Education and sustainability

Education is unequal across the globe. As in all issues of sustainability, it is a contested area with the richest consuming the most resources and the poorest the fewest.

“The greatest single challenge facing our globalised world is to combat and eradicate its disparities.” – Nelson Mandela

In 19 out of 44 African countries, more than half of all children will not complete primary school. – Unesco Global Education Digest, 2005

More than 85% of primary pupils make the transition to lower secondary in most countries in Europe, Asia, North and South America.
– Unesco Global Education Digest, 2005

In Sub-Saharan Africa the ratio of boys’ to girls’ enrolment in primary and secondary schools is 8 to 1. – United Nations Association of the United States of America.

An average of 1.7% of primary schools students repeat a grade in the world’s richest countries; in the poorest, the average is 7.7%, with rates reaching nearly 20% in Sub-Saharan Africa. –  Unesco, 2005

What do you think?

An average of 1.7% of primary school students repeat a grade in the world’s richest countries; in the poorest, the average is 7.7%, with rates reaching nearly 20% in Sub-Saharan Africa. – Unesco, 2005

“The focus of development should look forward, beyond universal primary education.” –  Unesco Global Education Digest, 2005.

“The privilege of a higher education, especially outside Africa, broadened my original horizon and encouraged me to focus on the environment, women and development in order to improve the quality of life of people in my country in particular and in the African region in general.”

– Wangari Maathai, Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

There are an estimated 771-million illiterate adults in the world, about two-thirds of whom are women. – Unesco, 2005

“Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire.” – WB Yeats, writer and poet

“How can I have a voice when there is no school?” – Lina Magaia, Mozambican writer

What can we do?

Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling and that girls and boys will have equal access to all levels of education. – Millennium Development Goals, United Nations, 2000

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