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The UNESCO Institute for Statistics has produced The Global Education Digest 2004: Comparing Education Statistics Across the World. This study is the result of the need to measure the progress realised in attaining the international objectives in education of “Education for all” (EPT) and “Objectives for development for the millennium “ (ODM), which are based on access to education, educational success, equality between the sexes and quality education for all children.
The Digest is primarily devoted to evaluating expectations for education, an indicator that measures the number of years of education that a child can hope to complete, pursuant to the level of education that now exists. “This indicator does not directly predict the level of instruction of the population, since it takes into account repeating years and abandoning school, however it does indicate the potential level of education for the future adult population.”
The Institute makes clear that although the expectation of education is on average 9.3 years at the present time, it varies enormously from one country to another. Thus, a child who enters the educational system in Finland, New-Zealand or Norway can expect to spend a total of more than 17 years in the educational system, almost double that in Bangladesh or Myanmar, and four times more than in Niger or Burkina Faso. The analysis also shows that the expected number of years of education is strongly, although not entirely, linked to national revenue as well as to the socio-economic status of households, with large disparities even within a country.
Regarding equality of access to education between girls and boys, the Digest indicates that more than one child in three who is of an age to go to primary school lives in a country whose system does not assure equality of access to primary education. It adds that it is girls who are disadvantaged in all countries where there is a disparity between the sexes at the level of primary education. The disparity between the sexes is even more important at secondary level. In poor countries, this inequality is obvious and it penalizes girls, with the exception of Armenia, Georgia, Mongolia and Algeria. In contrast, in rich countries the disparity at secondary level is often in favour of girls.
There are at present 115 million children in the world who are deprived of access to education and close to 40% of these – largely girls – are found in Africa. At the Jomtien Conference, held in Thailand in 1990, the participant countries agreed to assure basic education for all by the year 2000. One well knows that this promise was not kept and therefore the Dakar Forum, held 10 years later, pushed back the deadline until 2015. It is in the context of this goal that UNESCO has produced the data on expectations for education.
Source:
UNESCO (2004) Global Education Digest 2004:
"Comparing Education Statistics across the world” UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Montreal. http://www.uis.unesco.org/ev_en.php?ID=5728_201&ID2=DO_TOPIC
