Education for All Imperatives for the E9 Group
With nearly 3.5 billion inhabitants in 2005 — more than half the world population — the nine highly populated developing countries (E9) together represent tremendous challenges that weigh heavily on global education trends.
- A majority of the E9 countries have not yet achieved universal primary education and all face major quality deficits.
- Only two countries have achieved gender parity in primary and secondary education.
- Literacy remains an overriding challenge.
- Of the world’s 771 million adults who lack the basic learning tools to make informed decisions and participate fully in the development of their societies, nearly 70% live in these nine countries.
Tackling the literacy gap is a development imperative for E9 governments and donor countries. It requires strengthening efforts to expand education and to significantly improve its quality. Although this alone does not suffice: there is also an urgent need to scale up youth and adult learning opportunities and to develop literate environments, in particular in those countries which still have low education indicators.
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