Mercy Global Concern - 2003

The Millennium Development Goals and the Girls' Education Initiative

In April 1990, the World Conference on Education for all (EFA) in Jomtien identified improving access to quality education for girls and women as " the most urgent priority". At the Dakar World Education Forum, in April 2000, participants from 164 countries reaffirmed this commitment: 'ensuring that by 2015 all children, with special emphasis on girls, have access to and complete a primary education of good quality".

EFA broadcast a message to the world that the centuries of attitudes and practices keeping girls and women from their full development would no longer be tolerated. The next decade brought great effort, some progress and new and stronger commitments. But these promises remain unmet.

In April 2000, at the Dakar World Education Forum, the United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, launched the UN Girls' Education Initiative (UNGEI). In an unprecedented step, 13 UN entities, led by UNICEF, have agreed to work together for girls everywhere..

UNGEI is a dynamic partnership to promote gender equality in education with targeted actions for girls' education as an entry point. By 2002, each of the entities had succeeded in mainstreaming girls' education within their organizational mechanisms and structures. Girls' education is at the forefront of political and programming priorities at headquarters level, and entities continue to make good progress towards partnering for gender equality in education "on the ground".

Rationale

The goal of UN programming for and support of girls' education is to ensure the fulfillment of the right to a quality education by each member of the largest single group of children denied this right - girls.

This statement reflects several fundamental principles:

o Education of a poor quality is a denial of rights
o Inequality of access to quality education is a violation of rights
o Education must be gender- sensitive and gender-responsive in each and every one of the following dimensions of quality:

• the way learners are reared and prepared for learning
• the content of schooling
• the teaching-learning processes
• the learning environment
• the opportunities to achieve specified learning outcomes
  - The education of girls must be mainstreamed within a nation's education system.
  - UNGEI's aim is to achieve equality of enrolment and achievement in education, between girls and boys. UNGEI will measure this by increased net enrolment rates and decreased gender gaps, demonstrable success in the implementation of quality programmes and documented achievements in learning for girls and boys.
  

The goal of the UN Girls' Education Initiative is to mount a sustained campaign to improve the quality and availability of girls' education through a collaborative partnership of different entities within and outside the UN system.

It is important to note that the UNGEI is limited to basic education. Rather, it focuses on a systemic approach. However, without universal quality basic education progress at other levels is impossible. Because approximately 68 million girls are denied even the first level of education, basic education must be emphasized.

The UN Girls' Education Initiative takes a systemic approach. Thus, UN team efforts must contribute to sustainable system development and not consist of isolated projects that operate on the margins and that have little chance of contributing to overall improvement of national education, from a gender perspective, by increasing girls' access to and achievement of education of good quality.

The challenge of making quality education universal

Quality education for ALL means that those successful innovations and reforms that have resulted in significant improvement in net enrolment rates and decreased gender gaps must be taken to scale in one way or another. If this does not occur, only a relative few will benefit from quality education. Any innovation will never be perfect. Never the less, it is essential to begin to move an innovation to scale when it has proven its worth over time. To accelerate girls' education demands more than a technical response. It requires political and fiscal commitments applied to technical solutions that have been shown to make a difference.

UNGEI and the Millennium Development Goals

Related to Girls' Education, the MDGs set the following targets:

• Ensure that by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.
• Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005 and in all levels of education not later than 2015.

Girls' education needs to be addressed in a broader context that acknowledges the need to fight hunger, rural poverty and other barriers to gender equality.

Broad Strategies For Girls' Education

• Strategies need to address quality - enrolment and retention of girls in education systems - and quality - substantive content, teaching processes, the learning environment, and other aspects of quality, all of which are measured through the learning achievement of girls.
  
  
• Diffentiated strategies can be considered for countries with different approaches to development, with capacities and opportunities. For countries where the net enrolment of girls is below 85%, their education must be a priority. Where even boys education is less that 50%, greater focus might be given to increasing enrolment across the board, in the first instance, recognizing that retention is highly associated with qualitative improvements. In middle income countries where enrolment of boys and girls is already accelerated significantly, greater attention to quality could be given to quality and disparity reduction. This does not imply that attention to quality should await reaching enrolment targets, rather, it is a matter of relative balance in selectivity and priorization depending on national and sub-national specific situations. recognizing that quality is a key factor in enrolment, retention and achievement.
  
  
• Quantitative and qualitative indicators need to be benchmarked and monitored, with interim milestones targets on the road to 2015. How many girls are out of school? How many girls can we access to, and what time frame, up to 2005? What dimensions of the content, processes, environments of education will need to be supported, and in what time frame, up to 2015, so that both boys and girls have equal access to all levels of education?
  
  
• In the context of the Millennium Declaration, education needs to be seen not only as a development goal, but also as an instrument of peace building and conflict prevention. In the aftermath of humanitarian disasters, getting schooling going is one of the principal elements of healing and accelerating the return of society to normalcy.
  
  
• Education for all is a human right. It is inclusive of disadvantaged groups such as children with special needs, ethnic minorities, indigenous populations, nomadic populations and others.
  
  
• As girls make up the bulk of excluded children, targeting them and succeeding means you include many other disadvantaged ethnic minorities, disabled, etc., at the same time. Girls are often doubly disadvantaged. Targeting rural girls, who are among the poorest of the poor, may require special strategies to respond to their educational needs.

Situation of Girls' Education in developing countries, where the Sisters of Mercy currently serve.

Situation of Girls' Education in developing countries, where the Sisters of Mercy currently serve.

Source: UNICEF< The State of the World's Children 2002

The worst country for children having an opportunity to go to school is Somalia where only 7% of girls and 13% of boys have access to primary education.

For more information see Devlink www.undg.org

Deirdre Mullan RSM
June 2003 New York