The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) concluded its High-Level Segment this morning after adopting a Ministerial Declaration in which the Ministers and Heads of Delegations participating in the segment reaffirmed the need for Governments to take the lead in education, while emphasizing the significant progress that could be made through strong partnerships and called on the international community, including the United Nations system, especially the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, to strengthen the coordination and implementation of existing policies, programmes and follow-up mechanisms for Education for All by strengthening regional and international partnerships and cooperation.

Lazarous Kapambwe, President of the Economic and Social Council, speaking after the adoption of the Ministerial Declaration, said that it not only promoted consensus on a broad range of issues, but also contained concrete measures to achieve progress on education goals, including substantial follow-up actions in the area of education, such as the strengthening of the education cluster in humanitarian response systems and improving national data collection and analysis to refine policies and better allocate resources to vulnerable and marginalized groups.

Sha Zukang, United Nations Under-Secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs, said that quality, funding, partnership and all other major areas of concern had been emphasized in the declaration and it constituted a model document in addressing educational challenges while casting a thoughtful eye to emerging issues on the horizon.

In the Ministerial Declaration, the Ministers and Heads of Delegations who participated in the High-Level Segment reaffirmed their commitment to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and other internationally agreed development goals, particularly those related to education, including the Education for All goals. They also reaffirmed their commitment to realizing the right of everyone to education. They called for a people-centred, holistic approach to the development of educational systems and for prioritizing education in the design and implementation of national development strategies, recognizing the interlinkages between education and the advancement of all the other MDGs. They emphasized that education and sustainable development were interlinked and mutually reinforcing, and expressed concern about insufficient progress on specific Education for All goals and called for continued efforts by Member States to promote human rights education and training.

The Ministers and Heads of Delegations also expressed concern over persistently high levels of youth employment worldwide and recognized the need to design education and training programmes that improved employability and individual capacities through skills development. They expressed the need to overcome the urban-rural gap and to improve access to quality education for the rural population. They expressed grave concern that a large number of the world’s out-of-school children lived in States affected by armed conflict and natural disasters and called for scaled-up efforts at the national and international levels to increase access to education in a safe and secure environment for children and teachers living in armed conflict and post-conflict settings, as well as those affected by natural disasters. They underlined that the fulfillment of all official development assistance commitments was crucial and encouraged the private sector and foundations to increase their contribution to the financing of the education sector, further exploration of new innovative finance mechanisms and the strengthening and scaling up of existing ones.

At the beginning of the meeting this morning, Mr. Kapambwe, President of the Economic and Social Council, introducing a thematic round table on “Education for the future – Changing needs”, said there was a rising concern that education systems were not equipping students to meet rising demands and did not sufficiently prepare students in the subjects of reading, writing, mathematics, science and other areas. Serious learning gaps had a substantial impact on the future well-being of girls and evidence showed emerging gaps due to the financial and economic crisis.

Kevin Watkins, Director of the Education for All Global Monitoring Report (2011), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the moderator, said that, despite extraordinary progress in terms of getting kids into school and achieving gender parity, evidence showed that the level of achievement was distressingly low. It was necessary to recognize the scale of the crisis and its implications for the Millennium Development Goals and globalization.

Hans Rosling, Professor of International Health, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, speaking as a panellist, indicated the importance of health and economic and demographic factors underlying the challenges to the promotion of education and stressed that even countries with limited resources and levels of development could achieve significant results on the basis of good policy implementation.

Kentaro Toyama, Researcher, University of California, Berkeley, speaking as a panellist, questioned the role of information technology in education and warned about many of the assumptions underlying these views that emphasized the potential of technology to revolutionize education and to achieve educational goals. Technology was not always the main bottleneck or an issue preventing progress in education; technology was costly and required ongoing support, upgrades and maintenance; it could also distract students, teachers and administrators; and sometimes led to dependencies.

In the interactive discussion, speakers underlined the classroom bias that seemed to be present and inquired whether computers changed the attitudes of children and parents and how countries could prevent the spread of attitudes that were not part of the customary moral and cultural environment due to the use of technology. Panellists had discussed how technology was useful but better education remained the priority and agreed that funding for education was required. Representatives of United States, Guatemala, Bangladesh, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Cameroon, Senegal, Finland, Lesotho, Togo and Namibia participated.

During the presentation of a case study on Germany’s approach to the challenge to achieve education for all, Sylvia Schmitt, Advisor, Division of Education, German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, followed up on Germany’s presentation on its new strategy for education and cooperation activities and said that this strategy involved the implementation of new policies and approaches. The aim was to contribute in an effective and competitive way to achieving education for all. There was a need for a systematic and holistic approach, for this reason these programmes were comprehensive and targeted efforts from early-education to life-long education to ensure that higher level education was effectively tailored to the needs of the specific partner.

Álvaro Henzler, Director of Enseña Perú, said that in order to make progress the heart of the educational system, teachers, their competences and interaction with students, should be revolutionized. Rather than excellent teaching skills, transformative teaching was needed for improvement addressing academic aspects, aspirations and attitudes and access to opportunities. It was recognized that education was one of the most important challenges faced by countries. Mobilizing talent to this end remained difficult, both to teach and lead the transformation of education. A stronger sense of possibility and a sense of urgency were necessary in order to attain significant achievements.

In the interactive discussion, speakers emphasized the importance of governance and administration for education. They asked whether information on incentivizing teachers to employ technology was available and panellists pointed out that getting the best teachers into the best schools was an admirable goal, promoting equity. But this raised the question of teacher placement and incentives for teachers. The best teachers were often found in the higher grades. If a student did not learn to read at age four, it was very difficult to advance in higher grades. Representatives of India and Denmark took the floor in the interactive discussion.

ECOSOC will reconvene at 3 p.m. this afternoon to hold a dialogue with the Executive Secretaries of the Regional Commissions on the theme “Regional cooperation as a catalyst for development”, to be followed by an interactive discussion.


Opening Remarks to Thematic Round Table on “Education for the Future – Changing needs”

LAZAROUS KAPAMBWE, President of the Economic and Social Council, said there was rising concern that education systems were not equipping students to meet rising demands. Education systems did not sufficiently prepare students in the subjects of reading, writing, mathematics, science and other areas. Serious learning gaps had a substantial impact on the future well-being of girls. There was some evidence of gaps emerging due to the financial and economic crisis. The President was confident that the session would provide fresh ideas for addressing this situation.

KEVIN WATKINS, Director of the Education for All Global Monitoring Report (2011), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, said that even in disaster and conflict situations, people put a primacy on education. The resilience, drive and ambition of people that tried to get their children in school were often not well represented, particularly in parts of the world where education for all was taken for granted. Education was important for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. 1.8 million lives could be saved if women were provided with quality secondary education. Knowledge of HIV/AIDS preventive measures was greatly enhanced with education. Education equipped women with the ability to make choices about their own lives and augment the survival prospects of their children. Extraordinary progress in terms of getting kids into school and achieving gender parity had been made in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. According to current trends, 29 million children would be out of school by 2015, which was far from achieving universal primary education. Even more worrying was that the state of progress had declined dramatically. According to the currently declining rate of progress, 43 million children would be left out of school by 2015. Almost half of all children out of school were affected by conflict.

In Pakistan, poor rural females had an almost two out of three chance of not attending school, whereas a rich urban male would have almost no chance of not attending school. These were the types of situations that required significant efforts. This was not only a question of access, retention and progress through educational systems, but the quality of education many children received was also shocking. The level of achievement was distressingly low. Studies had shown that the average child in grade four was able to only meet the reading requirements for children in grade two. This showed that something was going very wrong. It was necessary to recognize the scale of the crisis and its implications for the Millennium Development Goals and globalization. Given the growing web of interdependency based on a knowledge economy, educational deprivation of this scale assured global inequality and the marginalization of sections of society, in a context of rising prosperity. This produced economic inefficiency and, in a security sense, certain dangers. In the next round of international development targets, quality goals and equity targets as well as access objectives were required. These targets had to close the gap between rich and poor, rural and urban, and men and women. The international community had made a promise to the world’s children in 2000 and it could not afford to break this promise. The donor community had not acted on its commitments to support countries to put policies in place and expand education. These required funding of 16 billion dollars, but current funding amounted to $ 3 billion and this was stagnating. Chronic under-financing had been stressed by many African countries.

Statements by Panellists

HANS ROSLING, Professor of International Health, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, addressed health, economic and demographic facts underlying the issue of education. In 1961, there were 3 billion people in the world clearly categorized as developed or developing, according to child mortality and fertility rates. Over time, child mortality decreased consistently and by 2009 most countries in the world had reached low levels of child mortality and an average fertility rate of two children per woman. These demographic factors set the background for education related challenges. Population growth was often misrepresented when describing environmental challenges, since the only radical population growth was that of the group of the elderly population. One of the major challenges to education was that the child population was still increasing, nonetheless, precisely in those areas lacking significant educational resources. In middle income countries and so-called less developed regions, excluding least developed countries, as the number of children decreased there would be additional resources available to improve the quality of education. Since 1970, countries had radically increased the level of education for women, even though some countries lagged behind, in Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo for example, where the average time women spent in school was still close to six months. It was remarkable that through the implementation of good policies, countries with limited resources were achieving significant results.

KEVIN WATKINS, Director of the Education for All Global Monitoring Report (2011), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, said that a focus on demographics emphasized opportunities and additional factors that could be used to make improvements in education. The presentation had also emphasized that a low level of average income was not a fixed barrier to achieving positive results. Bangladesh, for example, had eliminated the gender gap in primary and secondary education.

KENTARO TOYAMA, Researcher, University of California, Berkeley, questioned the role played by information technology in education. Recent discussions on education had stressed the potential of technology to revolutionize education. Technology was seen as a critical component of achieving educational goals and Governments were often concerned that they might be lagging behind. It was hoped that technology and virtual education might be a potential way to compensate for teaching staff shortages and the lack of other resources. Mr. Toyama, however, warned about many of the assumptions underlying these views and pointed out that technology was not always good. Technology was not always the main bottleneck or issue preventing progress in education; technology was costly and required ongoing support, upgrades and maintenance; it could also distract students, teachers and administrators from other tasks; and sometimes it could lead to dependencies. Rigorous research on the impact of technology in schools generally showed that technology amplified the existing pedagogical capacity of schools and teachers, thus if schools were not achieving satisfactory results, the simple addition of technology would not help. Strong foundations on school administration and teaching, foundational curricula and measurable student achievement were crucial; and technology could not substitute institutional foundations or strong basic educational components; these foundations were necessary for an effective transmission and use of technology.

KEVIN WATKINS, Director of the Education for All Global Monitoring Report (2011), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, said that technology must be based on broader foundations and that, in the context of considerable underlying challenges or limitations to educational opportunities, it would be harder for technology to make a difference.

Interactive Discussion

Speakers remarked that a classroom bias seemed to be present. Much learning was happening outside the classroom, as people were using their own time outside the classroom to learn. Technology had potential but it was a tool and had to be used wisely. Speakers inquired whether computers changed the attitudes of children and parents and how countries could prevent the spread of attitudes that were not part of the customary moral and cultural environment due to the use of technology. They asked for comments on learning in the informal system and the use of technology. Speakers asked what could be done to address the shortage of teachers and whether it was time to consider other options beyond financing. It was necessary to consider informal education, particularly in situations of growing resource constraints. Speakers asked what advice could be provided to least developed countries and, Africa in particular, in this regard. Speakers asked for more information about the role of teachers, teaching training and quality of education. Speakers asked what exactly constituted quality in education.

While educational achievements in many areas had been attained, it was important for success to be sustained. Speakers inquired about the importance of bringing together different governmental sectors. They asked about the state of international cooperation on education. In developing countries, public finance was a major constraint to coverage of education and quality of education. Speakers inquired whether there were correlations between quality and coverage, and whether indicators linking these issues to education financing were available. One speaker took up the issue of paragraph 43 in the draft declaration, which addressed the crucial issue of funding. Paragraph 43 was too weak. The establishment of a global fund for education, similar to what existed in the health sector, was proposed. The donor community had not lived up to their promises.

Panellists responded that technology was useful but better education was primary.
When students had computers at home, but no ethic of learning, they used technology for entertainment. The suggestion that technology could be used for solving educational problems required a dose of caution. Stability and quality were the key issues. Panellists said a stable electric grid was also important for employing technology in education. Assumptions that the existence of computers in schools would necessarily improve education were inappropriate. It was similar to building a house with no foundation. In resource-constrained countries, certain technology techniques could be used. For example, mobile computers labs were useful, so that children could use computers once a year. It was a question of having access to the most variety in terms of learning. The quality of education was known when the end product was seen. The ability to read and to do arithmetic was important and measurable. Curiosity, discipline and self confidence in the ability to learn were critical but difficult to measure. Certain techniques were particularly effective. Thinking across the silence was important. Thinking beyond the classroom was important because it could shape learning goals.

Panellists agreed that funding for education was required. Only $ 16 billion was needed, not a large sum. Ministers tasked with allocating development aid were not concerned about education. Regarding the relationship between funding and quality, no threshold effects in terms of quality had been observed. High levels of spending with low levels of learning had been seen. In low income countries, however, allocation of less than 4 to 5 per cent of gross domestic product to education was an indicator of slow progress. In Dakar, developing countries had committed to increasing funding and focusing on quality. In Africa, besides some exceptions, countries had kept their commitments. Donors had fallen short in meeting their commitments. Education was no longer on the Group of 8 countries agenda, and was not high on the agenda of the Group of 20 countries. It drifted off the agenda because the passion of the people on the ground had not been captured. It was time to make the case for a global fund. Those donors taking a stand on education had been effective. Panellists said the problems with funding education were the voters. Voters did not get excited about funding education. They did not realize that there was not enough money. Voters thought lack of funds was due to corruption. More funds were attributed to fighting exciting issues like violence and corruption. A global fund could act as a focal point for mobilizing resources.

Taking the floor were the United States, Guatemala, Bangladesh, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Cameroon, Senegal, Finland, Lesotho, Togo and Namibia.

Case Study on “The challenge to achieve education for all – Germany’s approach”

Statements by Panellists

SYLVIA SCHMITT, Advisor, Division of Education, German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, followed up on Germany’s presentation on its new strategy for education and cooperation activities. This strategy involved the implementation of new policies and approaches on the basis of communication, not an imposition, and further discussion with stakeholders was welcomed. The aim was to contribute in an effective and competitive way to achieving Education for All goals. On the basis of these examples of current work and German cooperation activities, stakeholders and partners were invited to share their comments and further engage in a dialogue on this strategy; specifically, concerning how to make sure that the approach to education was the most appropriate. There was a need for a systematic and holistic approach, for this reason these programmes were comprehensive and targeted efforts from early-education to life-long education. Delegations had expressed interest in Germans in the dual system, including technical skills and training adopted for cooperation with partners. What was needed at a higher level was to ensure that this was effectively tailored to the contributions to the specific partner. Germany was one of the donor countries that did not make just a contribution but followed up in education and other sectors, and it sought to fully understand how sectors fit in a systemic way. In dialogues with partners needs and approaches were identified in order to decide what specific input was required on the basis of partners’ needs and in a quest for innovative responses, which was vital in the current situation. In Ethiopia, for example, efforts had been made to design a programme that would be able to make improvements, life-skills, and provide education to meet the needs of the job market and which attempted to stimulate demand to revive the job market. In Ethiopia a programme was launched to promote continuous education and on the other end of the spectrum, it had tried to engage in reforms of the university sector to enhance the quality of training and skills in people working in technical processes. Germany recognized the importance of coordinating with providers, agencies and organizations, in order to improve the provision of a number of services and contributions. In the case of Afghanistan, German cooperation had focused on basic education and continuation of earlier efforts and had emphasized education for employment and through these two avenues was making progress to meet the needs of partners.

ALVARO HENZLER, Director of Enseña, Perú, said that in Peru investments and business opportunities had recently increased, growing at the same level as China, yet rural areas remained at the level of development of African countries. How would it be possible to promote sustainable and equitable development. It was important to provide both education for the future and education of the future. Mr. Henzler suggested that the latter required technologies, while the former required new attitudes and ways of thinking, so that children and students were prepared for the future. It was telling that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation did not focus on technology per se, but on what made teachers effective. Technology could be a distraction preventing profound and essential reforms. In order to make progress the heart of the educational system, teachers, their competences and interaction with students, should be revolutionized. Rather than excellent teaching skills, transformative teaching was needed for improvement addressing academic aspects, aspirations and attitudes and access to opportunities. It was recognized that education was one of the most important challenges faced by countries. Mobilizing talent to this end remained difficult, both to teach and lead the transformation of education. A stronger sense of possibility and a sense of urgency were necessary in order to attain significant achievements.

KEVIN WATKINS, Director of the Education for All Global Monitoring Report (2011), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, acknowledged the work presented by Mr. Henzler. It was inspirational and, in the context of current efforts to promote education, showed that if the United Nations and the international community reflected attitude, heightened concern and sense urgency, the outlook would be very different. Regrettably, Governments did not usually prioritize education.


Interactive Dialogue

Speakers said that economists who had studied education had realized that in countries behind in achieving the Millennium Development Goals, the issue of governance and administration of education were crucial. When re-strategizing about goals in education, the issue of governance should be an important focal point. Success in India related to girls education had been achieved by providing bicycles. This increased the access of girls to school and empowered them. Increasing rule of law and order was powerful the psychological power of girls traveling long distances to get to school and the market.

Speakers asked whether information on incentivizing teachers to employ technology was available. Tying teachers’ salaries to quality rather than the number of years served was a good way to incentivize good teaching.

Panellists said that training teachers was usually about cognitive things. It was difficult to find schools that trained on vision and other goals. Inspiring merit and excellence were also important goals. There was a worldwide debate on measuring performance, which was very costly. Testing allowed for tracking of student progress, which could serve to evaluate teachers.

Getting the best teachers into the best schools was an admirable goal, promoting equity. But this raised the question of teacher placement and incentives for teachers. The best teachers were often found in the higher grades. If a student did not learn to read at age four, it was very difficult to advance in higher grades. Tanzania had been successful in placing very good teachers in lower grades.

Taking the floor were India and Denmark.

Summary of the Ministerial Declaration of the 2011 High-Level Segment of the Economic and Social Council : Implementing the internationally agreed goals and commitments in regard to education

In the Ministerial Declaration, the Ministers and Heads of Delegations who participated in the High-Level Segment of the substantive session of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) reaffirmed their commitment to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and other internationally agreed development goals, particularly those related to education, including the Education for All goals. They also reaffirmed their commitment to realizing the right of everyone to education. They called for a people-centred, holistic approach to the development of educational systems and for prioritizing education in the design and implementation of national development strategies, recognizing the interlinkages between education and the advancement of all the other MDGs. They emphasized that education and sustainable development were interlinked and mutually reinforcing. They reaffirmed the need to redouble efforts to drastically reduce the intolerably high number of the non-literate population, with a special focus on women. They were concerned about insufficient progress on specific Education for All goals and called for continued efforts by Member States to promote human rights education and training. They recognized that the international community had been challenged by multiple and interrelated crises, including the ongoing impact of the financial and economic crisis, volatile energy and food prices and ongoing concerns over food security, as well as the increasing challenges posed by climate change and the loss of biodiversity. They called for enhanced cooperation and concerted action to address those challenges, taking into account the positive role that education could play in that respect.

The Ministers and Heads of Delegations recognized that additional measures were required to improve the quality of education and to ensure positive learning outcomes for all. They noted that quality education could provide the knowledge, capacity, attitudes, skills, ethical values and understanding necessary for lifelong learning, employment and better physical and mental health, including through the prevention and control of maternal morality, HIV and AIDS and other communicable and non-communicable diseases. They welcomed the role of education and health literacy in improving health outcomes over a lifetime. They reaffirmed the importance of investment in early childhood care and education. They stressed the need to take measures to prevent and eliminate all forms of violence in any educational setting. They reaffirmed their commitment to giving greater focus to the transition from primary education and access to secondary education, vocational training and non-formal education and entry into the labour market. They encouraged programmes to promote universal access to secondary education and to expand access to quality education which was relevant to the needs of the labour market. They called for the development of inclusive policies that ensured access for education for vulnerable children and young people often excluded from educational systems, including the poorest children in cities and remote areas, children affected by and living with HIV, refugees and children of migrants. They stressed the importance of ensuring that persons with disabilities, in particular children and youth, had equal opportunities to participate fully in education and in community life. They also stressed the need to take effective measures to allow indigenous people to have non-discriminatory access to all levels and forms of education provided by States.

The Ministers and Heads of Delegations reaffirmed their commitment to promote appropriate and targeted evidence-based measures, especially to support the poorest and most vulnerable families in overcoming multiple barriers to school entry, attendance and achievement, including through, inter alia, the abolition of school fees, conditional cash and food transfers, school feeing programmes, textbook provision and separate sanitation facilities for boys and girls, noting the strong impact of such measures with regard to improved educational outcomes as well as the increased enrolment and retention of girls. They expressed concern over persistently high levels of youth employment worldwide and recognized the need to design education and training programmes that improved employability and individual capacities through skills development. They stressed the need to strengthen public policies for the provision of information and communication technologies for education. They expressed the need to overcome the urban-rural gap and to improve access to quality education for the rural population. They expressed grave concern that a large number of the world’s out-of-school children lived in States affected by armed conflict and natural disasters and called for scaled-up efforts at the national and international levels to increase access to education in a safe and secure environment for children and teachers living in armed conflict and post-conflict settings, as well as those affected by natural disasters. They noted the importance of including educational service delivery in humanitarian response systems in emergencies, including in armed conflict, post-conflict situations and natural disasters. They called for the provision in emergency situations of quality education that was gender-sensitive.

The Ministers and Heads of Delegations expressed serious concern that the least developed countries were starkly lagging behind in meeting most of the internationally agreed goals, including the MDGs, despite having made some progress towards reaching them, particularly in the field of universal primary education and gender equality in school enrolment. They recognized that education played an important role in eradicating poverty and hunger and in promoting sustained, inclusive and equitable economic growth and sustainable development. They called for particular attention to and well-targeted support measures in favour of the least developed countries. They recognized the specific challenges faced by the middle-income countries in maintaining progress towards their educational goals, and stressed the need for their efforts to be adequately supported by the international community and the United Nations system. They reaffirmed the importance of national commitments to education and recognized the need for accountability and transparency in national educational systems in the delivery of educational services which should ensure the efficient allocation and use of resources. They reaffirmed the need for donors to fulfil their commitments to education, in particular basic education, emphasizing the importance of international financing as a critical supplementary source to domestic financing.

The Ministers and Heads of Delegations underlined that the fulfillment of all official development assistance commitments was crucial. They encouraged the private sector and foundations to increase their contribution to the financing of the education sector. They urged further exploration of new innovative finance mechanisms and the strengthening and scaling up of existing ones, where appropriate, given their potential to contribute to the development of educational systems. They reaffirmed the need for Governments to take the lead in education, while emphasizing the significant progress that could be made through strong partnerships. They called on the international community, including the United Nations system, especially the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, to strengthen the coordination and implementation of existing policies, programmes and follow-up mechanisms for Education for All by strengthening regional and international partnerships and cooperation. They requested the Economic and Social Council to continue its role in the follow-up of the progress in education-related development goals.

Adoption of the Ministerial Declaration

LAZAROUS KAPAMBWE, President of the Economic and Social Council, speaking after the adoption of the Ministerial Declaration, said that the Council’s objective had been to focus the attention of the international community on education, drawing on the voices and views of everyone. The 10 National Voluntary Presentations had contributed towards consensus and demonstrated the critical importance of national commitments to education, and provided in-depth, context-rich appraisals of national progress on the education-related development goals and encouraged countries to consider volunteering for national presentations for next year’s Annual Ministerial Review and beyond. It was important now to put into action what had been gained here this week.

This Declaration not only promoted consensus on a broad range of issues, but it also contained concrete measures to achieve progress on education goals. It set the stage for substantial follow-up actions in the area of education, such as the strengthening of the education cluster in humanitarian response systems and improving national data collection and analysis to refine policies and better allocate resources to vulnerable and marginalized groups. Success in the Millennium Development Goals and Education for All goals required a collaborative partnership; and facilitating the inputs and ideas of all stakeholders was crucial. It would be necessary to translate the ideas and best practices exchanged in the Economic and Social Council into action back in villages and capitals, in classrooms and boardrooms. The Council would have to effectively support the political leadership and creative public-private partnerships would be necessary for expanding education opportunities for all. These deliberations attested to the important role of ECOSOC as a multistakeholder forum. Calls were made, most notably by Ms. Calmy-Rey, President of the Swiss Confederation, for thought to be given to further enhancing the Council’s role. In the context of the recent review of the implementation of General Assembly resolution 61/16, the moment was right to press ahead with this joint endeavor.

SHA ZUKANG, Under-Secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs, said that a round of congratulations was in order. Mr. Sha thanked the President for his efforts and the delegations for hammering out a Declaration in New York. This allowed Ministers in Geneva to focus on substance not politics. Quality, funding, partnership and all other major areas of concern had been emphasized in the Declaration. It was a model document in addressing educational challenges while casting a thoughtful eye to emerging issues on the horizon. Lifelong learning, information technology, tertiary education and vocational education and training were issues that would require further consideration in the future. The Ministerial Declaration demonstrated how partners could come together to make the world a better place. The National Voluntary Presentations continued to draw rave reviews. This was further evidence that a hands on, country-by-country approach worked well. Enrolment alone was not learning. What happened in the classroom counted. To maximize benefits, what was taught and how had to be emphasized. This would only get tougher. If reforming education was easy, it would already have been achieved. The United Nations system was there to support countries every step of the way.

JORGE ARGUELLO (Argentina), speaking on behalf of the Group of 77 and China, welcomed the Ministerial Declaration. Greater equity in education could help to fuel a virtuous cycle of growth and poverty alleviation with spillover effect to society as a whole. The Group of 77 and China considered that education was important to social inclusion. Education and social inclusion were interlinked. Recognizing that education was a fundamental human right and after the adoption of this important Ministerial Declaration, the Group of 77 and China called on the international community to translate efforts into action and redouble efforts to meet the renewed goals on access to education.


For use of the information media; not an official record

ECOSOC11/010E