Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Education for all is a must' that was published in Newsband

Education for all is a must

The target year of 2015 was fixed to achieve universal primary education by the United Nations. But even today an estimated 58 million children, a large proportion of them from sub-Saharan Africa, are still out of school. It is said that the global economic meltdown may have contributed to the situation.

In an international conference many countries had agreed to boost allocations in their domestic budgets for primary education. Promises of enhancing quality of teaching were also made.

Measures like abolition of tuition fees, cash transfers, teaching in the local language, increased financial outlays and appropriate curriculum have helped developing countries reduce the out-of-school population among children. The goal of universal education should be made to realize at the earliest.

If you deny children of education they are bound to be weaned away by armed militias that have already wreaked much economic havoc and caused political instability in many regions.

The focus should also be on the needs of disabled children. There is a huge need of providing primary education to children all around the world especially in African and South Asian countries.

The UN has been trying hard to create awareness in all the developing countries and persuading them to allocate more funds in their budget for primary education sector. Although India has improved the literacy rate to much satisfactory level in last decade, but it is still among the laggards.

We can only hope that government will allocate more funds for primary education in coming budgets and will monitor it very closely so as to ensure that funds are being used properly and poor children are really benefiting from the initiative.

We need more comprehensive policy to develop our education system. Government should give more priority to the public education system where more and more children would get education.

Every developing country must ensure the education of every child by making the primary education compulsory for every children. Nations with money power and other with man power should come together to complement each others’ needs to achieve this goal.