Initiatives to Achieve Universal Education

April 24, 2006—With the theme, “Every child needs a teacher,” education advocates worldwide are mobilizing global action during Education for All Week, April 24–28. This year’s campaign urges local and national governments to make teacher support and education a priority.

Education is a basic building block in any country’s future. Yet, 113 million children are not in primary school, and the majority are girls. To reach universal education, over 15 million additional teachers are needed, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

For nearly two decades, CEDPA has worked to improve local capacity to educate youth and increase community support for girls’ education in countries including Egypt, India, Mexico, Nepal and Nigeria.

In Egypt, CEDPA has trained over 4,000 community leaders, school teachers and youth leaders to become facilitators and peer educators for the non-formal education programs, New Horizons and New Visions.

Egypt has among the highest illiteracy rates in the world. Forty-five percent of women over the age of 15 cannot read or write. In rural areas, the illiteracy rates are alarming—85 percent of female head of households are illiterate.

CEDPA’s programs in Egypt teach literacy and also improve vocational skills, decision making abilities and health knowledge of girls and boys. Over 80,000 girls and 17,000 boys have participated in the programs since 1994.

In South and West Asia, where less than 60 percent of adults can read and write, CEDPA implements its youth development programs in India and Nepal. In India, more than 167,000 adolescents and 3,000 facilitators have participated in CEDPA’s lifeskills education program.

CEDPA’s approach involves local institutions, leaders and parents in the design and implementation of education programs to ensure that communities make education a priority. CEDPA also recruits women and men to become champions for education.

Newly trained advocates in Egypt convinced government officials to open literacy classes in underserved villages and set up small schools within existing community organizations to reach girls who had left school. They also convinced leaders to provide free transportation to school for students in remote villages.

In Nepal, CEDPA’s tapped nearly 17,000 newly literate rural women to advocate for quality education opportunities for themselves and their children.

CEDPA’s programs in Nepal, Egypt and around the world demonstrate that communities will support and invest in education, for both girls and boys.

Learn more about the worldwide initiative to achieve universal education.

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