Girls in a school in Burkina Faso.
Save the Children CanadaThis morning, in every part of Canada, thousands of parents will wake up, wash children’s faces, and send them off to school. Each of us has come to expect access to educational institutions that, according to the OECD and a recent report by McKinsey and Company, rank among the best in the world.
Yet for more than 67 million children around the world, attending school is still a distant dream. Even those lucky enough to make their way to a classroom face steep challenges. Poor facilities, poorly trained teachers, and few books, mean that learning is not a guarantee.
For the past decade, Canada has been an international leader on this issue, helping to close the gap between the educational life chances of Canadian kids, and children in the developing world. By offering financial aid to governments and others willing to make a concentrated effort to get every child in school, Canada has helped elementary education expand at a rate that is historically unprecedented: more than 40 million children gained a chance to learn. In Bangladesh, Mali and Tanzania alone, millions more children are now in school than in 2000, and these children have the books and other basic supplies so critical to learning. Canadian assistance has helped to make this difference.
Yet recently, civil society groups have begun to suggest that Canada’s support for education is not keeping pace with its past commitments — a suggestion corroborated in a recent study by economist John Richards of Simon Fraser University. Further intimations of Canada’s policy directions came last month at a meeting of 52 governments to discuss financing a global pooled fund for basic education — the Global Partnership for Education. At its pledging conference, Canada provided a mere $21 million of additional finance to support the Global Partnership over the next three years. In contrast, Australia committed $278 million, and the United Kingdom $353 million, both making significant contributions at a time of financial constraint in their own countries; and helping to raise the amount the Global Partnership for Education has to spend on children to $1.5 billion over the next three years.
Contributing to a global pooled fund for basic education makes as much sense in education as it has in health, where global partnerships have had a catalytic effect on international health outcomes. The Global Partnership for Education brings together 46 developing countries committed to providing good quality education for all children, together with more than two dozen international donor governments and organizations, including representatives from civil society and the corporate sector. The partnership is based on a simple bargain: if developing country governments are willing to make extraordinary efforts to ensure all children an education, the international community will be there to support them. Already, the partnership has reached 16 million children. In the next four years, it plans to reach 25 million more.
Can Canada afford to let its educational support for children in the poorest parts of the globe lag? We know that literacy and numeracy are force multipliers in achieving improvements in maternal and child health, contributing mightily to a woman’s ability to access services for herself and her family. We also know that education enhances productivity in household, farm and factory, and is a precondition for the participation of citizens at every level of society, from community to nation. No country in the modern world has achieved sustained economic growth or political stability with an illiterate population; and we can assume that a world in which large groups are denied access to knowledge is unlikely to be a stable or sustainable one. For each of these reasons, access to a full cycle of good quality education is one of the Millennium Development Goals. And for these reasons, education should remain a central pillar of Canada’s global commitments.
Canada has been a long-standing leader in education domestically. At home we expect, indeed demand, good quality education for all our children. Internationally Canada has shown that it can punch above its weight on issues of global development: during this past year, it has played a catalytic role in spurring new global efforts in maternal and child health. Health and education go hand in hand, as we’ve seen in our own nation. With a successful pooled fund for education in place, supported by 52 nations, private philanthropies and civil society, now is the time for Canada to ensure that it does not leave education behind.
Karen Mundy is an associate professor and Canada Research Chair at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and the Munk School of Global Affairs University of Toronto. She is also the co-chair of the Canadian Global Campaign for Education.