EUROPE – EDUCATION- Framework For Action Adopted

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Yojana Sharma

WARSAW, Feb 9 2000 (IPS) - Delegates from some 40 countries, including ministers of education and social affairs, Wednesday adopted a Framework for Action whichrenewed a commitment for basic education and set new targets for the year 2015.

The meeting in the Polish capital, February 6-8, under the auspices of the UNESCO and other UN organisations was one of several regional conferences being held in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America to assess the status of recommendations agreed by the World Conference on Education for All in Jomtien, Thailand in 1989.

The results of the regional assessments will be presented to the World Education Forum to be held in Dakar Senegal in April.

At Jomtien, some 155 countries committed themselves to provide their citizens with universal primary education and to massively reduce illiteracy by the end of the decade.

Although the Jomtien meeting clearly reflected the understanding that basic education and literacy were the cornerstones of development, there has been much criticism of donors who are predominantly in Europe and North America, because assistance to poorer countries to improve literacy has decreased over the past decade.

According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) the share of aid from rich countries to the poor devoted to basic education remained under two per cent.

“We invite our governments to commit themselves at the Dakar Conference to devote to the international assistance for basic education, a set proportion of their domestic education expenditure,” the final declaration at Warsaw read.

But the problems of education are not only due to lack of money. A recent study in 13 Latin American countries revealed that one of the poorest countries in the region, Cuba, showed the best results in language and mathematics at third grade.

The conference called on governments to pay particular attention to the poor and marginalised.

In Warsaw the focus was on the countries of Eastern Europe whose economic systems have been completely transformed over the last decade. But even without these major upheavals delegates noted that the nature of society is changing from industrial to knowledge-based – new challenges have to be met.

Falling birth rates also meant that governments must resist the temptation to run down education facilities. In particular in Poland and Romania huge pockets of underachievement continued to exist in rural areas which must be addressed.

Delegates agreed that by 2015 young people must successfully complete all their basic education. And those who have not achieved this or who have lost the skills in adulthood must be offered the means to train and attain this level.

In particular, the fight against functional illiteracy was targeted. Even in the worlds richest countries, nearly a quarter of the population was incapable of understanding and using the information contained in brochures, train schedules, road maps and simple instructions for household appliances or pharmaceuticals, the conference heard.

Although education was universal and illiteracy virtually eradicated in these countries a significant proportion of school-leavers and adults were incapable of making out a cheque, verifying a bill, reading a story to a child or writing a love letter.

“This is an indictment of primary schooling,” noted Marc Gilmer, secretary of the conference and Director of the “Education for All” secretariat which coordinates the work of several UN agencies including UNESCO, UNICEF, UNDP and UN population fund (UNFPA).

Known as “functionally illiterate” these people are petrified by the prospect of future changes such as the arrival of the Euro currency or new technologies.

An OECD study on 16-65 year olds to be released in June show that functional illiteracy is as high as 25 per cent of the population of Britain, France and Ireland and is not necessarily confined to recent immigrants.

The inability to function is becoming more evident as society becomes more competitive and challenging, said Veronique Esperandieu of GPLI (Le Groupe Permanent de Lutte Contre Illettrisme) set up in collaboration with the French government to combat the problem in France.

“What was adequate to function in society before is no longer adequate today,” said Esperandieu. The industrial society required mastery of fewer skills compared to the information and technology age of today. “Now even a cleaner has to know how to read instructions on solvents, and factory workers need to know how to input computers,” she said.

The extent of functional illiteracy in the richest countries was seen as sounding a warning to other countries – simply reforming education and providing necessary resources may not be enough. Education must answer to the needs of present day society .

Accoording to Dr Abrar Hasan, head of the Education and Training Division at the OECD Secretariat in Paris the gap between literacy and functional literacy is very large and has been widening since the 1970s.

Gilmer also cautioned donor countries to take into account the extent of functional illiteracy in their own countries when planning literacy campaigns in Third World countries.

“Women in the Third World for example are
no-nonsense people. They are ready to be literate if it is of immediate use to them. Counting and numeracy are very important. So are simple family news and letters. If literacy courses do not back their need then they pull out very quickly,” Gilmer said.

“My message to donors is: dont make people literate without asking them what they want. International institutions and agencies have squandered millions of dollars and wasted the hopes of thousands of people by ignoring this. If people dont see the advantage of literacy they will relapse into illiteracy immediately after the course.”