Target 3: Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.
Progress and Prospects
Thanks to additional aid and debt cancellation for many countries, since 2000 over 34 million extra children in developing countries are able now to attend and complete primary school. For example, after school fees were abolished, enrolment rose from 3.4 million to 5.7 million students in Uganda (1996), from 1.5 to 3 million in Tanzania (2002) and from 5.9 to 7.2 million in Kenya. This Goal is entirely achievable.
However, after abolishing school fees, Kenya was unable to hire the additional 60,000 required teachers because of an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which restricted public spending and froze teacher numbers at 1990 levels. And while the world’s first global compact to fully fund the education sector plans of developing countries (known as the Education For All Fast Track Initiative) was launched in 2002, it faces a three-year funding shortfall of around $1 billion for the 31 countries whose education sector plans have been endorsed.
