The world fails to educate its children

A leading children’s charity has warned that much more needs to be done to meet the goal to have all the world’s children attending primary school by 2015.

The warning follows a meeting of donor countries in Brussels yesterday (2 May).

The European Commission pledged an extra €1.7 billion in funding for education from its European Development Fund, while Germany promised an extra €8 million. New funding was also pledged by Japan (€1.8m) and the Soros Foundation (€3.7m) while the UK has already said it would spend €11.2bn on education over the next ten years.

Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children, said that the new funding would allow an extra one million children to attend school but that 76 million would still remain without education. The world’s rich countries should work harder to reach this goal between now and June when G8 leaders meet, she said. "There is a window of opportunity between now and the G8 meeting. As a whole they are not delivering their fair share. The UK is meeting the challenge but there are real poor performers," said Whitbread.

Paul Wolfowitz, the president of the World Bank, singled out the US among the countries which needed to step up their commitments. "The real point is we need more people to step up here. We need the US to step up here," said Wolfowitz.

A leading children’s charity has warned that much more needs to be done to meet the goal to have all the world’s children attending primary school by 2015.