Educating Rural People

John Daniel, Assistant Director-General for Education

If Education for All is to become a reality, education systems will have to reach out to those who live in remote rural areas. But are governments really committed to educating rural people and can they overcome

When people ask me how we are doing in achieving Education for All (EFA), I reply that although many countries still have far to go, the organization of the campaign is in good shape. There is now excellent international teamwork between the four key groups of stakeholders:

• Developing country governments
• Civil society organizations
• Bilateral donors and,
• Inter-governmental agencies.

Coordination at the country level has also improved and the players increasingly work within a common framework, led by the country itself, rather than each doing their own thing.

The various agencies now divide up the work; each focusing on a part of the EFA agenda that plays to its strengths. The World Bank manages the Fast-Track Initiative

(FTI) to promote the universal completion of primary education. After a hesitant start, the FTI has emerged as a core response to the EFA challenge. UNICEF is coordinating the drive to gender parity in schools and universal girls’ education. Achieving EFA means going to where the greatest numbers of unschooled and uneducated people are. This takes us to South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa and, in particular, to the rural areas of those vast regions. Education Today, in this issue, looks at the challenge of bringing education to rural people in the face of the widespread discrimination, witting and unwitting, against those living outside cities.

As I travel around the world I do see many encouraging developments. Most of them, not surprisingly, are the result of giving power to rural people. Some states of India, such as Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, are making brisk progress towards EFA because the local councils, or Panchayat, have been put in charge. National political will is another key ingredient. China, for example has placed education and communications at the centre of its policy for developing the western part of the country. When I visited Oman I noted the determination of the government to ensure that schools were built and staffed to the same specifications all over the country.

UNESCO encourages all countries to combine national will with local power in the service of rural people. For decades to come 60 per cent of the world’s population will be found in rural areas. Humankind depends on them and they depend on education.

URL - http://unesdoc.unesco.org