Universal Primary Education (UPE)
Universal Primary Education (UPE) aims to ensure free primary education by 2015 for all children, particularly girls, ethnic minorities and the most deprived children. It is one of the six Education For All goals,one of the Millennium Development Goals and is an issue at the center of country education policies. AFD mainly orients its interventions towards achieving UPE, in particular in Least Developed Countries.
Education is a prerequisite for development. The link between poverty and education has been clearly established: education is essential to break the vicious circle of poverty which passes down generations. It reduces the vulnerability of people, fosters their participation in decision making and contributes to disseminating innovative behaviour.
Economic take-off also depends on education. Country performance in terms of growth and productivity gains is closely linked to the average length of the population’s studies. Retrospective studies on various regions in the developing world have clearly established that sustainable growth can only be achieved if sufficient human capital is produced beforehand with adult literacy rates of at least 50% or an average six years of studies.
It must also be emphasized that education has positive impacts on health, demography and environment. The drop in the number of children per woman, the percentage of medical supervision during pregnancy, the HIV/AIDS knowledge index are examples which can be correlated with the level of education.
Such benefits can however only be effective with sustainable writing, numeracy and literacy skills. Six years of schooling is a minimum requirement for developing life-long learning capacities. It is for this reason that the focus is now on universal access to complete quality primary schooling and not on simply generalizing access to schooling.
In addition, the social output of primary schooling is generally higher than with secondary or higher education which justifies putting the focus on primary education. This requires building an education pyramid consistent with the economic system and beginning with a strong general base.
Universal Primary Education: goals and indicators
At the Jomtien conference in 1990 UPE was initially seen as general access to education. This is measured by the gross primary intake rate which is an indicator of the education system’s intake capacity. Indeed, it compares the number of children in primary school with the number of children in that age group.
However, this indicator does not reflect the percentage of children who complete primary schooling as dropout rates are high in many developing countries. For this reason the Dakar forum and the Millennium Summit set the primary completion rate as the indicator to monitor.
The long-term goal for UPE is sustainable population literacy . Achieving UPE by 2015 would lead to a fall in illiteracy in Africa from 35% (in 2002) to 16% (in 2015).
Primary completion rates in the 1990s showed an encouraging rise from 72% to 77% but this must not mask huge geographical disparities. Indeed, Eastern Europe (94%), Latin America (97%) and East Asia (99%) have almost achieved UPE but regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa (62%) or South Asia (82%) still have a long way to go.
A total of 47 countries have reached UPE whereas 70 countries are not on track. The current trend means the goal of universal primary education will not be reached, particularly as some countries such as Afghanistan have stagnating or falling rates. It is forecast that a 3% annual increase in the primary completion rate is required for the goals to be achieved by 2015.
Brakes on achieving Universal Primary Education
The many brakes to achieving UPE stem from education supply, government room for manoeuvre and education demand from families.
Several brakes can be seen in education supply :
- a lack of government financial resources: the tax burden is limited with high competition for resource allocation;
- a lack of school infrastructure: schools are insufficient in number and existing schools cannot provide all levels of schooling which is one of the reasons for dropouts;
- a lack of human resources: the lack of teachers and training staff is often detrimental to the smooth functioning of schools;
- a lack of secure learning conditions: overcrowded classes, insufficiently trained teachers, low availability of pedagogical means, an insufficient number of class hours and high absenteeism are all brakes to quality education;
- poor management which does not encourage an equitable and rational distribution of available resources to schools.
Brakes to achieving UPE can also be observed in education demand:
- the cost of studies: registration fees or other school fees can be prohibitive for the poorest families;
- the perception of opportunity cost: families must choose between sending their children to school or making them participate in domestic activities. The choice will not be in favour of schooling if it does not meet the expectations of families or if the child rapidly faces academic failure (grade repetition).