This morning after I scrambled to get to the opening plenary on time and squeezed myself into an already full table, I noticed the sign on the table highlighting the pre-plenary topic of discussion: ending female genital cutting and enforced child marriage.
For all the fun and networking, movie stars and glamour that this year's CGI meeting has brought to midtown Manhattan, there remains a commitment to asking the hard questions, discussing the tough topics and challenging one another to think differently and commit personally.
Today, the education track will discuss one particularly tough topic, "Avoiding the Access, Quality Trade-Off." With nearly 80 million children still out of school, debate over whether or not to support bold policy reforms like the abolition of school fees in poor countries has all but ended, however work remains on how to support countries when millions of additional children come to school.
World leaders made a promise to countries struggling to build or rebuild their national education systems in 2000 at the World Conference on Education for All in Dakar, Senegal that "no countries seriously committed to education for all will be thwarted in their achievement of this goal by a lack of resources," yet national education plans, and the Education for All Fast Track Initiative, created two years after the World Conference to make good on the Dakar commitment, remain under-funded.
As Gene Sperling said yesterday, "when there is a dramatic expansion of access, quality can go down... some people can say just don't have so many kids go to school..." which, Mr. Sperling highlights, "is only something that people say about someone else's children."
It promises to be a very full day. Stay tuned.
Kolleen Bouchane is the former Education for All Campaign Manager at RESULTS. She is currently working on a Masters in Conflict, Security and Development at Kings College, University of London.
Post new comment