At the UN General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon launched Education First, his new global initiative. At the launch, the Secretary-General highlighted that 250 million children cannot read, write or count well – even after four years of school. Education First affirms the fundamental right to free, quality primary schooling so that every parent can give their child an opportunity to fulfill their dreams.
Courtesy of GPE. Full infographic at http://www.globalpartnership.org/infographic-educationfirst
The initiative aims to get the world back on track with Millennium Development Goal 2 (achieving universal basic education). Their specific goals are:
- Get all children in school
- Improve the quality of learning
- Foster global citizenship
Education First aims to raise the political profile of education, strengthen the global movement to achieve quality education, and generate additional and sufficient funding through sustained advocacy efforts.
At the launch event, Ban Ki-Moon was joined by a number of Heads of State and Ministers, Gordon Brown (Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Global Education), heads of UN agencies, young people, civil society representatives and chief executives of major corporations.
Here at RESULTS we welcome the launch of the initiative and the initial pledges made at the event, which amounted to over US$1.5 billion. We’ll be watching closely and hoping that this initiative will help the 61 million children of primary school age who are still not in school.
For more detail, visit the Education First website.
