European Parliament resolution on basic education in developing countries in the context of the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children in September 2001 (2001/2030(INI))
Date: 2001-09-06
Institutions: European Parliament
Subjects: UN General Assembly, basic education, child, developing countries, education policy

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23. Basic education in developing countries

A5-0278/2001

European Parliament resolution on basic education in developing countries in the context of the
United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children in September 2001 (2001/2030(INI))

The European Parliament,

(cid:129) having regard to the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child,

(cid:129) having regard to the World Summit for Children in Jomtien, Thailand, in 1990, the UN Social Summit

in 1995 and the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal in 2001,

(cid:129) having regard to the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children in New York,

19-21 September 2001,

(cid:129) having regard to Rule 163 of its Rules of Procedure,

(cid:129) having regard to the report of the Committee on Development and Cooperation (A5-0278/2001),

A. whereas Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights established education as a funda-

mental human right,

B. having specific regard to the commitments included in the Dakar Action Framework and whereas

action must be taken to enable those commitments to be honoured,

C. whereas the UN Special Session on Children will review the progress made on the delivery of
children(cid:146)s rights, including education, and will adopt a global agenda and plan of action for the new
decade,

D. whereas the first revised draft outcome document for the UN Special Session on Children highlighted
ten imperatives, including that, (cid:145)all girls and boys must receive a compulsory, free basic education of
good quality(cid:146),

E. whereas the Commission and the Council issued a Joint Statement, on 10 November 2000, which
supported the view that there should be a global commitment to universal primary education, and
which identified education as a development priority,

F. whereas 130 million children have never attended school, another 150 million children start primary
school but drop out before they learn to read and write, and 900 million people in the developing
world are illiterate,

G.

stressing the universal and indivisible nature of human rights including the right to education, and
that there is no place for discrimination of any kind on the grounds of sex, disability, race, ethnic
origin, religion or culture,

H. whereas two-thirds of children out of school are girls, enrolment rates for girls are still behind those

for boys and drop-out rates for girls are higher,

I. whereas children with disabilities are among the most disadvantaged educationally, and mainstream

educational provision in many countries explicitly excludes them,

J.

noting that emergency provision for many children who are displaced, or affected by conflict, drought
or famine, rarely extends to appropriate education, even when displacement and instability are pro-
longed,

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K.

stressing the importance of peace education where children are victims of violent conflict, as is the
case with children in refugee camps,

Thursday 6 September 2001

L.

believing that tackling the education crisis is one of the most effective strategies at our disposal for
breaking the cycle of poverty, and is key to sustainable human development and efforts to make
progress towards the internationally agreed 2015 human development targets,

M.

regretting the fact that since the Dakar Conference there has been minimal progress and a lack of
leadership in coordinating international efforts to tackle the crisis in education,

N. whereas on current trends we will not meet the 2005 target for gender equity in education, particu-
larly in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, and the 2015 target for universal primary education will
be comprehensively missed, with an estimated 75 million children remaining out of school,

O. whereas efforts are being seriously undermined by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, as a result of which 10 %
of teachers in the worst affected countries in Africa are expected to die over the next five years, and
the number of AIDS orphans are predicted to rise to more than 20 % of all school-age children,

P. whereas global economic inequalities and the burden of debt has left many governments without the
resources to provide education for all children, and structural adjustment programmes have forced
governments to reduce public sector spending,

Q. believing that the classroom experience should be child centred, relevant to the local community and

in the local language, and that curricula need to be flexible and relevant to children(cid:146)s lives,

R. noting that the Global Campaign for Education has called for spending priorities to be reordered in
those countries where military expenditure is high, to ensure that education has a greater emphasis in
the national budget,

S.

believing that the achievement of basic education for all is a precondition for more equitable patterns
of globalisation, and for the closure of the digital divide,

T. whereas donors, including the EU, should develop joint guidelines on policy, operating procedures,
accounting systems and monitoring and evaluation, and donors should end the practice of aid tying in
the education sector, in both the provision of goods and services,

U. noting that in view of the capacity constraints faced by developing countries it is important to set
realistic time scales for the production of participatory national education plans, and that 2002 may
be a difficult deadline to meet,

1. Welcomes the UN Special Session on Children and recognises that this Conference is a vital oppor-
tunity to highlight the critical importance of basic education for all;

Believes that free, compulsory, quality education should be made available to all children, up to the

2.
age of 15 as stipulated by the ILO;

Calls urgently for a Global Initiative on education, as promised at Dakar, and for the donor com-

3.
munity to urgently establish a clear time-frame for the development of such a Global Initiative;

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4.
Calls for the delivery of essential funding, through aid and debt relief which should be at least
USD 4 million a year and specifically focused on the poorest countries, as a means of ensuring that no
government which is striving to achieve free, good quality primary education for all, will fail through a
lack of resources;

Calls for reform of the IMF and World Bank structural adjustment policies to ensure that they sup-

5.
port rather than undermine free, quality education;

6.
Reiterates that, during the budget negotiations in 2001, the European Parliament, together with the
Council, established that Commission aid for education must be doubled and noted that specific targets for
expenditure on education have been included in regional budget headings;

Believes that eligibility for assistance should be contingent on poor countries developing strategies

7.
that are capable of providing good quality education;

8. Welcomes the Commission(cid:146)s commitment to support sectoral development programmes run by
national authorities, with the participation of civil society, and with a clear recognition that it is necessary
to ensure that everyone(cid:146)s efforts are complementary and coherent;

Calls on the Commission to submit a proposal for a directive to Parliament and the Council which
9.
serves to break the link between aid for the education sector and aid intended to finance the supply of
goods and the provision of services within the framework of EU aid programmes;

Urges the Commission to support Unesco(cid:146)s tripartite action plan which includes the drawing up of
10.
national action plans, regional and subregional technical meetings and Unesco(cid:146)s coordination of Education
for All partners;

11. Welcomes the Commission(cid:146)s coordination of Member States efforts through the experts working
party and in the Unesco Working Group dealing with the Framework for Action, and believes that this
group could play an important role in the development of common strategies and positions;

12. Welcomes the participation of the Commission on the Steering Committee of the Association for
the Development of Education in Africa, which will mean that the Commission is involved in political
dialogue with African Education Ministers and discussions on the provision of technical assistance;

Calls on the Commission to work and coordinate closely with national governments, civil society,
13.
NGO(cid:146)s, UN partners and the International Financial Institutions when defining National Indicative Plans,
and to work with national governments to assign responsibilities and avoid duplication;

Stresses the need for the Commission to have adequate human and financial resources at its dis-

14.
posal in order to fulfil its coordination tasks and make it possible to play a leading role;

Calls on the EU to take the lead in developing an innovative partnership between governments and

15.
the private sector, in order to mobilise USD 1 billion per annum for Education For All;

16.
Believes that no child should be excluded from education because of an inability to pay, and calls
on all governments to establish a clear timetable for rapidly eliminating direct and indirect fees for primary
education, while maintaining a high level of, or enhancing, the quality of education;

17.
Believes that funding must be made available for non-standard development contexts, including
national emergencies, conflict situations, refugee camps, or when governments ignore the rights of groups
of children;

18.
Believes that national action plans should define clear targets for accelerating progress towards
universal primary education, and should identify funding shortfalls to be made good through increased
aid under the global initiative;

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19.
Believes that education sector development strategies should be integrated into national poverty
reduction strategies, and should be produced by national governments in consultation with civil society,
local communities and donors;

20.
Stresses the importance of the participation of civil society in the development of national edu-
cation strategies, and believes that parents, teachers and their unions and poor communities should be
encouraged to participate in the preparation of national education plans, in order to help assess the prob-
lems and identify the solutions;

21.
Notes that the decentralisation of education within a state is generally a welcome development
which can empower local communities, but stresses that central government must retain responsibility
for providing the bulk of the necessary funding, and for equipping local officials with adequate training,
authority and resources to manage education systems effectively at local level;

Calls on civil society to hold governments to account for their commitment to achieve education

22.
for all;

Calls on all countries with high military expenditures to re-examine their national spending prior-

23.
ities in favour of greater contributions to the education sector;

24.
Stresses the importance of paying special attention to the education of girls and believes that a start
could be made to tackling unequal opportunities for girls by recruiting and training local female teachers,
eliminating the male bias in curricula and related materials, free school meals, accelerated withdrawal fees
for girl students, encouraging parents to participate in school management and locating schools closer to
the communities which they serve;

25.
Stresses that schools should be (cid:145)zones of safety(cid:146) where the rights of children are respected and
where incidents of sexual harassment and violence in and around schools are documented and taken
seriously and that there is an understanding that this is a major cause of children, in particular girls,
dropping out of school;

26.
Points out that the poor quality of education is a major factor in pupils dropping out of school and
calls for particular attention to be paid to the need to improve the quality of education provided, amongst
other things by adapting the school calendar to suit local needs, taking into account the demands of
seasonal labour, and teaching lessons in local languages;

Stresses that it is critically important to improve training and support for teachers, to ensure that

27.
they have fair and regular salaries, properly equipped classrooms and quality textbooks;

28.
Notes that the HIV/AIDS pandemic has had a devastating impact on the schooling system, teachers
and pupils in many developing countries, and calls for all programmes designed to tackle HIV/AIDS to
take this fully into account;

Believes that people of all ages,

29.
including early school leavers, should have the opportunity to
benefit from life-long learning programmes and have access even to primary education which they may
have missed during their childhood;

Calls on the donor community to support education in the Information and Communication Tech-

30.
nologies, where the basic education level makes this possible;

31.
Considers that special attention should be given to the reintegration of former child soldiers into
society; calls on the international donor community to launch programmes for the re-education of former
child soldiers;

32.
Calls on the Member States at the next Intergovernmental Conference to include a legal base in the
EU Treaties to promote and protect the best interests of the child in all EU policies, programmes and
legislation;

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33. Welcomes the recent commitments given by the Commission to the integration of a child rights
perspective in the development cooperation instruments of the Community and to issuing strategic imple-
mentation guidelines, and calls on the Commission to implement this commitment without delay;

Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Co-Presidents
34.
of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, the Ungass Secretariat, Unicef, Unesco, the national del-
egations at the UN General Assembly and the Secretary-General of the UN, the World Bank and the IMF.