on quality and inclusiveness should also be a priority in developed countries, Gillard said. The phrase “to have the last child learning” – commonly heard in development circles – should be used by all countries, she said. “Looking at my own experience in Australia … the truth is there are many indigenous Australian children, many children from refugee backgrounds who don’t speak English at home, who are at risk of being left behind in their education unless we make truly strong efforts to ensure they get a quality education. “That same drive for inclusiveness – for making sure that education is for the girls as well as the boys, for the rural children as well as the city children, for the children with disabilities, for the children who might be from particular ethnic minority groups – that drive should be in every nation around the world.” |