Tuesday, March 11, 2008
UNESCO Gives RI Top Marks in Literacy Goal

Source: The Jakarta Post

Indonesia and China are among nine nations with the highest rates of illiteracy in the world, but they could meet the Education for All (EFA)'s adult literacy goal by 2015, UNESCO said.

The two countries and Bangladesh are the only three of the E-9 nations considered capable of achieving the EFA's gender parity goal in the next seven years.

The remaining six countries -- India, Brazil, Pakistan, Mexico, Egypt, Nigeria -- are at risk of failing to meet the target.

In its 2008 EFA Global Monitoring Report, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said only Indonesia and China had a high chance of achieving the adult literacy target by 2015, while Egypt, India, Nigeria and Pakistan were facing "serious risk" of failing it.

The report was published during the opening meeting of the seventh E-9 Ministerial Review Meeting in Nusa Dua, Bali. The three-day event is being attended by delegates from the nine countries, as well as from donor countries and institutions.

UNESCO launched its EFA project setting goals to halve the global illiteracy rate in 2000 by the year 2015.

The program also aims to achieve gender equality in education in that time.

The report found that between 1995 and 2005, adult illiteracy rates in China, Indonesia and Mexico hit over 90 percent, in Brazil and Egypt between 70 and 90 percent, and in Nigeria, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh less than 70 percent.

Indonesia has the lowest rate of total public expenditure for education, amounting to only 1 percent of the country's 2005 gross national product, the report said.

Mexico and Brazil lead, spending 5.5 percent and 4.5 percent of their GNPs on education.

The EFA project focuses on the nine most populous developing countries, which are home to 70 percent of the world's illiterate population and 40 percent of global school dropouts, according to a UNESCO report from 1993.