Former Australian PM urges universal education for sub-Saharan African girls

Universal education for girls in sub-Saharan Africa will not be achieved until the year 2111 if business as usual continues, said Julia Gillard, former Australian prime minister and chairperson of the Global Partnership for Education, here Wednesday.

"Business as usual will mean we do not see the first cohort of sub-Saharan African girls to universally attend primary and lower secondary school until 2111," Gillard said in a keynote speech at a ministerial meeting of the high-level political forum on sustainable development.

Gillard also spoke about the UN Sustainable Development Goals ( SDGs), a set of 17 environmental, social and economic goals expected to be adopted by UN member states in September and implemented between 2016 and 2030.

"In September, the world will be asked to endorse a sustainable development goal for education that will call for 'inclusive and equitable quality education and the promotion of lifelong learning opportunities for all'," Gillard said.

"The words are noble, the ambition is audacious indeed. But these words will ring hollow if there are not the resources committed to acquit the goals that are being set," she noted.

To Gillard, there is good news because the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) had shown that it was possible to reduce the number of children not in primary education by half.

The MDGs are a set of eight anti-poverty targets, which, adopted by UN member states in 2000, is to be reached by the end of this year.

"The good news is we know that improving access to and the quality of education is possible," Gillard said. "But the new Sustainable Development Goals will present a greater challenge. To address it by pursuing business as usual will not be enough."

Education is "shockingly under-financed by an estimated 39 billion (U.S.) dollars per year, according to UNESCO (The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)," she said.

Gillard noted that this gap related specifically to external international financing and that it is hoped that developing countries will make "major new strides" on domestic financing.

This will in part depend on discussions at the Financing for Development (FfD) conference set to take place in Ethiopia on July 13-16.

The conference will seek to identify the domestic and international means to fund the 17 SDGs. Aside from education, the goals will also tackle areas including poverty, hunger, gender equality and climate change. Endite