UNESCO and UNICEF Launch Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2015 Tehran, 28-29 July

In the year 2000, at the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal, 164 governments agreed on the Dakar Framework for Action, “Education for All: Meeting our Collective Commitments”, launching an ambitious agenda to reach six wide-ranging education goals by 2015. United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) initiated the EFA Global Monitoring Reports in response, in order to monitor progress, highlight remaining gaps and provide recommendations for the global sustainable development agenda to follow, AVA Diplomatic reports.  

In view of the findings of the 2015 report, a two-day sub-regional launch event on the 2015 Education for All Global Monitoring Report (EFA GMR 2015) was held jointly by the UNESCO Tehran Cluster Office (UTCO), the UNICEF Office in Tehran, the Ministry of Education in I.R of Iran and the Iranian National Commission for UNESCO in Tehran on 28-29 July 2015.

The meeting brought together Government representatives from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, representatives of NGOs and donor countries, as well as UNICEF and UNESCO Education experts from several countries in Asia and the Middle East. It provided an important technical forum for the neighboring counties to share their experiences, achievements, challenges and lessons learned, and to reflect on their post-2015 education agendas.

The event was opened by H.E. Dr. Aliasghar Fani, Minister of Education of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ms. Kuisch Laroche, Director and Representative of the UNESCO Tehran Cluster Office, Mr. Ezio Gianni Murzi, UNICEF Iran Representative and Dr. Sadollah Nasiri, Acting Secretary General of Iranian National Commission.

H.E. Dr. Fani highlighted Iran’s achievements under each EFA goals and closed his speech by announcing that the Islamic Republic of Iran stands ready to support the countries in the region and specifically the neighboring countries through sharing experiences and achievements.

Ms. Esther Kuisch Laroche expressed her appreciation to the Government of I.R.Iran for co-hosting this important sub-regional event, and talked about the main findings of the 2015 EFA GMR. “The Report highlights that the number of children and adolescents who are out of school is globally on the rise. Girls are still the most disadvantaged, especially in the sub-region of South and West Asia, where 80 per cent of out-of-school girls are unlikely to ever start school, compared to just 16 per cent for boys”, she said.

She also added that another important conclusion from the 2015 EFA Global Monitoring Report is the fact that international aid to education is grossly insufficient to meet the new education targets to achieve universal primary and secondary education. “Donor countries must increase their aid to education six times in order to meet the goals”, said Ms Kuisch Laroche. In addition, she introduced the mobile application called EduStat developed by UNESCO which provides easy access to all EFA data and trends over the past 30 years, and is downloadable on iOS and Android mobile devices.

Mr. Ezio Gianni Murzi highlighted the importance of inclusive education: “Let us not forget that the most vulnerable children are often the most difficult to reach, and that one of the most needy groups of out of school children are children with disabilities. Disability increases the risk of educational exclusion. Children with disabilities attending school are more likely to be excluded in the classroom and to drop out.”

He also praised the Government of Iran for providing access to education to more than 340,000 refugee students, and made reference to the recent decree of the Supreme Leader to provide all Afghan children living in Iran with access to Education, regardless of their legal status for which he added: “This is an example of international solidarity for all of us to follow and do more for children affected by conflicts”.

By the end of the second day, participants and representatives from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan endorsed the final summary report of the event including the main achievements, challenges and recommendations for the way forward under each of the EFA goals.