In Various Regions Of The World The EFA Goals Are Frustrated By - 1

In Various Regions Of The World The EFA Goals Are Frustrated By - 1 In Various Regions Of The World The EFA Goals Are Frustrated By Social, Cultural And Economic â€" Essay Example > EDUCATION FOR ALL GOALSEducation For All (EFA) are standards set apart to govern education policies systems, and structures of 164 countries that agreed to take part. Indeed, they were intended to run between 2000 and 2015 culminating in 15 years. As a benchmarking tool, six goals were set to regulate and define a successful system by 2015 (Hutton 2014). These goals included: the expansion of early childhood and care education and achievement of universal primary education that would be free. Also, it provided guaranteed access to vocational and life skills to youth and adults, attaining 50% reduction illiteracy in adults by 2015. More goals included achieving gender parity and equality between male and female counterparts and further improving the quality of education given to children, adults, and youth (Sayed and Ahmed 2015). However, Nigeria has been experiencing a lot of challenges in meeting this goal despite a consistent increase in its per capita income up to 2014. In ranki ngs of specific targets, Nigeria has failed and has been viewed far from achieving any of the goals. Indeed, failure may be attributed to some challenges, which the country faces that include poverty, lack of sufficient funding from the government, corruption, high student to teacher ratio and child labour (Ametepee and Anastasiou 2015). Also, insecurity in the northern regions of the country, poor infrastructure and cultural barriers such as female hindrance from participating in education have hindered the country its EFA goals. In this study, the focus will lie majorly on goal two which is the attainment of free universal education, and goal six which discusses improving the quality of education offered. It will also address the frustrating factors to this goal and their impact. Nevertheless, the study will first examine the UNESCO contextual background. Also, it will review the Nigerian education system and how it has evolved in brief and how the neighbouring countries are far ing in the quest to achieve these goals. However, EFA study has been motivated by the need for education to be part of the core requirements of all human beings. It also aims at enhancing the growth of the education sector in Nigeria after the inception of the education for all goals, the challenges it has faced and the way forward to achieve these aims. In essence, it is vital for education to be integrated into one’s life since it enables people to improve their quality of life by increasing their creativeness. Also, adequate education improves individual bargaining power and eventually progress the economic performance of the nation. When an education system fails or is unable to meet the global standards or needs, necessary action must be put into place to ensure that the problem is corrected before it becomes a major issue. Nigeria, for example, seems to be facing a myriad of challenges and levels of illiteracy have been increasing rapidly. These problems have caused the fo rmer and if mitigated, the education sector in the country will thrive. United Nations under UNESCO (United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) initiated the EFA study. Its main aim was to provide efficient learning requirements to children, youth, and adults from all walks of life from both genders. These goals were created in correspondence to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) two and three which were concerned with universal primary education and gender parity (Roby, Erickson and Nagaishi 2016). The goals commenced in 2000 as a way of improving the educational sector that was ailing. Therefore, UNESCO was chosen to coordinate and oversee the member’s efforts in developing the education sector in their respective countries. In fact, through the global monitoring reports, UNESCO reports on the progress of the goals in various countries and provides solutions. In the recent reports, UNESCO has shown that majority countries have not achieved their target s entirely, but there is a steady rise towards its achievement. According to the Global Monitoring Reports by UNESCO, Nigeria is ranked 103, in the Education Development Index, out of 163 nations who signed up the EFA goals. On goal one, which involves expanding early childhood care education, 47% of countries, have already achieved the goal and 8% percent are adjacent to achieving the goal. However, 20% are very far from achieving the goal which includes Nigeria. On the second goal which is about attaining universal primary education, 52% percent have already reached it with 10 % percent close (UNESCO 2013). However, Nigeria and other nations make up 38 percent which has a long way to go. Goal three, which provides access to vocational and life skills, to be equitable has achieved poor performance in many nations with less than half of adolescents enroling in secondary schools, including Nigeria. The fourth goal which aims at decreasing adult illiteracy by 50% percent in 2015 has achieved 25% fulfilment with 32 percent being very far from attaining it. In Nigeria, for example, 51 percent of Nigerian adults are illiterate. On obtaining gender parity and equality which is the 5th goal, many countries, especially in the sub-Saharan region, are yet to achieve it. Specifically, Nigeria is yet to achieve both at the primary and secondary level with more males attending school than females. Female illiteracy is a result of early marriage and premature pregnancy. Further, there is also lack of teacher training on how to approach gender sensitive issues. The last goal addresses the quality of education and improvement. In fact, efficient education has not been achieved in majority countries. However, many states are still on track and will achieve the goals in due course.