EDITORIAL - Education for All

When financial systems fail, the consequences are evident and governments act quickly to confront the crisis. When education systems fail, the impact is less tangible and there is less urgency in governments’ response. This is one of the observations of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in its latest global monitoring report on the implementation of the UN’s Education for All program.

Although progress has been recorded in some of the poorest regions, the report said the world is not on track to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education by 2015. UNESCO predicts that at least 29 million children would be out of school in 2015. The number does not include several million children in countries with weak governance such as Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. With too many problems and conflicts around the world, the international donor community is also stretched thin, with a current shortfall of $30 billion in its promised increase of $50 billion in aid for universal education, UNESCO reported.

In countries such as the Philippines and Peru, children in the poorest 20 percent of the population receive the equivalent of five years less in education than those from wealthy families, according to UNESCO. Though basic education is free in the Philippines, many families cannot afford even the other expenses to send a child to school, such as daily transportation fare, money for snacks and miscellaneous school fees. Compounding the problem are malnutrition and other health problems that stunt the development of a child’s brain. UNESCO estimates that around 193 million children in developing countries reach primary school age with impaired brain development.

The gap widens in the higher stages of education, when many poor children can no longer catch up with those from affluent families. Previous studies have shown an alarming dropout rate in Philippine elementary schools, with the rate rising in high school.

Governments cannot afford to ignore the UNESCO warning. The failure of the education system invariably affects national development and competitiveness. A nation’s most precious resource is its people. National progress depends to a large extent on the capabilities of that resource.