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Beyond Universal Education

May 21, 2015 Fazle Hasan Abed

It is time for the UN and other international bodies to move beyond a singular focus on enrollment numbers and grapple with the problem of quality in education. A child’s potential is truly unleashed only when he or she learns to spot and seize the opportunities his or her parents never had.

DHAKA – As the World Education Forum meets in Incheon, South Korea, it is time to confront some unsettling facts about the state of education in the world today. More than 91% of children of primary school age are now enrolled in school, but progress on educating the remaining 9% has slowed to a near standstill. The numbers have barely moved since 2005, and girls are still disproportionately left behind.

Worse, the headline figures do not describe the true depth of the problem. In poorer countries, even children privileged enough to have access to a classroom often do not receive a good education. According to UNESCO, of some 650 million primary-school-age boys and girls, an estimated 250 million will not learn to read or count, regardless of whether they have gone to school.

Moreover, in many parts of the developing world, state school systems are leaving tens of millions of children behind because of poverty and discrimination. These children’s true education will be that of the soil or the streets. They will grow up working as smallholder farmers, sharecroppers, and wage laborers, and will struggle to send their own children to school.

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Talent versus Capital in the Twenty-First Century
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Talent versus Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Klaus Schwab highlights the role of educational innovation in preparing workers for jobs that do not yet exist.

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No Child Left Out
Majdi Fathi/ZumaPress

No Child Left Out

Moza bint Nasser calls on the international community to ensure primary education for all refugee children.

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Georges RADJOU Aug 5, 2015

UNSECGEN is making his best to reach these goals. We are talking about volumes (600 millions) of schoolchildren unable to attend a school system or not enrolled in a school year at primary education levels. For me, It is a challenge,In such a way Post 2015 SDGs is a Global UN project scoping with huge numbers of school children that will not receive basic and universal education, if not enrolled, which looks to me critical too. However, you are right, a good quality schooling is a benefit for achild and paramount these enrolled school children. School children should not only go to school and in addition, they should learn to learn and build knowledge. Therefore thus, their youngest years at school is not wasted.
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anik gupta Jul 3, 2015

Emphasizing on EQ over IQ is a good thing, but surely still there is no surer way to measure it,so incorporating it always remains a challenge.
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Joseph Burke Jun 2, 2015

Where there is a will there is a way. If education is a priority there will be a way to fund it. If education is important to the people, there will not only be interest but quality as well. It will be demanded. But education is not always seen as essential. Abed has done a wonderful job outlining that education is far more than just rote knowledge, although it is this as well. It's also learning how to think critically, how to be emotionally intelligent, and how to problem solve creatively and innovatively. Governments first have to take care of the immediate survival needs of the poor among them before they can be expected to give their attention to things such as education. If children are worried about stability, about eating, or about having a safe place to stay after school, they will be little able to focus on other things such as their education. The quality of education a nation receives first begins with its political will for social justice for all of its citizens so they can live with the dignity of human beings.
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Mehak Malhotra May 25, 2015

Thank you for recognizing the importance of looking beyond universal access and focusing on quality! Until the right goals are set, the most effective plans and policies cannot be framed ! For example the Millenium Development Goal of 100% literacy is unattainable if we consider the number of illiterates among the adult and elderly population of a country. Secondly even with several countries offering free primary education, quality is highly compromised! So yes, there is a conflict between the goals of 'universal' and 'quality' , i.e. it is quite impossible to achieve both. But this article does prod us in the right direction now that we are approaching universality of access. The next challenge would be to provide universal quality education!
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Zsolt Hermann May 24, 2015

I fully agree with the writer that qualitative focus on education instead of the empty quantitative one is crucial.
And such negligence, only caring about the quantitative aspects of education plagues youth all over the world not only in "third world" countries.

Today we are completely failing generations because we do not teach them the most important aspect of upbringing: how to become a human being.
Modern education is solely concerned about manufacturing workers, consumers, robots of the profit, consumerism and ruthless competition oriented society.

And as a result we keep running into crisis situations and are unable to solve problems anywhere we turn, including at basic family levels because we have no idea how to communicate with each other, how to build positive, mutual interactions.

The proper education system in a globally interconnected and fully integrated human system has to be based on creating, nurturing human interconnections, teaching people how to build mutually complementing cooperation above and despite our toxic previous and present upbringing and the rotten, inhumane values of modern society.
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