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Proactive Disclosure

Proactive Disclosure

Overview

The Global Development Challenge
The International Vision
CIDA's Strategy
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In Bangladesh, more than 1 million children outside the school system, mainly poor rural girls, have received a primary education through an innovative non-formal education program. In Guyana, teachers are upgrading their subject matter expertise and learning new teaching techniques, including the use of computers. In Ukraine, a Youth for Health program integrates HIV/AIDS awareness into a new health education program for schools. In Colombia, high school students are learning communication, respect for diversity, and peaceful conflict resolution. In Senegal, education reforms helped 163,000 women and men achieve literacy and maintain their skills through a wide range of publications in local languages. These projects and many more are being supported by CIDA to help its partners improve education in some of the world's poorest countries.

The Global Development Challenge

A Report Card on Education

One-fifth of the world's adult population, some 770 million people, cannot read or write, and almost two-thirds are women.
There are still over 100 million children who do not attend school. Nearly three-quarters of these children live in Sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia-of these, 55 percent are girls.
The Education For All goal of gender parity by 2005 has not been reached. Of the countries that reported, only 50 percent had reached it at the primary level; 20 percent at the secondary level; and 5 percent in higher education.
Quality is a major challenge in all regions of the world. Studies in Africa show that as few as 10 percent of children master the curriculum. In Pakistan, fewer than 17 percent of primary graduates can read to the expected level of competency.

Education is a human right. It is essential in order for people and societies to develop to their full potential.

Education, particularly at the primary level, establishes and builds basic skills such as math, literacy, logic, and analysis that equip children with the skills necessary for lifelong learning. It also provides an environment for developing social skills and transmitting key values, including tolerance and cooperation.
Education contributes to better health, higher productivity, increased incomes, and peace and democracy. Educating girls, in particular, results in marked improvements in infant and child survival, family health and nutrition, education of children, and family income.
In today's knowledge-based, global economy, education lays the groundwork for poverty reduction, sustained economic growth, and good governance as never before.

There has been tremendous progress in primary school enrollment, particularly for girls, over the last 15 years. However, at the current pace, the world as a whole will not reach the goal of universal primary education by 2015, nor will it achieve the 2005 goal of gender parity, even by 2015.

There are many barriers to enrollment and continued attendance, including:

costs such as school fees, uniforms, and supplies;
distant, overcrowded, or unsafe schools;
poor instruction or irrelevant curricula; and
the need for children to work to support the family.

For girls, there are additional barriers:

in some cultures, girls stay home to help their mothers while boys go to school;
in many countries, schools are not girl-friendly; for example, girls are often vulnerable to sexual violence and exploitation; and
girls are disadvantaged by outdated teaching methods and gender-biased curricula.

Children from minority ethnic groups, children displaced by conflict, and children with disabilities face similar problems in accessing and acquiring a basic education. There are also barriers to achieving the kind of quality that keeps children in school and allows them to reach expected levels of proficiency. These barriers include inadequate facilities and resources, poorly designed curricula, insufficiently trained teachers, and poorly managed education systems. Hunger is also an important barrier.

The World Food Programme's (WFP) school feeding program encourages hungry children to attend school. Feeding these children helps them concentrate on their studies. The formula is simple: food attracts hungry children to school and an education broadens their options, helping lift them out of poverty. Canada has provided $25 million a year since 2003 in support of WFP's school feeding initiatives in five African countries - Senegal, Mali, Mozambique, Ethiopia, and Tanzania. The program targets more than 568,000 children and 115,000 other vulnerable people (including HIV/AIDS victims) each year in the five countries.

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The International Vision

The global community has consistently focused on education as a priority for human development. At the Education for All (EFA) conference in 1990, the countries of the world agreed to universalize primary education and massively reduce illiteracy.

This goal was reaffirmed in 2000 at the World Education Forum, where participants noted some progress in enrollments, but found considerable gaps between girls and boys and serious gaps in educational quality between and within countries. This resulted in the formation of the United Nations Girls' Education Initiative (UNGEI).

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) underscored the importance of education by focussing on two of the EFA goals:

to achieve universal primary education; and
to promote gender equality and empower women, in part by closing the gender gap at primary and secondary levels.

In 2002, at the G8 meeting in Kananaskis, Alberta, a global partnership of developing and industrialized countries was endorsed to accelerate progress towards universal completion of quality primary education by 2015 through the Education for All-Fast Track Initiative

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CIDA's Strategy

In the context of lifelong learning, CIDA supports education at all levels, with a priority placed on basic education:

early childhood care and education;
primary and junior secondary;
life-skills building; and
training, knowledge sharing, and capacity building.

Canada has world-class expertise in education services and systems and has been a leader in the concern for Equality Between Women and Men and for introducing child-friendly approaches into the classroom.

A strong supporter of the MDGs, CIDA is also an active member of the EFA-Fast-Track Initiative.

Basic education is a programming priority in Canada's development cooperation program. Between 2000 and 2005, CIDA quadrupled its investments in basic education, including an ongoing investment level of $100 million a year in basic education in Africa. CIDA's objective is to help countries accelerate their progress toward ensuring that every girl and boy is able to access and complete free, compulsory, quality basic education. Efforts will focus on:

improving the quality, safety, and relevance of basic education, including life-skills training;
removing barriers that prevent closing the gender gap in education;
providing education to prevent HIV/AIDS; and
providing education for girls and boys in conflict, post-conflict, and/or emergency situations.

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