Schooling for all? We can have it if we mean it (Global March)

Schooling for all? We can have it if we mean it

DAKAR, Senegal: We have the chance to tackle a problem at the heart of world poverty when international institutions, governments and representatives of civil society meet at the World Forum on Education that opens this Wednesday. The future of millions of people rides on the outcome.

Failure to adopt a meaningful plan of action will consign them to a permanent cycle of want. It will worsen inequalities between and within nations, threatening democracy and global stability.

Since the first such forum in Jomtien, Thailand, 10 years ago, we have failed to deliver the prize of education for all. Countries like Uganda, where much has been accomplished in basic education with a combination of political will and leadership, good governance, extra money and more efficient use of existing resources, show what could have been done. Yet globally today, 125 million children are out of school, when we had all promised one another at Jomtien that in 2000 there would be none.

There is no doubt that universal education is a challenging goal to meet, made even more so by the past decade's large-scale political and economic transitions, the spread and devastation of HIV/AIDS, conflicts and natural disasters, population growth, and the widening of the ''digital divide.''

Yet education means empowerment, opportunity and development. More than that, it can mean life and death for the world's poorest people. That is why Dakar cannot be just another international conference.

Delegates to the forum must recognize the scale of the education crisis, and allow no complacency or empty pledges with respect to school enrolment and quality of education. Each day that a child is denied the chance of a quality education, it closes the door to the future of that child - and, cumulatively, to his or her family and nation. The exclusion of millions from quality education is as morally unacceptable as it is economically wasteful.

Viable, practical solutions are needed. We believe it is the responsibility of national and local governments to invest in their greatest asset: their human capital. Education must be at the core of every nation's development and poverty reduction strategy.

Success will depend on strong partnerships among developing and developed countries, international agencies like those of the United Nations and the World Bank, and civil society. Debt relief must be targeted to basic education and other services that give people a hand up. Aid to basic education must be expanded and improved.

This requires a new form of global partnership, a ''virtual'' alliance on education that can mobilize money and ideas more quickly and involve many more actors than in the past. Businesses, non-governmental organizations, teachers' unions and other groups in civil society must work more closely with donors and government agencies. Ministries of finance and development must be partners in this effort along with ministries of education.

We, on behalf of the World Bank and the Global Campaign for Education (an alliance involving non-governmental organizations from around the world, including Global March Against Child Labour, a global initiative for elimination of child labour), want the forum to put in place a fast-track action plan for a first group of countries that are committed to achieving universal education goals much sooner than the year 2015, and have viable strategies to do so.

This will send a powerful message that such aims are achievable and can be accelerated. It will also signal that there is the political will from a number of countries, and from regional and global players, to work creatively together.

The Dakar forum can succeed. But only when all of us, official and nonofficial actors alike, work together and support country leadership to make it happen. We should pledge that no country with a sound plan to achieve education for all its children will fail for lack of help and money. We believe that the world's children deserve nothing less.

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