EDUCATION, HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND POVERTY REDUCTION

BISMILLAH HIR RAHMANER RAHEEM

Madam Chair Excellency Jeremy Shipley

Excellency Minister Zhou Ji

Mr. Fidel Ramos

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen

Good Morning

Since times immemorial, education has been recognized as the only means for systematic build-up of knowledge, skills, competencies, values, norms and other human attributes.

Human beings are not only the beneficiaries of socio-economic development, but also the agents of change that brings about development and progress. Efforts to reduce poverty and address the socio-cultural problems are, therefore, most effective when people are empowered with the skills to work productively and are imbued with the values that make one a good citizen and human being---respect for and tolerance of diversities at home and abroad.

Education of the right type and quality, therefore, still is the most powerful instrument for alleviating poverty, bringing about social changes and ensuring human welfare.

Given these all-too-well known importance of education, various international declarations and pledges starting with the UN Human Rights Declaration some sixty years ago, the Dakar Agreement some sixty months ago and the Millennium Declarations sixty-five months ago have all stipulated education as an essential instrument for achieving our shared goals of human dignity, equality and equity on the planet we live in.

The context for education, however, has drastically changed during the last decade or so for the following reasons.

First, globalization is rapidly changing the world economic order. Technological innovations have revolutionized production and business processes and modified international comparative advantages. Knowledge and skills are becoming increasingly crucial for survival in an ever-increasing competitive world. For the first time in human history, knowledge is changing faster than generations, and generations must keep pace with this for their survival.

Secondly, nearly half the population of the world is under age 25, the largest generation of young people ever. More than a billion of the young are adolescents, at the impressionable age of 12-20 years. Nearly 700 thousand of these young people live in Asia, another 100 million in the Arab states.

Easy access to drugs and other hazardous substances and exposure to AIDS have particularly made the young people extremely vulnerable. Nearly one-third of the 20 million who have died of AIDS were young people. Six young people are infected with AIDS every single minute! Education systems must address this hazard squarely and effectively.

Ladies and gentlemen

I do not wish to devote this speech entirely to describing the education system in Bangladesh. Allow me instead to dwell on briefly the state of education and human development in the nations of the world and in the Asian countries in the context of our shared aspirations repeatedly stated in successive international gatherings.

Income poverty has fallen globally, from about 40% in 1981 to 21% in 2005. Yet nearly 2.5 billion of the world’s people are poor with about a billion of them being in extreme poverty, surviving on less than one dollar a day. Over 800 million people are malnourished, over 10 million children under age five die due to afflictions that could be prevented, and over half a million women die every year due to pregnancy related causes. Nearly 98% of these deaths are in the poor countries. They die because of where God destined them to be born.

However, spectacular reductions in income poverty has taken place in East Asia and Pacific (from 57% in 1981 to 14% in 2001) and in South Asia (from 52% in 1981 to 32% in 2001). Reductions in child and maternal mortality rates have been largely satisfactory.

Nearly 860 million adults are illiterate; two thirds of them are women. Over 140 million illiterate people are young people (aged 15-24); sixty percent of whom are females. Over 100 million children do not have access to schooling; 60 million of them are girls.

Ninety eight percent of illiterate adults live in the less developed/developing countries, half of them in South and West Asia, about a quarter in East Asia and the Pacific. Over sixty percent of the illiterates live in four most populous countries of the world: China, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

There is a widening digital divide as well. In the few high income countries, telephone main lines, cellular subscribers and internet users per 1000 people in 1990 were 290, 10, and 3, respectively. Today, the corresponding numbers are around 500, 600 and 400, a phenomenal increase. The corresponding numbers for South Asia are 47, 24, and 18; for East Asia Pacific 172, 212 and 80; and for Arab States 94, 118 and 50.

Agenda for the Future

Given the wide divergences in the education outcomes of the various countries within Asia, we should focus on improving the outcomes in the countries that have fallen behind. For example, the adult literacy rates in East Asia and Pacific (91%) and in Central Asia (99%) are above the world average of 82%. However, adult literacy rates in Cambodia, Lao, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan are substantially lower than the regional and world averages. Similarly, primary and secondary enrolment rates in EAP and Central Asia is higher than the world averages. However, these outcomes are lower in South Asia as well as in the above mentioned countries. Gender Parity Indexes in a number of the Asian countries also need to be improved.

In view of the above we should remove all barriers to access, equity and gender parity in the provision of education services at all stages. Social taboos and stigmas, income poverty, infrastructure and location related constraints (e.g. inadequate classrooms, furniture, education materials, gender friendly sanitation facilities at schools, distance of schools, communication facilities etc) will need to addressed.

Between 1990 and 2000, the global average of gross enrollment at the secondary level grew from 56% to 78%, an increase of about 39%.  A key implication of this is that education planning has to go beyond current efforts at primary levels because the clientele for post-primary education up to tertiary levels is increasing dramatically.

Quality of education has become more multidimensional than ever before. Acquisition of knowledge in the subjects studied is no longer the sole determinant of quality education and the characterization of education institutions as ivory towers is fast getting out of fashion. Education needs are also going through rapid changes in the context of a globalized knowledge economy. While attaining subject matter skills (reading, writing, mathematics, science, geography etc.) and livelihood (self or paid employment) skills still remain important elements of quality, another aspect of quality---competencies for life, has assumed overriding importance. Curriculum, textbooks, pedagogy, teachers’ qualification and all educational inputs must therefore ensure that education will

v       Guarantee the acquisition of solid knowledge of the basic subjects

v       Build the skills and knowledge for human productivity and for expansion of choices

v       Infuse the basic human values, norms and moral standards

v       build the basic citizenship skills to strengthen human society and

v       Enhance social inclusion of all groups and individuals that experience discrimination and marginalization on account of gender, origin, poverty, religion, caste, creed, linguistic affiliations and for any other reasons

Sharing and replicating experiences and best practices

Different countries have adopted different policies for increasing school enrollment, particularly for girls. These best practices should now be replicated, as appropriate, in the countries where progress hasn’t been satisfactory.

Bangladesh provides an example of how financial incentives at primary levels (free tuition and text books, food/cash money for registered students) have increased enrollment to 98%, one of the highest in the region. An innovative female stipend program at the secondary and higher secondary levels have achieved complete gender parity. A nationwide program for constructing separate toilet facilities for girls, security fencing around the school perimeter and mandatory recruitment of 30% female teachers has all contributed to increased enrollment of girls. Making female stipend conditional upon remaining unmarried, had the salutary effect of reducing early marriages, and delaying marriages, which in turn lead to lower total fertility rates and lower population growth rates. 

Despite being a Muslim majority country, traditional Islamic beliefs haven’t prevented large scale participation of girls in the school systems across the country because of strong political leadership and social awareness raising programs.

Apart from direct interventions as mentioned above, other generalized measures also should help in greater enrollment at schools. For example in many poor rural households, children, particularly girls, provide time and labor for the collection firewood, water and for tending livestock. Construction of village water supplies, village social forestry plantations, provision of commercial fuel and such other measures have proved to be effective in increasing primary and secondary school enrollments in some countries. In some states of India, minimum employment guarantees (100 days of work for one member of the family) have also been provided to ensure that income poverty will not be a barrier to schooling.

Bangladesh with a low GDP index of 0.48 stands as an example of how strong political will and leadership and well targeted interventions can translate its resources into high outcomes.

Resource Requirements for the Future

More resources will be needed particularly for the countries that have been identified as poor achievers of EFA and MDG. Reforming curriculum, redrafting textbooks, additional teacher recruitment, teacher training, expanding physical infrastructure, retooling pedagogy, all costs resources.

Resource constraints in many of the developing countries have impeded the programs for poverty alleviation and human development. Asian countries overall spend between 3.0-3.5 percent of their GDP on education. However, some countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Mynmar, Kirgizistan,Tajikistan spend much less than this.

 Unfortunately, the commitments by the developed and OECD nations for increased aid resources have not been fulfilled. Aid flows to education have indeed diminished substantially over the recent decade. In the year 2003, OECD countries spent over US$ 675 billion in military expenditures but less than US$ 70 billion on overseas development aid, far less than what was pledged at international meetings.   

Asian countries should therefore make efforts to mobilize among themselves the required resources for human resource development in the region. Individual countries should program at least 5-6% of their respective GDP or 25-30% of their total budget for their education sectors. Concomitantly, they should also ensure that available resources would be used judiciously to achieve maximum outcome.

Asian countries should also pool their financial resources to-gather to support education development programs such as exchanges of students, teachers, scholarships, collaborative research and training, direct investments in the relatively poorer countries and any other mutually benefit activities.

The Asian Education Forum and its collaborators have already started a process of such regional collaboration and I join you all in hoping that these efforts will go from strength to strength.