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Financial backing needed for post-2015 education agenda: Oxfam
International aid agency Oxfam says financial support is needed to realize commitments to provide political support for the post-2015 education agenda announced by education ministers and officials during the World Education Forum in Korea last week
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nternational aid agency Oxfam says financial support is needed to realize commitments to provide political support for the post-2015 education agenda announced by education ministers and officials during the World Education Forum in Korea last week.
'This is a visionary, comprehensive agenda for education for the next 15 years,' Oxfam's essential services spokesperson, Deepak Xavier, said in a statement in Incheon over the weekend.
The declaration includes goals to achieve universal and high quality pre-primary, primary and secondary education.
Xavier said rather than following the lead of some donors pushing for private education, the declaration came out strongly in favor of quality public education for all children, free-of-charge.
'The 'development fad' of low-cost private schools and privatization has caused us to lose ground on the hard-fought progress in abolishing school fees over the last 15 years. Donors must not rely on private finance to resource this agenda, as too often private finance simply means poor families are forced to pay school fees,' Xavier said.
He said the agenda was useless, however, unless it was backed up by real money. 'If we have any hope of achieving education for all children, governments meeting in July in Addis Ababa must make bold new commitments to stem international tax dodging and increase aid to education.'
The World Education Forum, which took place in Incheon, Korea, from May 19 to 21, is the follow-up to the Dakar World Education Forum in 2000. In Dakar, six education goals to ensure 'Education for All' were endorsed.
Oxfam said developing countries lose US$100 billion each year to corporate tax dodging, enough to fill the global education financing gap five times over.
Burkina Faso Education Minister Samadou Coulibaly said many high-ranking officials and ministers participated in the forum, but that ministers from donor countries were absent.
'The donors' commitment to initiatives like the Global Partnership for Education has been reducing over the years. I fear their absence maybe a signal that there will be lesser resources for addressing education inequality in the developing world,' said Coulibaly. (ebf)
