Cuba devotes 13% of its GDP to education, the highest rate in Latin America, specialist Nihan Blanchy Koseleci said today.
According to Prensa Latina reporting from the French capital, Koseleci, a researcher for the 2015 Global Monitoring Report – Education for All 2000-2015: Achievements and Challenges, by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), noted that this sectorhas been privilegedin the financialcommitmentsof the nation.
Cuba has made major advances in most areas of EFA. It has invested in the training of teachers and has achieved much progress in preschool, primary and secondary levels.
Acoording to the report, released by UNESCO this Thursday, April 9, one in three countries across the world achieved the overall objectives of education for all (EFA) in the 2000-2015 period, with Cuba being the only country in Latin America.
The key goal, universal education for all primary school aged children, was met by half of the nations of the world, Koseleci added.
The other goals of the six that were agreed during the World Education Forum (Dakar, 2000) are: expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education; ensuring that the learning needs of all young people and adults are met through equitable access to appropriate learning and life-skills programmes; achieving a 50 per cent improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015; eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005 and achieving gender equality in education by 2015; and improving all aspects of the quality of education and ensuring excellence of all so that recognized and measurable learning outcomes are achieved by all.
UNESCO estimates that $22 billion dollars a year will be needed in addition to already ambitious government contributions to ensure the new education targets being set for the year 2030 are met.
