FORUM : UNHRC

ISSUE : Improving the status of primary education in LEDCs to achieve

sustainable development
STUDENT OFFICER : KHALOUD NOOH
POSITION : CHAIR

OVERVIEW

Primary education is one of the most critical components that make up a child's
life. In our society today, there are countless of unfortunate children living in
less economically developed countries (LEDCs) that are incapable of receiving
an education, as their circumstances or cultures do not allow them to do so.
Primary education, furthermore, is a fundamental factor to our developing world
and it is proven that it has a direct eect on sustainable development.
It is vital to improve the status of primary education for the children living in LEDCs as it not only provides them with the necessary life skills, but
in fact, it prepares them to become the leading future generation that encourages development, growth and innovation within nations. The improvement of
education is a major contributing factor that assists in achieving sustainable
development, hence it being ranked the second goal of the Millennium Development Goals. Improving this issue requires eort and cooperation from nations
and organistations in order to address and combat all the challenges and ensure
that the number of children enrolling into primary schools continues to rise and
therefore, work towards achieving universal primary education.

KEY TERMS
1. Less Economically Developed Countries : A less economically developed country is a non-industrialised country with low levels of economic
development. It also seeks to develop its resources by industrialisation.

2. More Economically Developed Countries :

A more economically

developed country is a sovereign state that has a highly developed economy

and advanced technological infrastructure relative to other less developed
nations.
3. Sustainable Development : Sustainable development is development
that meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own needs.
4. Gender Gap : The discrepancy in opportunities, status, attitudes etc
between men and women.
5. Millennium Development Goals : The Millennium Development Goals
are eight international goals that were established at the United Nations
Millennium Summit to be achieved by 2015. These goals provide a framework for development planning for countries around the world. The rst
seven focus on eradicating extreme poverty and hunger; achieving universal primary education; promoting gender equality and empowering
women; reducing child mortality; improving maternal health; combating
HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; and ensuring environmental sustainability. The eighth goal calls for the creation of a global partnership
for development, with targets for aid, trade, and debt relief.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Many more children around the world are being enrolled to primary education.
Despite this success, the number of children of primary school ages that are not
attending school remains high primarily in LEDCs.

The gender gap created

when looking at the number of children being enrolled in primary education

needs to be addressed in order to ensure that in fragile states, both boys and
girls of primary education age should receive a quality education.
Research also shows that many of the countries that have faced diculties
in achieving sustainable development, have a higher number of illiterate children. This illustrates a direct link between primary education and sustainable
development as the children who are the future generation need to be provided
with a quality and improved education in order to increase the awareness of how
vital it is to achieve sustainable development.

3.1 Problems in less economically developed countries

The issue in many LEDCs is that there simply isn't enough money within families to ensure that their children are enrolled in primary education. The parents
may not be employed and so cannot aord providing their child with a quality
education. This therefore results in the creation of a domino eect as it links to
a rise in the number of children who do not attend school during the primary
school age.

Moreover, the central focus of this report is to improve the status of primary
education. However, in for the LEDCs that have children enrolled for primary
education, the status and standard of education that is made available is poor
and lacks quality and strength.

In order for a child to receive an adequate

and prosperous education, LEDCs require the funds, equipment and teaching
material necessary and this therefore is a step towards achieving sustainable
development which will be discussed later on.
Primary education is essential for all children living in these fragile areas.
Obstacles such as inecient use of funding, bad governance, corruption and
lack of management, stand in the way between children in LEDCs and their
education. Therefore, non-governmental organisations (NGO's) and more economically developed countries (MEDCs) need to take action and assist LEDCs
in investing in teaching infrastructure and resources to ensure that every child
does receive a level of primary education that is o good standards and quality.

3.2 The gender gap

Despite the fact that most countries are making impressive advances towards
the improvement of universal primary education, the gender gap continues to
become wider. Worldwide, 69 million children are not in school and of those,
60% are girls. In countries such as Egypt, Botswana and Malawi, people abide
the fact that girls are not given an opportunity to receive an education at
primary level due to the traditional and cultural patterns that stop parents
from enrolling girls in school. This contradicts the idea of improving the status
of primary education as children need to be enrolled into an education rst
before any other aspect is improved.
Furthermore, the aim is to reduce the great gender disparities in the educational sector and so primary education is promoted in these countries in order to
improve the learning for girls and to evaluate and emphasise on the importance
of them receiving an education. With the increased number of both boys and
girls obtaining an education, the more chances they are open to gaining knowledge about factors such as sustainable development which will be discussed
next.

3.3 Sustainable development

As touched upon earlier in this report, the improvement of primary education
has a direct link to sustainable development. Sustainable development is essential for all nations as it provides the economy a chance to develop economically
and socially while preserving the environment. Moreover, the link that is present
between basic education and developing sustainable, revolves around the fact
that the more educated a nation is, the more ways it will discover to develop in
a feasible manner.
If the status of primary education consists of quality and standards, then
there is a potential rise in the number of the children who will be educated about
sustainable development and will understand its value and importance. This is

a key element to our society as children are tomorrow's leading generation and
need to be aware of methods in which sustainable development can be achieved
by.
The topic of sustainable development can only be addressed if the country
is able to improve the roots of its education as without standard education,
the idea of accomplishing sustainable development would be theoretical and
impractical.

This therefore, once again reiterates the issue LEDCs mainly in

Sub-Saharan Africa are facing of having minimum levels of poor primary education available. In the long run, this makes the aim of achieving sustainable
development problematic for the nation.

3.4 Canada
Canada during the past ve years has supported the improvement of the status of primary education in developing nations through its Children and Youth
Strategy that supports a number of initiatives. Moreover, one of these initiatives includes improving access to basic education especially for girls. This is a
benecial yet thoughtful initiative, as it helps combat the issue of the gender gap
in primary education.

Canada, furthermore, is involved with the United Na-

tions Initiative for Girls' Education (UNGEI) and currently holds the position
of co-chair of its global advisory board.
Additionally, Canada supports this issue by enhancing education for girls
in areas where traditional patters are followed and girls are discouraged from
receiving an education. In Afghanistan for example, Canada helped girls of this
nation to have better access to school and continued to teach and create an
awareness of the importance of primary education to these vulnerable girls.
In attempt to increase the status of primary education, Canada has invested
heavily in education in nations such as Mali and Tanzania, thus improving the
quality of education.

Due to this generous investment, enrolment in primary

education in Mali has increased from 44 per cent in 2002 to 77 per cent in
2010. Similarly, in Tanzania the enrolment rate increased from 77 per cent n
2002 to 94 per cent in 2011. These contributions solely make an eect on the
quality of primary education in these two countries and therefore provide an
opportunity of achieving sustainable development as children begin to gain a
broader knowledge of the topic.

3.5 United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)

United Nations Children's Fund is an agency established by the United Nations
in 1946 and it is responsible for programs to aid education and health of children and mothers in developing nations.

UNICEF plays a signicant role in

improving primary education and working towards ensuring the availability of

a quality education to all children regardless of gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic backgrounds.
UNICEF furthermore, has assisted a variety of countries and governments
through focusing on specic innovative ways to ensure that the quality of learn-

ing is improved. With better education present, the number of children enrolled
in education not only increases, but students are also encouraged to stay in
school. This organisation rmly supports the idea of an open opportunity to
primary education for every child and focuses on providing a quality education
for the most vulnerable children of the world. In addition, with the corporation
from UNICEF in solving this issue, more children are being enrolled in education
and gender disparities are being eliminated or reduced in certain areas.

3.6 United Nations Educational, Scientic and Cultural

Organisation (UNESCO)
UNESCO is an organisation established by the United Nations that promotes
education and addresses the social environmental and economic aspects of sustainable development.

UNESCO promotes the improvement of the status of

primary education and supports countries in building quality primary education systems that reach all children. This for example includes the Basic Education in Africa Programme. With the support and assistance provided from
UNESCO, a quality primary education is promoted in order for the organisation
to work towards reaching one of its aims of achieving sustainable development.
Further research shows that UNESCO is the lead UN agency for Education
of Sustainable Development. This organisation believes that education allows
children to acquire the knowledge, skills, attitude and values necessary to shape
a sustainable future as they are the leading future generation. This is a great
benet as it further advocates the importance of achieving sustainable development and illustrates how it carries a direct link to basic primary education.

IMPORTANT UN TREATIES AND EVENTS

1. November 4th 1946 : United Nations Educational, Scientic and Cultural
Organisations founded.
2. December 11th 1946: United Nations Children's Funds established.
3. 2000 : Millennium Development Goals were formed by the United Nations
Summit.
4. June 2008 : United Nations Girls' Education Initiative vision adopted.
5. United Nations General Assembly Conference on Sustainable Development
Rio+20, December 2009, (64/236)
6. World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg SA, AugustSeptember 2002, (Agenda 21/Rio+10)
7. United Nations General Assembly's Resolution on Education for All, 19
December 2001, (A,56/116)

PREVIOUS ATTEMPTS TO SOLVE THE ISSUE WITH POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

It was mentioned before, as part of the United Nations aim of working towards
the second Millennium Goal of achieving universal primary education, the UN
carried out an attempt of improving primary education by abolishing school
fees in a number of countries including Kenya, Malawi and Mozambique. This
as a result lead to an increase in enrolment in these countries meaning that
opportunity was open for more children to gain knowledge and be educated
about sustainable development. This attempt however had a drawback which
was the challenge of nding the required number of teachers and resources as
the number of children increased.
Moreover, another attempt that was implemented by the UN in order to
improve education and achieve sustainable development was the investment in
teaching infrastructure and resources in Ghana, Nepal and Tanzania.

This

therefore lead to increased the status of primary education as teaching was

slowly starting to become a quality. Investment in infrastructure furthermore,
ensured that children attending the schools in Nepal would not nd it dicult to
transport to the campus thus supporting the concept of an improved education.
The promotion of education for girls in Egypt, Botswana and Malawi has
helped reduce the gender gap in education however some countries still adhere
to their traditional patterns and require greater assistance from organisations
to ensure that girls are also enrolled and given opportunity of receiving an
education.
The question of improving the status of primary education relates to working towards achieving sustainable development because the more improved and
qualied education is, the more it enables us to gain the knowledge, values and
skills required to understand the environmental concerns and issues that express
sustainable development. Possible solutions that could be adapted in order to
improve primary education to accomplish sustainable development include the
increase in awareness of the signicance of education and the opportunities it
carries. This should specically be implemented in LEDCs where quality education is not prioritised by LEDCs. Additionally, the spread of this awareness
could be performed through all forms of media and fragile or rural areas should
be taken into consideration as there are limited ways in which information could
be spread.
Furthermore, another possible solution is the creation of a United Nations
department which may be a branch of the UNICEF which individually strives
to provide the necessary resources and improved teaching material for primary
schools in LEDCs. The work of this organisation could be regulated yearly by
the UN or possibly more frequently if necessary. This in addition would advance
the status of primary education and open up greater opportunities for children
to have a basic idea of sustainable development and its value at an early stage.
As previously seen, there are hardly any existing previous UN treaties that
relate to both primary education and sustainable development. This further-

more, could possibly make a chance available for the UN to propose the establishment of a UN treaty that states the direct link between basic primary
education and sustainable development, thus addressing the importance and
value of children receiving a quality education. It may however be argued that
that the formation of this treaty would require authorisation and acceptance
from the UN and this may further complicate the matter of educating children
how sustainable development could be achieved.

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