Education experts gathered in the Senegalese capital Dakar this week to discuss what priorities should look like once the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) expire in 2015. The conclusion: more focus on quality and how to measure it; on equity and access for hard-to-reach children; and on what should happen during the first three years of secondary school. “We need a goal that encompasses our broad aim of quality education, equitably delivered, for all children,” said Caroline Pearce, head of policy at the Global Campaign for Education (GCE).
The meeting was one of 11 global consultations on the post-2015 development agenda. Millennium Development Goal 2 - to achieve universal primary education - succeeded in pushing up enrolment rates: in 2010 some 90 percent of children were enrolled in primary school, up from 82 percent in 1999, according to the UN. But the goal was narrow and even more narrowly interpreted: it focused only on access to primary education, and implementers tended to judge success by enrolment rates rather than completion rates.
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