History

• The current UN Primary Education Fact Sheet was issued on September 25, 2008 from the UN Headquarters in New York as a part of the End Poverty 2015 Millennium Development Goals: Make It Happen.
  
  

Features

• The fact sheet's goal is to raise awareness and outline the needs and procedures to achieve universal access to primary education on a global scale.
  
  

Significance

• According to the fact sheet, 570 million students are currently attending primary schools. Thirty million more students attend primary school now than in 1999. In 2006 enrollment in developing countries grew to 88 percent, up from 83 percent in 2000.
  
  

Considerations

• The UN's universal primary education goal aims to achieve quality education in basic literacies and numerical sciences, not simply universal enrollment. Some identified regions have moved to forgo school fees in poor areas and thus have seen dramatic increases in their primary student population. In Kenya schools saw a 1.2 million primary student increase in 2003 after abolishing fees. As a part of the initiative, schools are also encouraged as ways of offsetting poverty by providing students with free meals and basic health services that can drastically improve the development of their region. In addition, educations allow students to transcend their backgrounds and help create better opportunities for the future.
  
  

Problems

• • Forgoing school fees causes financial problems for schools on a domestic level when funding cannot be or is not appropriated by a central government.
  • Increased enrollment not only means increased spending on students, but also increased spending on hiring, training, and retaining good teachers. There is also a shortage issue with school buildings, books, and supplies.
  • Funding problems most often arise in the poorest regions first, a catch-22 for the initiative against poverty.
  • Establishing and sustaining primary education schooling in regions where conflicts are taking place is difficult but crucial to post-conflict humanitarian response and to all aspects of these regions' future recoveries.