Goal 2: Recommendations

1.   Increase public spending on education. There is insufficient funding of public education in developing countries.

Industrialized countries spend around 6% of GDP on education while developing countries tend to spend a lower proportion: in 2004, over half the 124 developing countries for which data were available were spending less than 5 %.

The entire sub-Saharan African region spends less on education than a single
country like France, Germany, Italy or the United Kingdom, according to a report by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). The data shows that public investments in education reflect inequalities in wealth around the world.

Governments in sub-Saharan Africa spend only 2.4% of the world’s public education resources on 15% of the global school-age population.

The region with  the second-highest share (after North America and Europe) of global public spending  on education  is East Asia and Pacific. However, the level of investment is still substantially lower than their share of global wealth (28% of GDP) and the school-age population (29%)

2. Invest in early child development

Education needs to be provided from the early age. This gives children the best possible start in the future. Well-integrated programmes of health, nutrition and cognitive development enable young children to develop and exercise the capacities and skills that will help them get the most of pre-primary  and primary education.


3.   Improve the quality and effectiveness of educational system.

Children should be provided with good quality education. Good teaching and learning material need to be provided. Each country should develop mechanism ensuring quality education in its all regions. (Children and MDGs, UN report)  

As far as effectiveness is concerned, the most dramatic situation is in sub-Saharan Africa. Countries of that region reported the highest costs associated with grade repetition. In Burundi, Namibia and Mozambique, 30%, 15 % and 10% of primary student repeat a grade, respectively. These extra school years are a huge burden to the budgets. In general the cost equals one-half to four-fifth of the percentage point of GDP.

Source: UNESCO 2007

4.    Focus on the enrolment of the most marginalized. Develop efficient system to identify the out-of-school children and attract more of policy-makers’ attention to the situation at the societal bottoms

Failure to address inequalities, stigmatization and discrimination linked to wealth, gender, ethnicity, language, location and disability is holding back progress towards education for all (EFA Global Monitoring Report)

Children from low-income families, ethnic minorities, orphaned, affected by wars and other emergencies. To increase enrolment, countries will need to devote more resource targeted specifically at the poorest children and eliminate school fees. (Children and MDGs, UN report)

Development of disaggregated data collection systems to identify marginalized groups and monitor their progress is a neccesity (EFA Global Monitoring Report).

5.    Ensure that schools are child friendly

Schools need to be friendly, offering safe and enjoyable environment in which all children can study academic subjects, acquire basic life skills and learn to think critically and creatively. Child-friendly schools are also well integrated with their communities, serving as places where children can feel safe, without fearing violence from teachers and peers (Children and MDGs, UN report)

6    Donors should strengthen efforts to implement the Paris agenda on aid effectiveness and review the balance of their support for the different levels of education (EFA Global Monitoring Report).