Education and the Millennium Development Goals

Education is a major catalyst for human development. As nations prepare for the High-level Meeting on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG Summit) at the UN on 20-22 September, UNESCO looks at how rapid advances in education can help to achieve all of the MDGs.

In the year 2000, 147 heads of State and Government, and 189 nations pledged to halve extreme poverty by the year 2015. They identified the eight MDGs listed below.

The eight Millennium Development Goals

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger 

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education 

Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women 

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality 

Goal 5: Maternal health 

Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases 

Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability 

Goal 8: Global Partnership

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Education lifts people out of poverty

Education equips people with the knowledge and skills they need to increase their income, expand their employment opportunities, and fight against hunger and malnutrition. It reduces poverty and boosts socioeconomic development.

An education opens doors to jobs and credit. One year of schooling can increase a person's earnings by 10 per cent; each additional year of schooling can lift average annual GDP by 0.37 per cent. These benefits are even higher for low-income countries, for lower education levels and for girls and women.

Greater equity in education can help fuel a virtuous cycle of increased growth and accelerated poverty reduction, with benefits for the poor and for society as a whole. Doubling primary school-age attendance rates for rural populations is associated with an average 20 to 25 per cent decrease in food insecurity.

When education is broadly shared and reaches the poor, women and marginalized groups, it holds out the prospect that economic growth will be broadly shared. On the other hand, poverty pushes children out of school and into work because parents cannot afford to educate their children.

UNESCO Strategy for the eradication of poverty 

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Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education

Every child has the right to go to school, but millions are still being left behind.

Universal primary education involves entering school at an appropriate age, progressing through the system and completing a full cycle.

Today, there are over 30 million more children in school than at the beginning of the decade. There have been some remarkable success stories. Primary school enrolments have increased dramatically in sub-Saharan Africa as well as in South and West Asia. In Ethiopia there are three million more children in school than in 2000, thanks to an ambitious rural school construction programme and the abolition of primary school fees - a widespread obstacle to universal primary education.
However, there are 72 million children still out of school. Nearly half of these children live in sub-Saharan Africa. On current trends, 56 million children could still be out of school by 2015.

Of those students enrolled in school, millions drop out or leave school without having gained the most basic literacy and numeracy skills. Additionally, pupil/teacher ratios in many countries are in excess of 40:1 and a severe teacher shortage exists.

Many governments are neglecting the “education poor” – those on the fringes of society, ranging from indigenous populations to street children, from the disabled to linguistic and cultural minorities. New approaches must be tailor-made for such groups – simply increasing opportunities for standard schooling is not enough.

In addition, a broader, more holistic approach requires investment in the development of all levels, types and forms of education. Teacher training, parental literacy, gender equity and early childhood care and education all influence the achievement of universal primary education.

Unless we reach the children who are being left behind, the goal of education for all children will not be reached.

EFA Global Monitoring Report 2010 “Reaching the Marginalized”

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Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women

Equal schooling for both boys and girls is the foundation for development.

No other policy intervention is likely to have a more positive multiplier effect on progress across all the MDGs than the education of women and girls. Evidence shows a strong correlation between educating women and girls and an increase in women’s  earnings, improved child and family health and nutrition, an increase in school enrolment, protection against HIV infection, higher maternal and child life expectancy, reduced fertility rates and delayed marriage.

Several million more girls are now in school compared with 2000 and girls’ access to education has markedly improved in some countries, such as Bangladesh, Benin and Nepal. India is approaching gender parity in terms of enrolment.

Nevertheless, there are still more boys than girls attending school in many countries. Some 54 per cent of the world’s out-of-school children are girls. Twenty-eight countries have less than 90 girls in school per 100 boys.  Gender disparities are widest at secondary level where the benefits of female education are the greatest.

In many countries, girls are faced with barriers to education ranging from negative attitudes to the burden of household work and distance to school. Special efforts – from recruiting female teachers to supporting poor families to making schools more girl-friendly – are needed to redress the balance.

Of the 759 million adults who cannot read or write, around two-thirds are women. This proportion has remained unchanged since 2000. 

Gender Equality in Education Website

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Goal 4: Reduce child mortality

Education saves young lives

Educating a girl greatly reduces the chance that her child will die before the age of five. In many countries, having a mother with secondary or higher education more than halves the risk of child mortality compared to having a mother with no education. Having a mother with primary education reduces child death rates by almost half in the Philippines and around one third in Bolivia.

Evidence shows a strong correlation between educating women and girls and higher maternal and child life expectancy as well as improvements in child and family health and nutrition. Girls and women who are educated are far more likely to immunize their children. Their children are less likely to be malnourished.  In Niger, the child of a woman with secondary education is over four times less likely to be malnourished than the child of a woman with no education.

Having a mother who had completed primary education reduces the risk of stunting by 22 per cent in Bangladesh and 26 per cent in Indonesia.

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Goal 5: Maternal health

Fewer mothers would die if they had education

Maternal education is one of the strongest antidotes to childbearing-related risks. Educating girls and women empowers them to make better health-related decisions.

Complications in pregnancy and childbirth are a leading cause of death and disability among women of childbearing age, claiming over 500,000 lives a year. Girls who are educated are more likely to seek antenatal care, especially if the content of their education has included reproductive health.

The world’s most dangerous place to give birth is Niger, where women face a one in seven chance of fatality. The odds in rich countries are on average one in 8000.

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Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

Education is the best vaccine against HIV and AIDS.

Data: With an estimated 6,800 people newly infected with HIV every day, education must be at the forefront of any response to HIV and AIDS. Education can impart knowledge and skills and encourage positive attitudes and behaviour that will reduce a person’s chance of getting HIV. Educational institutions take a central role in HIV prevention efforts because they are the best way to reach large numbers of young people. Similarly, school health, awareness and hygiene programmes help to combat malaria and other diseases.

According to the 2010 Millennium Development Goals Report, comprehensive and correct knowledge of HIV increased by 10 percentage points or more among women aged 15 to 24; the same success was achieved among young men in 8 out of 16 countries (in 18 out of 49 countries with available data). Between 2000 and 2008, Cambodia, Guyana, Namibia, Rwanda, and Trinidad and Tobago reported remarkable increases in knowledge about HIV prevention among young women (reaching levels of 50 per cent or more); similar progress was reported among young men in Namibia and Rwanda.

Progress is being made, but national education sectors need to reinforce their pivotal role. One study, covering thirty-two countries, found that women with post-primary education were five times more likely than illiterate women to know about HIV/AIDS.

Education has been recognised by UNAIDS to be a key element of effective HIV prevention. Even in the absence of HIV-specific interventions, education offers an important measure of protection against HIV. The Global Campaign for Education has estimated that universal primary education would prevent 700,000 new HIV infections each year. Education reduces the vulnerability of girls, and each year of schooling offers greater protective benefits.

Recent survey data from 64 countries indicate that only 40 per cent of males and 38 per cent of females aged 15-24 have comprehensive and correct knowledge about HIV and how to avoid transmission. These levels are far short of the target established at the UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS) of 95 per cent by 2010.

School-based HIV education offers a very cost-effective approach to prevention as schools provide a practical means to reach large numbers of young people from diverse social backgrounds.

HIV AIDS Education website

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Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability

Education is an agent for sustainable development

Education helps individuals to make decisions that meet the needs of the present without compromising those of future generations.  It is crucial for understanding the environment, changing counter-productive behaviour and anticipating future ecological threats. Education can help to address both the causes and consequences of climate change, and initiate proactive measures to maximize the future use of natural resources for example adopting “green” technologies.

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) addresses key issues such as poverty reduction, sustainable livelihoods, climate change, gender equality, corporate social responsibility and protection of indigenous cultures. ESD can help us to live sustainably. It aims to change the way we think, behave, look at the world, interact with nature and address social, economic and environmental problems. Governments are realizing this: according to a recent survey, 79 countries now have a national ESD coordination body.

Website of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development

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Goal 8: Global Partnership

A global partnership is needed to fill the financial gap  for education  

Education helps to develop data and research on emerging issues. It helps to monitor aid and teaches people how to maximize the use of new technologies. Above all, education fosters good governance.

However, aid for basic education in the world’s poorest countries came to only US$2.7 billion in 2007, a far cry from the $US16 billion needed annually to reach education-related development goals. 

Developing countries can also do more – by making education a priority. If low-income countries spent 0.7 per cent of their GDP on education, it could make about US$7 billion available per year for basic education.

UNESCO's Education Partners

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