Prospects - GMR 2009: Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education

Target:

Ensure that by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling

Progress toward the primary education goal has varied across regions. East Asia and the Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean have both progressed well in achieving the primary completion rate target, although some countries in these regions are not on track. Europe and Central Asia and the Middle East and North Africa have had slow progress. Neither Sub-Saharan Africa nor South Asia is on track to achieve the target, but a few countries in these regions have shown significant progress.

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The primary school completion rate is the percentage of children completing the last year of primary schooling. It is computed by dividing the total number of students in the last grade of primary school minus repeaters in that grade by the total number of children of official completing age. Under certain circumstances, the computation can overestimate the actual proportion of a given cohort completing primary school and sometimes exceeds 100 percent.

Proportion of countries on track to achieve poverty reduction target

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Seventeen of 24 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, 13 of 18 countries in Europe and Central Asia, and 12 of 14 countries in East Asia and the Pacific (for which data exist) have already met or are on track to meet the target. Other regions have shown little progress; 3 of 5 countries in South Asia and 33 of 36 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are not on track. Fragile states also lag behind-only 3 of 22 countries with available data have achieved the target.

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The youth literacy rate is the percentage of people ages 15-24 that can, with comprehension, both read and write a short, simple statement about their everyday life. For countries with data available for the 2005-07 period, literacy rates in most Sub-Saharan African countries were lower than 80 percent for both males and females. All countries in that region besides Liberia have lower literacy rates for females than males.

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Adjusted net enrollment rates in primary education measure the proportion of children of official primary school age who are enrolled in any level of education. Although higher values indicate that more children of primary school age attend school, these rates do not capture issues such as repetition and late enrollment, as long as children enter school before the official age of completion. For all regions except Sub-Saharan Africa, net enrollment ratios met or exceeded 90 percent in 2006. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the rate only rose from 58 to 71 percent from 1990 to 2006.

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GMR 2009: Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education