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This article incorporates text from a free content work. Licensed under CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0( license statement/permission ). Text taken from Rethinking Education: Towards a global common good? , 44, UNESCO. UNESCO.
According to the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED), basic education comprises the two stages primary education and lower secondary education. [1]
Basic education featured heavily in the 1997 ISCED document, but the term was not included in the glossary. [2] Each country interpreted the term in different ways, and leading up to the 2011 revision, a discussion paper was issued to seek clarification. [3]
In most countries, ISCED 1 corresponds to the nationally designated primary education, and basic education includes that and also ISCED 2 lower secondary education (the lower level of secondary school). In other countries, where there is no break between primary and lower secondary education, “basic education” covers the entire compulsory school period. For statistical reasons, ISCED 1 is then considered to be the first six years of schooling. [4]
Universal basic education is regarded as a priority for developing countries and is the focus of the Education For All movement led by UNESCO. It is also included in the Millennium Development Goals as goal number 2: achieve universal primary education by 2015. [5]
An extensive number of studies have proven its benefits for public health (e.g. lower spread of HIV/AIDS; better vaccination; prevention and medication of disease; better nutrition; lower maternal, infant, and child mortality), demography (e.g. longer life expectancy, accelerated demographic transition through better birth control) and the economy (e.g. increased purchase power, increased productivity in traditional sectors, increased demand on service sectors). Other benefits, although more difficult to measure, include a beneficial impact on democracy, human rights, governance, and political stability through increased understanding of non-violent ways to solve problems and mutual understanding between groups in conflict. [6] [7]
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), established by UNICEF in 1989, protects children's inalienable rights by setting standards for multiple issues, one of which is education.
Gender equality in education has traditionally been narrowly equated with gender parity at different levels of formal education. Gender has been a traditional factor of inequality and disparity in education, most often to the disadvantage of girls and women. Yet there has been significant progress in narrowing the gap around the world since 2000, with a larger proportion of girls and women accessing different levels of formal education. Indeed, gender parity in primary education has been achieved in Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, East Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, North America and Western Europe. In addition, significant progress has been made since 2000 in narrowing the gender gap, particularly in South and West Asia and to a lesser degree in sub-Saharan Africa and the Arab States. However, despite the significant progress made, the majority of out-of-school children are girls, while two-thirds of youth and adults with low levels of literacy in the world are women. To help ensure women's empowerment, boys and men must also be engaged in the fight against gender inequality. This must begin with basic education. [8]
This article incorporates text from a free content work. Licensed under CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0( license statement/permission ). Text taken from Rethinking Education: Towards a global common good? , 44, UNESCO. UNESCO.
A primary school, elementary school, or grade school is a school for primary education of children who are 4 to 10 years of age. Primary schooling follows preschool and precedes secondary schooling.
Secondary education or post-primary education covers two phases on the International Standard Classification of Education scale. Level 2 or lower secondary education is considered the second and final phase of basic education, and level 3 upper secondary education or senior secondary education is the stage before tertiary education. Every country aims to provide basic education, but the systems and terminology remain unique to them. Secondary education typically takes place after six years of primary education and is followed by higher education, vocational education or employment. In most countries secondary education is compulsory, at least until the age of 16. Children typically enter the lower secondary phase around age 12. Compulsory education sometimes extends to age 20.
A secondary school or high school is an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both lower secondary education and upper secondary education, i.e., both levels 2 and 3 of the ISCED scale, but these can also be provided in separate schools.
The International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) is a statistical framework for organizing information on education maintained by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). It is a member of the international family of economic and social classifications of the United Nations.
The system of education in Uganda has a structure of 7 years of primary education, 6 years of secondary education, and 3 to 5 years of post-secondary education. Education in Uganda is administered in English. All throughout the levels in the education structure, modules are taught and assessed in English. The government of Uganda recognizes education as a basic human right and continues to strive to provide free primary education to all children in the country. However, issues with funding, teacher training, rural populations, and inadequate facilities continue to hinder the progress of educational development in Uganda. Girls in Uganda are disproportionately discriminated against in terms of education; they face harsher barriers when trying to gain an education and it has left the female population disenfranchised, despite government efforts to close the gap.
Education in Rwanda has undergone considerable changes throughout Rwanda's recent history, and has faced major disruptions due to periods of conflict. Education was divided by gender whereby women and men had a different education relevant to their responsibilities in day-to-day life. Women were mostly taught housekeeping while men were mainly taught how to hunt, raise animals, and fish. This is because Rwanda was a community-based society where every member had a specific contribution to the overall development of the community. Older family members like grandparents usually took on the role of educators.
The right to education has been recognized as a human right in a number of international conventions, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which recognizes a right to free, primary education for all, an obligation to develop secondary education accessible to all with the progressive introduction of free secondary education, as well as an obligation to develop equitable access to higher education, ideally by the progressive introduction of free higher education. In 2021, 171 states were parties to the Covenant.
The second goal in the United Nations Millennium Development Goal is to achieve Universal Primary Education, more specifically, to "ensure that by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike will be required to complete a full course of primary schooling." Education is vital to meeting all other Millennium Development Goals: "Educating children gives the next generation the tools to fight poverty and prevent disease, including malaria and AIDS." Despite the significance of investing in education, the recent report, Fixing the Broken Promise of Education for All: Findings from the Global Initiative on Out-of-School Children—produced by UNESCO Institute for Statistics and UNICEF found that the world has missed this 2015 target of universal primary education, and there are currently 58 million children, of primary school age, out of school worldwide.
Primary education or elementary education is typically the first stage of formal education, coming after preschool/kindergarten and before secondary school. Primary education takes place in primary schools, elementary schools, or first schools and middle schools, depending on the location. Hence, in the United Kingdom and some other countries, the term primary is used instead of elementary.
The State of Kuwait, located at the head of the Persian Gulf, supports an educational policy that seeks to provide an opportunity to all children, irrespective of their social class, including children with special needs. Kuwait was ranked 63rd on the Human Development Index report for 2011 by the United Nations Development Programme, placing Kuwait above the regional average.
Education in Madagascar has a long and distinguished history. Formal schooling began with medieval Arab seafarers, who established a handful of Islamic primary schools (kuttabs) and developed a transcription of the Malagasy language using Arabic script, known as sorabe. These schools were short-lived, and formal education was only to return under the 19th-century Kingdom of Madagascar when the support of successive kings and queens produced the most developed public school system in precolonial Sub-Saharan Africa. However, formal schools were largely limited to the central highlands around the capital of Antananarivo and were frequented by children of the noble class andriana. Among other segments of the island's population, traditional education predominated through the early 20th century. This informal transmission of communal knowledge, skills and norms was oriented toward preparing children to take their place in a social hierarchy dominated by community elders and particularly the ancestors (razana), who were believed to oversee and influence events on earth.
Education in Niger, as in other nations in the Sahelian region of Africa, faces challenges due to poverty and poor access to schools. Although education is compulsory between the ages of seven and fifteen, with primary and secondary school leading into optional higher education, Niger has one of the lowest literacy rates in the world. With assistance from external organizations, Niger has been pursuing educational improvement, reforming how schools utilize languages of instruction, and exploring how the system can close gender gaps in retention and learning.
Released by UNESCO, the Gender Parity Index (GPI) is a socioeconomic index usually designed to measure the relative access to education of males and females. It is used by international organizations, particularly in measuring the progress of developing countries. For example, some UNESCO documents consider gender parity in literacy.
The UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) is the statistical office of UNESCO and is the UN depository for cross-nationally comparable statistics on education, science and technology, culture, and communication.
Educational equity, also known as equity in education, is a measure of achievement, fairness, and opportunity in education. The study of education equity is often linked with the study of excellence and equity.
Females in Nigeria have a basic human right to be educated and this right has been recognized since the 1948 adoption of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) According to a report in 2014, female education has an important impact on the development of a stable, prosperous and healthy nation state resulting in active, productive and empowered citizens. Educating girls develop growth rates, encourages independence of the girl child and reduces social disparities. In 2009, the Nigerian Population Council (NPC) observed that women with higher educational qualifications are more likely to be in formal wage employment than those at the level of primary school education.
Sustainable Development Goal 4 is about quality education and is among the 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations in September 2015. The full title of SDG 4 is "Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all".
Education inequality in Ghana exists in multiple dimensions, with significant disparities occurring along gender, wealth, and geographical divides. Improvements have been made by both government and civic organizations.
Gender parity is a statistical measure used to describe ratios between men and women, or boys and girls, in a given population. Gender parity may refer to the proportionate representation of men and women in a given group, also referred to as sex ratio, or it may mean the ratio between any quantifiable indicator among men against the same indicator among women.
The learning crisis or global learning crisis is a term describing the fact that, despite a large increase in access to schooling, learning outcomes remain poor, especially in developing countries. Worldwide, millions of children who attend school do not acquire basic skills such as literacy and numeracy, and many more are far behind age-appropriate expectations in their national curricula. Proponents argue that this crisis needs to be addressed due to the importance of education in fostering children's development, social mobility, and subsequent opportunities.