30 January 2007
Some 30 education specialists from Central Asia and Mongolia will meet at a workshop in Almaty on 5-9 February, to prepare for the mid-decade assessment on their national progress towards the ‘Education for All’ (EFA) goals. This capacity building workshop is organized by UNESCO with help of the Kazakhstani Educational Centre BILIM. Trainers will come from UNESCO’s and UNICEF’s regional education bureaus.
The EFA is a global commitment of the countries to provide quality basic education for all children, youth and adults”, Inna Melnikova, UNESCO’s education specialist reminds.The EFA was launched at the World Conference for Education for All in 1990. Ten years later, with many countries far from having reached this goal, the international community met again in Dakar, Senegal and affirmed their commitment to achieving the Education for All by the year 2015.
“The Dakar meeting identified six key education goals” , Ms Melnikova says. These goals are: expanding early childhood care and education, providing free and compulsory education for all, promoting life skills and lifelong learning, improving adult literacy, achieving gender parity and equality, and enhancing educational quality.
While the goals and targets set in Dakar are regularly monitored through the EFA Global Monitoring Report, periodic assessment is critical to resetting targets and plans for achievement.
“In looking forward to 2010 and then to 2015, it is essential to undertake a mid-decade assessment of national and regional progress towards the goals”, Aigul Khalafova of UNESCO’s education unit states. She continues that the aim of the mid-decade assessment is not only to review and assess accomplishments and remaining challenges. “It should also apply the lessons from the analyses of actual implementation of the policies, governance and strategies towards the attainment of the targets of the EFA goals.”
The February workshop will help the participating countries start their work, through training in the analytical and statistical methodology prepared by UNESCO for the assessment purposes. The period of the assessment is years 2000-2005.
Permanent link: http://en.unesco.kz/unesco-workshop-helps-assess-education-for-all