Delhi: Encouraging report

Unesco (united nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) released its annual EFA Global Monitoring Report (GMR) 2015, simultaneously in Delhi, Paris and New York on April 9, forty days before a new agenda is scheduled to be adopted at the forthcoming World Education Forum in Incheon (Republic of Korea) from May 19-22. In 2000, at the World Education Forum in Dakar (Senegal), 164 governments agreed on the Dakar Framework for Action, popularly known as the Education for All (EFA) agenda. It set six goals ” expanding and improving early childhood care and education; ensuring all children, particularly girls, have access to free and compulsory education of good quality; young people and adults have access to appropriate learning and life skills; 50 percent improvement in adult literacy by 2015; gender equality in education by 2015, and measurable improvements in literacy, numeracy and essential life skills. The recently released EFA Global Monitoring Report 2015 is a progress report on the Dakar Framework, highlighting gaps and offering recommendations for debate at the World Education Forum in Incheon. With specific reference to India, GMR 2015 says the country has made considerable progress in early childhood care and education (ECCE) with the percentage of children in the 0-5 age group attending anganwadis and/or pre-primaries having risen from 20 percent in 1999 to 60 percent in 2012. However, it also notes that the corresponding increase in Nepal is from 15 to 85 percent and in neighbouring Pakistan from 64 to 78 percent. For providing universal access to primary school, GMR 2015 gives India full credit for achieving almost 100 percent enrolment of girls and boys ” up from 85 percent in 1999. Moreover, it estimates the number of children out of primary school at a mere 1.4 million cf. Pakistan™s 5.4 million. With reference to transition to lower and upper secondary education (appropriate learning and life skills), the report doesn™t specifically comment on India™s progress. On average, lower secondary gross enrolment ratio (GER) rose from 60 to 81 percent between 1999 and 2012. South and West Asia™s progress in accelerating adult literacy is also a disappointment. Without mentioning India specifically, the report laments that while the adult illiteracy rate was projected to fall by 26 percent between 2000 and 2015, the reduction will fall short of the target by 50 percent. With adult education not on the radar screens of the Central and state governments, there™s no way that India™s record is likely to be better. However, on the issue of gender parity, India has achieved considerable progress. œOf the eight countries with data, four were at gender parity in 2012, with Bhutan, India and the Islamic Republic of Iran reaching the target over the period, while parity has been achieved in Sri Lanka since 1999¦ Gender disparities at the expense of girls have reduced significantly in India where the GPI stood at 0.70 in 1999 and rose to 0.94 in 2012, with the country likely to achieve parity in 2015, says the report. And lastly…