Global Partnership for Education – Staff Writer
“Speaking at the Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Ministerial Conference on Education Post-2015, Julia Gillard, Board Chair of the Global Partnership for Education, urged world leaders to strengthen support for the efforts of African nations to build sustainable education systems that are capable of delivering quality schooling to more children. She also stressed as priorities to expand the role of education in emergencies, create equity for girls and disadvantaged children and step up the collection of critical education data…In a joint OpEd article with Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO in The New Times, a leading Rwandan newspaper, the two education champions further spelled out a vision for education’s future in Africa over the next 15 years…While much of Africa – and, notably, Rwanda – has made major strides in education over the past two decades, they wrote, “the situation remains fragile across the continent, and, in many areas, the momentum of the past decade has stalled. We need to kick-start the movement again and prevent the hard-won gains from being lost.” Ms. Gillard and Ms. Bokova also noted that 30 million of the world’s 58 million out-of-school children of primary school age live in Sub-Saharan Africa and that girls account for more than 50% of this group. “(more)