Wider access should be matched by drive for quality in delivery, says report
Wider access to schooling needs to be matched by an increase in the quality of education, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) said this week.
Presenting 'The Quality Imperative' as part of the 2005 Education for All Global Monitoring Report, Unesco research officer Alberto Motivans said quality was 'a key element in ensuring all children acquired the skills critical to building developing economies and societies'.
Addressing the press at Unesco headquarters in Paris, Mr Motivans acknowledged that more children were going to school than ever before, but said more than 100 million school-age children were still deprived of primary education.
In one-third of the countries providing data, 25 per cent of students who began primary schools did not get to fifth grade, and the figure rose to a third in half the countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Many in less developed nations who completed primary education were still unable to read or write, he said.
He praised some governments, including Uganda, Malawi and Kenya, though, where access to schooling had been increased through measures such as the abolition of school fees.
At the same time, increased enrolment threatened the quality of teaching. Mr Motivans said that when systems 'were unable to cope with a large influx of new pupils due to overflowing classrooms', teachers were overwhelmed by shortages in teaching and learning materials, such as textbooks, and quality suffered.