Fixing the Broken Promise of Education for All: Findings from the Global Initiative on Out-of-School Children
Author: Hawke, Angela, Ed.
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Collected Works - General
Subjects: Access to Education,Elementary Education,Childrens Rights,Out of School Youth,Secondary Education,Children,Adolescents,Disadvantaged Youth,Child Labor,Conflict,Regional Characteristics,Gender Discrimination,Disabilities,Native Language,Language of Instruction,Barriers,Educational Finance,Equal Education,Educational Policy,Foreign Countries

This report delves into a rich new body of data and analysis from the Global Initiative on Out-of-School Children (OOSCI), which confirms that the task of achieving education for all is far from over. The government-backed national studies carried out under the Initiative have marshalled a wide range of data sources for innovative analyses, revealing crucial information on the magnitude of the problem, and on who the out-of-school children are and where they live. The studies have used the data as a cornerstone to identify context-appropriate policies to overcome the specific barriers to education in their country. For many countries, participation in the Global Initiative has provided an unparalleled opportunity to bring together experts in statistics and policy to shine a light on excluded children, who remain largely voiceless and invisible in government interventions. This report draws on this experience to reveal--and attempt to fill--crucial gaps on data, analysis and policy, aiming to revitalise the momentum on reaching out-of-school children at a critical moment, as new international development goals and targets are being set. Drawing on the data and analysis of national and regional OOSCI studies, this report provides a nuanced assessment of system-wide barriers that keep children out of the classroom. Overcoming these impediments, which relate to the availability, affordability and quality of schools, is crucial to the achievement of education for all. Time and time again, poverty and rural location have been linked to persistent obstacles to education, despite the fact that a multitude of countries have built more schools and abolished school fees. The problems arise from the way in which various barriers work in combination, over time, with their cumulative impact delaying or curtailing children's education, or preventing their enrollment entirely. The report highlights five important barriers to education and the children affected: (1) One-half of the world's out-of-school children live in conflict-affected countries; (2) Entrenched gender roles continue to influence whether or not a child starts and stays in school; (3) A household's reliance on child labour often competes with that family's hopes for education; (4) Too many children are sidelined by education that is delivered in a language they neither speak nor understand; and (5) The considerable barriers that prevent children with disabilities from claiming their right to an education are only reinforced by a lack of data on their numbers and their needs. The report takes us beyond &quot;one size fits all&quot; solutions to these barriers by making a clear distinction between two types of countries: (1) those that face an increasingly narrow set of challenges to achieve education for all and that must, therefore, focus more intensely on interventions targeted towards their &quot;hard-to-reach&quot; children; and (2) countries that still account for a disproportionate percentage of the world's out-of-school children, where system-wide reforms are urgently needed. The report argues that most countries must adopt a mixture of system-wide and targeted responses if they are to guarantee universal basic education--that is completion of both primary and lower secondary education. The report argues for a new and stronger political commitment to the education of every child, backed by the necessary resources, both human and financial. As the report shows, there is no doubt that governments and practitioners will have to find far greater resources to ensure that all children are in the classroom and learning, but it is a worthy investment, given the long-term benefits for the social and economic well-being of every nation. Following the foreword (Irina Bokova and Anthony Lake) and an introduction, this report contains the following chapters: (1) Data on Out-of-School Children and Adolescents (Sheena Bell and Friedrich Huebler); (2) Barriers and Policy Solutions (Angela Hawke, Sheena Bell, Hiroyuki Hattori, Friedrich Huebler, Albert Motivans, and Mark Waltham); (3) Financing Needs for Out-of-School Children (Milan Thomas and Nicholas Burnett); and (4) Conclusions and Recommendations. The following are appended: (1) UNICEF Regional Classification; (2) Definitions; (3) Reader's Guide; and (4) Statistical Tables. [For &quot;Fixing the Broken Promise of Education for All: Findings from the Global Initiative on Out-of-School Children. Executive Summary,&quot; see ED560016.]