Copyright 2002 The Washington Post
The
Washington Post
April 20, 2002, Saturday, Final Edition
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. A19
LENGTH: 787 words
HEADLINE:
Educate Them All
BYLINE: Gene Sperling
BODY: The Bush administration could put
some flesh on its new Millennium Challenge Account if it took the opportunity at
this weekend's World Bank meetings to push for a much-needed initiative: a
global compact to achieve universal
basic education in the
world's poorest nations.
Currently some 130 million children ages 6 to
11 (mostly girls) are out of school. An additional 150 million -- one in four
children in the developing world -- drop out before completing four years of
education. Completing just five years of education can increase agricultural
efficiency significantly. Studies have shown that educating girls not only
raises their future wages but dramatically reduces infant and maternal mortality
rates. Despite such benefits, only 2 percent of all overseas development
assistance goes to
basic education. While spending on
basic education and preventing abusive child labor has gone up
significantly both in the last years of the Clinton administration and the first
year of the Bush administration, overall spending remains at a pathetic $ 200
million.
With the Bush budget's sharp cuts in Labor Department spending,
overall education aid to poor nations is proposed to be cut by $ 22 million next
year, and aid to fight abusive child labor by $ 15 million. World Bank education
lending has fallen from $ 3 billion in 1998 to $ 1 billion in 2001.
Fortunately, the World Bank will take a strong step forward by laying
out a proposal for reaching the millennium goal of universal primary education
by 2015. But will this be a real action plan or another empty promise?
Although the "Education for All" commitment in 2000 -- signed by 182
nations -- stated that poor nations with credible national education plans would
not be allowed to fail due to a lack of resources, the process is currently
stalled. Without the type of clear compact that was established for the debt
relief process, no poor nation has reason to believe that spending the political
and financial capital needed to undertake systemic education reforms will
actually lead to more external assistance.
At the World Bank meeting
this weekend and the G-8 Summit in June, the United States has the opportunity
to jump-start the process of creating a global education compact. First, it
should insist on a clear and coordinated global contract under which a poor
nation can be sure that if it meets tough but flexible criteria, an equally
clear financing mechanism is in place to deliver needed assistance.
Every national plan should have a clear strategy for the
hardest-to-reach populations -- particularly poor girls in rural areas. The lack
of education for these girls is a disease with a known cure. Since impoverished
parents do not want girls traveling far to school, for safety reasons or because
they need their help at home, smaller, multi-grade schools (like the old U.S.
one-classroom schools) are being used with success in many countries, such as
Egypt. In the highly effective Girls' Advisory Committees of Ethiopia, parents
go to families that are seeking early marriages for their girls and encourage
them to keep them in school. Scholarship programs in Brazil, Bangladesh and
other countries have created savings accounts for girls themselves or stipends
for parents to compensate for the cost of schooling.
Finally, nothing
would do more to make this global compact a reality than for the United States
to step forward with a commitment of $ 1 billion a year initially, and
eventually $ 2 billion -- and then to challenge other countries to contribute
their share. To minimize inefficient and fragmented use of such aid, we should
insist that the World Bank, UNESCO, UNICEF and other donors coordinate their
funding so that aid can support strong education plans put forward by the
developing nations themselves.
The funds could go in two directions. The
main approach would be to fast-track 10 or so countries, mainly in Africa, that
step up with serious education plans, their share of domestic resources and
budget transparency. Such assistance must go beyond one-time expenditures such
as school buildings and deal with the recurrent cost of new teacher salaries.
The second track would be to directly fund successful nongovernmental
service providers in nations without comprehensive education plans, so that we
do not neglect millions of children because of the shortcomings of their
governments.
Underlying all this should be the idea that the commitment
to "leave no child behind" needs to be a global, not just a national one.
The writer was President Clinton's chief economic adviser and is
director of the Forum on Universal Education at the Brookings Institution.
LOAD-DATE: April 20, 2002