3-218 - Universal Education around the World: Barriers, Importance, and Future Directions

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

In September, 2000, leaders of 189 countries around the world promised to work toward eradication of extreme poverty by ratifying the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). One of these goals (MDG2) was to achieve universal primary education for all children by 2015. Primary school enrollment rates have improved steadily in most countries since the year 2000 (World Bank, 2014). However, some countries, especially the lowest income countries in sub-Saharan Africa, are far from reaching the goal of universal education (United Nations, 2013). This symposium will explore potential barriers to universal education in terms of school quality and grade repetition as well as child labor, the importance of education in terms of its effects on the health and development of next generation, and future directions in the context of the end of the MDGs. The United Nations is currently drafting the post-2015 sustainable development agenda that is expected to be adopted by UN Member States in September 2015. Primary education will continue to be a goal and setting benchmarks for additional specialized education related to sustainable careers has also been proposed.

Sub Unit

• Education, Schooling

Chairs

• Diane Leach Putnick, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)

• Marc H Bornstein, National Institutes of Health

Individual Presentations

• Grade Repetition in Ugandan Primary Schools: A Longitudinal Mixed-Methods Study of Prevalence and Perceptions - Presenting Author: Sarah Kabay, New York University

• Child Labor: A Barrier to Universal Education? - Presenting Author: Diane Leach Putnick, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD); Marc H Bornstein, National Institutes of Health

• Why Universal Education Matters: Pathways among Caregiver Education, Household Resources, and Child Growth in 39 LMIC - Presenting Author: Marc H Bornstein, National Institutes of Health; Diane Leach Putnick, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD); Robert H Bradley, Arizona State University; Jennifer E Lansford, Duke University; Kirby Deater-Deckard, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University