Education Post-2015 Roundup

While ensuring the greatest efforts are made to achieve the Millennium Development Goals before they reach their 2015 end date, RESULTS has also been advocating what it and its partners believe should be the highest priorities for education in the post-2015 development agenda.

Now, on the eve of the draft report from the U.N. High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda (to be submitted to the U.N. Secretary-General on May 31), the position papers RESULTS has helped develop in recent months are recapped below. While the messages are unique in their own ways, a few key themes emerge:

The job isn’t finished

While general trends in enrollment have vastly improved since 2000, aggregate figures mask the realities of large populations of marginalized and disadvantaged children who are still not receiving a basic education. The crusade to make education accessible to all children is not over, and the struggle for universal equitable access must be renewed in 2015.

Expand the horizon

In addition to finishing the job of the current goal to achieve universal primary education, it is time to expand educational access upward to secondary school and downward to pre-primary school. The foundation offered by a pre-primary education is essential to the educational progress a child makes at the primary and secondary levels and beyond, and the skills development afford by a quality secondary education further unlocks education’s poverty-alleviating power.

Quality, not just quantity

In many places, the push for access has led to sacrifices in quality. Too many of those in school are failing to acquire the knowledge and skills expected from a basic education. The global learning crisis must be at the forefront of the post-2015 agenda. While learning outcomes should be measured, learning environments — which include adequate, trained teachers, textbooks and learning materials, and a quality curriculum — must also be the target of post-2015 education interventions.