Education For All

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Education For All is a global movement led by UNESCO, aiming to meet the learning needs of all children, youth and adults by 2015. The movement was launched in 1990 at the World Conference on Education for All in Jomtien, Thailand. There, representatives of the international community (155 countries, as well as representatives from some 150 organizations) agreed to "universalize primary education and massively reduce illiteracy by the end of the decade". In 2000, ten years later, the international community met again in Dakar, Senegal, and took stock of many countries being far from having reached this goal. They affirmed their commitment to achieving Education for All by the year 2015, and identified six key measurable education goals which aim to meet the learning needs of all children, youth and adults by 2015.

The six goals are:

Goal 1: Expand early childhood care and education
Goal 2: Provide free and compulsory primary education for all
Goal 3: Promote learning and life skills for young people and adults
Goal 4: Increase adult literacy by 50 per cent
Goal 5: Achieve gender parity by 2005, gender equality by 2015
Goal 6: Improve the quality of education

UNESCO has been mandated to lead the movement and coordinate the international efforts to reach Education for All. Governments, development agencies, civil society, non-government organizations and the media are but some of the partners working toward reaching these goals.

The EFA goals also contribute to the global pursuit of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), especially MDG 2 on universal primary education and MDG 3 on gender equality in education, by 2015.

The Fast Track Initiative was set up to implement the EFA movement, aiming at "accelerating progress towards quality universal primary education".