Good Education

Making sure children in developing countries get a good education

Issue

More than 57 million children around the world do not go to primary school. At least 250 million children cannot read or count, even if they have spent four years in school.

Every child should have the chance to go to school. But it’s not just about getting them into the classroom. It’s also about making sure they are well taught and that what they learn actually improves their opportunities in life.

Without a good education, they will be less likely to get a job and look after their families in the future. With fewer people in work and more people in need of support, they will struggle to prosper, holding their own countries back and ultimately the global economy.

High quality education can change this, helping to transform countries for the benefit of us all. Quality education helps citizens work together to create strong, open institutions and societies. An extra year of good schooling lifts a country’s yearly economic growth by 1%, making poor countries richer and, in the long run, less in need of foreign aid – and more able to trade.

Actions

Our priorities are:

1. improving learning
2. reaching more children - especially those in fragile states
3. keeping girls - particularly the most marginalised - in school

We concentrate on primary and lower secondary education, but also invest in high quality higher education, skills and early childhood education.

By 2015, we will:

1. raise the standards of education, training 190,000 teachers (99,000 trained so far) and introducing better testing of pupils’ progress - we will also give parents more of a say in their children’s education so they can make sure their children benefit from high quality teaching

2. get more children through school, supporting 11 million children in primary and lower secondary school

3. get up to 1 million more girls into school, through the Girls’ Education Challenge - girls are disproportionately absent from the classroom and yet they are more likely to pass on the benefits of their education to their family and boost economic growth

4. support higher education by improving the quality of more than 200 Higher Education Institutions across Africa and Asia - we will also support 750 to 800 Commonwealth students per year with scholarships to pursue their careers with UK universities

5. spend half of our direct education aid on unstable or war-torn countries where more than two-fifths of the world’s out-of-school children are found, and where a lack of education can directly contribute to conflict

6. support more research into the best ways to get children into school, keep them in school, and improve the quality of their education