Shala Mitra Sangh

Unesco Report Also Says 266M Adults Can’t Read

Right from 1 million rural medical practitioners who are not graduates of accredited schools to 41% of the schools in the country not having gender-specific toilets, Unesco’s latest Global Education Monitoring (GEM) report has highlighted the major challenges India faces in achieving global education goals.The report, released globally on Tuesday , revealed that despite significant success, India needs to take note of the big gaps -especially how, even now, 2.8 million children are out of school, 11 million out of lower secondary school and 47 million out of upper secondary school.It has also suggested better regulation of private tutoring, of which even HRD minister Prakash Javadekar is critical, as the industry is poised to be worth over $200 billion by 2020 globally and is seen as a practice widening the education gap between the rich and the poor.

The report says Unesco Institute for Statistics data shows a quarter of India’s children are not completing their lower secondary education and that there are 266 million adults and 33 million young people unable to read.

The report “Accountability in Education: Meeting Our Commitments“, while emphasising that accountability starts with government, highlights the fact that India’s spending on education financing is below global benchmarks -3.8% of GDP to education (not 5%) and 14% of public expenditure on education (not 15%).

The report also cites some im pressive Indian successes with several programmes aimed at improving gender equality . “The curriculum for Gender Equity Movement in Schools, aimed at girls and boys aged 12 to 14 (grades 6 to 8), focused on gender, relationships, violence and emotions. Participation helped increase recognition of various forms of violence and led gradually to fewer incidents and more reporting of physical violence,“ it adds.