EFA Report 2009- Ben Jones

The EFA report for 2009 makes it clear that while progress toward reducing economic and thus educational inequality is being made, we are still not on track to reach the Dakar goals by 2015. One goal that is not on track to be achieved is universal primary education. 75 million primary school age kids are still not in school, although 28 million more are enrolled than in 1999. Economic inequality is paramount in this issue, since the poorest echelon of society has the highest percentage of children not in school, and the lowest amount of funding for schools. The poorest 20% of people in sub-saharan africa and south and west asia sees fewer than 40% of chilren reach grade 9. Another problem is adult literacy- about 776 million adults are still illiterate, and the goal is to reduce this number by 50% by 2015. This is an important goal because it not only allows greater oppurtunity for these adults, but because it will lead to greater child literacy as the parents pass their knowledge down and encourage their children to learn to read as well. The fact is there are huge amounts of underpriviledged people in the world, and the key to helping them achieve a better life is to extend economic and educational oppurtunity to them, and while it is important to have goals, we need to work harder in order to stay on pace to achieve these neccesary improvments for the world.