By IPS Correspondents
NOVA IGUAÇU, Brazil, Mar 27 2006 (IPS)

The goal of truly universal education is far from a reality around the world, because government policies do not take all social sectors into consideration, according to the educators, students and activists who met in this southern Brazilian city for the World Education Forum.

The Forum, held Saturday and Sunday, brought together 20,000 participants from 25 countries under the central theme of “Citizens’ Education for an Educating City.”

The overwhelming consensus among the participants was that discouraging inequities continue to persist despite the ever-growing awareness that the right to education is one of the most basic human rights.

“In 2005 there were 140 million boys and girls outside of the educational system,” U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education Vernor Muñoz told IPS.

Recognition of this right varies greatly from region to region, which is why many countries will fail to meet one of the main U.N. Millennium Development Goals adopted by the international community in 2000: to achieve universal primary education by the year 2015.

“Based on the most optimistic projections, the goal of achieving universal primary education will take at least 10 years longer than expected, because in 2015, there will still be 47 million boys and girls who do not attend school,” said Muñoz.

“There are 47 countries that will not be able to meet the goal of universal school enrolment until practically the middle of the century,” he added.

One of the reasons for this delay is a lack of funding for education, which should represent at least six percent of a country’s gross domestic product (GDP), according to international standards.

“In many cases, state spending on armies continues to grow to the detriment of education. In the countries of Africa and south and western Asia, the average amount allocated to education is 3.5 percent of GDP or less,” remarked Muñoz.

But universal coverage alone does not guarantee equitable and inclusive education, the Forum participants stressed.

Ricardo Henriques, the secretary of continuing education, literacy and diversity at the Brazilian Ministry of Education, maintained that schools will continue to be instruments of exclusion unless policies are adopted to combat ethnic, racial, regional, cultural, gender-based and other forms of inequality.

“It is not enough to guarantee access. We have to curb dropout rates and offer young adults the possibility of continuing education,” said Henriques, who also underlined “the importance of educational content, which cannot be divorced from the daily life of communities.”

At the same time, despite the theoretical recognition of multiple historical, cultural, ethnic and regional identities, there have been no changes made in practice to promote greater acceptance of diversity in the official educational system.

This point was particularly emphasised at the Forum in Nova Iguaçu by social organisations like the Brazilian Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST).

“National education policies in rural areas continue to treat peasant farmers as if they were mentally retarded and failures,” remarked MST representative Clarice Aparecida dos Santos during a debate on education, culture and diversity.

Over the last 20 years, she noted, the MST has taught basic literacy skills to over 100,000 individuals, while offering 24 classes in public universities.

For his part, Orlando Pulido, an educational expert from the National Pedagogical University of Colombia and a member of the Latin American Forum on Educational Policies, said that Latin America still needs to discover the meaning of quality education.

In Pulido’s view, an increase in the number of schools or the incorporation of technologies like computers does not imply an automatic improvement in a country’s educational level.

There needs to be discussion of the meaning of the word quality in the context of education, he added. “Today, the word quality is only used when the educational process is geared to the market. Education is considered a service, but genuine quality education should promote values that help us to overcome the conflicts we face in our countries,” he said.

At a Forum session titled “Ethics and Citizenship in Times of Exclusion”, the participants unanimously concurred that fostering citizenship requires strategies that bring an end to all forms of exclusion.

To achieve this goal, it is essential to demand an ethical stance on the part of government leaders.

During a presentation repeatedly interrupted by rounds of applause, Ramón Moncada of the Colombian non-governmental organisation Corporación Región observed: “Society demands every individual to be an ethical citizen, to be obedient and to behave well. But in order for this to happen, individuals must first be guaranteed all of their rights, and only an ethical government can do this.”

“A city cannot be called an ‘educating’ city unless all those who live in it are guaranteed an education, housing, health care and everything else that forms part of people’s lives,” he concluded.

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