cyberROTH Interactive Solutions

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education

The nations of the world vowed that, by 2015, boys and girls everywhere will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.

Progress: Widespread progress

School enrollment exceeded 90% in almost all regions in 2006, and many countries were close to achieving universal primary enrollment. The number of children of primary school age who were out of school fell from 103 million in 1999 to 73 million in 2006, despite an overall increase in the number of children in this age group. In developing countries, the percentage of children who have completed primary education rose from 79% in 1999 to 85% in 2006. Progress varies, however, with only 71% of children in sub-Saharan Africa enrolled in school.

What else is needed

$11 billion USD a year is needed to make sure all children in the world can go to school—about half of what Americans spend on ice cream.

Success story: INDIA

India has more people without access to education than any other country in the world. But between 2003 and 2006, it was able to reduce the number of out-of-school children from 25 million to 7 million by investing in schools, teachers, and textbooks.

The Indian government launched Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (“Education for All”) in 2002 to provide universal primary education for school-age children—192 million of them in some 1.1 million households. Under the program, the government worked with state governments, private institutions, and international aid agencies to build 700,000 new classrooms and hire nearly that many teachers. Today, almost 98% of the country’s school-age children have a primary school within a kilometer of their home.

India’s efforts have enabled the country to reduce its number of out-of-school children by almost five million per year since 2003, so that 90% of children now attend primary school–92% of boys and 87% of girls. Progress can also be measured in the population’s overall literacy, which has increased from 20% to more than 60% between 1948 and 2008.

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See the other articles in the MDG Snapshot series:

• Where Are We on Hunger?
• Where Are We on Maternal Mortality?
• Where Are We on Health?
• Where Are We on Climate Change?