EDUCATION: A Marshall Plan to School the World’s Poor

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Néfer Muñoz

SAN JOSE, Oct 9 2001 (IPS) - Researchers, academics and international personalities from Europe, Latin America and the United States meeting in the Costa Rican capital have issued a global call for greater investment in education aimed at closing the social gap between rich and poor countries.

The Global Alliance for Transnational Education (GATE) opened its annual conference here this week with an international appeal for greater attention to problems in the educational arena.

Oscar Arias, former president of Costa Rica and Nobel Peace Laureate, told the conference that what is needed is a plan to fight poverty in the less developed countries, something similar to the Marshall Plan that the United States launched in 1947 to rebuild Europe following World War II, investing 20 billion dollars, at the dollar-value of that era.

Arias maintained that the new plan should be financed by industrialised countries, which could contribute a small portion of their defence budgets to a common fund.

’We know that re-directing just five percent of what the world spends on weapons and soldiers would be sufficient over 10 years to guarantee basic education, health services and potable water for the entire world population,” he said.

In his speech inaugurating the three-day GATE conference Monday, Arias said that there are sufficient resources in the world to provide education to the poorest people, but warned that appropriate distribution of such resources is essential.

’The United States spends eight billion dollars annually on cosmetics and the Europeans dedicate 11 billion dollars per year to eating ice cream,” while ensuring educational opportunities for the world’s population would require just six billion dollars more a year, Arias said.

’These resources exist. It is a question of changing our priorities and re-directing them so that they might benefit the children of the world,” the former president told the gathering of educators, government officials, business leaders and non-governmental organisations.

Those affected by the educational problems troubling the world are adults and children alike, reports the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

The UN agency calculates that some 836 million adults are illiterate, one of eight school-age children do not receive primary schooling, and a third of adolescents do not attend secondary school.

Meanwhile, approximately 780 billion dollars are spent each year on government armed forces around the world.

’We are not investing enough in education. As a result, in many of our countries we are condemning our children to becoming manual labourers. We are returning them to the 19th century,” said Arias. He called on the nations of the industrialised North to forgive the debt of the poor countries of the South and to increase humanitarian assistance.

The former Costa Rican president said that, in spite of the democratic advances made in countries like Poland, the Philippines, Nigeria, Haiti, Chile and Nicaragua, democracy is not complete or secure as long as illiteracy persists.

Following Arias’ speech, the experts gathered for the conference initiated debate on proposals for improving education worldwide. The three- day meet ends Wednesday.

’I think the key is to take advantage of the opportunities offered by technology,” Clotilde Fonseca, head of the Costa Rica-based Omar Dengo Foundation, told IPS.

Developing countries must use resources like the Internet to exchange information that would allow them to boost the level of educational quality across the board, Fonseco said.

The experts agreed that distance learning could be utilised to great benefit, particularly via the Internet.

’This process is what we are calling transnational education, for example, studying at a prestigious university but without leaving one’s country of origin,” Glenn Jones, GATE president, explained to IPS.