The World Education Forum held in Dakar in 2000 spelled out targets and strategies for reaching the EFA goals by the year 2015.

While there has been progress towards EFA since 2000 in the Sub-Saharan Africa region, it has been uneven between the different countries. The pace of progress towards Universal Primary Education (UPE) in the region has been faster than during the 1990s with the average primary Net Enrolment Ratio (NER) increasing from 57% to 70%Between 1999 and 2005.

However, some countries have lagged behind, and some goals, such as early childhood care and education (ECCE), youth and adult literacy and quality of education, have received less attention.

The imbalances among many education systems have led to such deep disparities in the provision of quality education to all. Particularly, socially disadvantaged populations and marginalized groups have been given very little opportunity to get quality education.

Since 2000, there has not been any systematic national assessment of all the educational goals that have been reached among many African countries.

End-Decade Assessment of Education for All (EFA) Goals

The EFA assessment is an unparalleled effort to take stock of the state of the education in the world, particularly among the developing and poorer nations. It includes national assessment of the progress achieved since Dakar 2000, the problems encountered and recommendations for future policy and programmatic actions.

UNESCO has started the process of preparing the National End-Decade Assessment of progress in the Nairobi cluster countries- Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. The assessment will enable each country to review and assess the progress made on all EFA goals from the perspective of their own national education sector strategy and plan.

Using the framework of EFA Assessment, the national assessment would focus on both progress made and the challenges that have emerged since 2000. The process would assist countries in developing indicators for the assessment, building capacity for analysis of data and in preparing for assessment reports for all the EFA goals.