Education For All - Global Monitoring Report 2005 - The Quality Imperative

In the many countries that are striving to guarantee all children the right to education, the focus on access often overshadows the issue of quality. Yet quality stands at the heart of Education for All. It determines how much and how well students learn, and the extent to which their education achieves a range of personal, social and development goals. This Report sets the quality debate in its historical context and offers a map for understanding, monitoring and improving quality (Chapter 1). It synthesizes current knowledge about the factors that influence quality (Chapter 2) and describes policy options for improving it, focusing on resource-constrained countries (Chapter 4). The extent to which the international community is supporting education in these countries is then analyzed (Chapter 5). As in the two previous editions, the Report monitors progress towards the six EFA goals adopted at Dakar in 2000, with more in-depth attention to quality indicators (Chapter 3). The Education for All Development Index, introduced in the previous Report, provides a summary overview of progress towards four of the Dakar goals in 127 countries.