A new United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) report released here Tuesday identifies sub-Saharan Africa as a region for priority action in ensuring children's education, especially during the current global economic downturn.

The report, titled UNESCO 2010 edition of the Education for All Global Monitoring Report, highlights sub-Saharan as a region with a large deficit of children out of school, because of factors such as the global economic downtown and rising fiscal deficits.

Educational systems across the region could be at a loss of around US$4.6 billion per year in public spending in 2009 and 2010 as a direct impact of the economic crisis, the report said.

Inequalities go hand-in-hand with poverty, gender, ethnic and language as they continue to threaten the progress in education.

The report measured marginalization in education that identified groups facing extreme restrictions on educational opportunity.

An "education poverty" threshold of four years was recognized as the minimum required in obtaining basic literacy for young adults in the 17 to 22-year-old age range.

The report identified 11 countries in sub-Saharan Africa as having 50 percent or more below the threshold.

With sub-Saharan off track in meeting their target for halving malnutrition under the Millennium Development Goals, it has perpetuated a cycle of continued disadvantage where children in the region have entered school with learning impairments that stem from malnutrition, ill health, poverty and lack of access to pre- primary education.

The report also noted that sub-Saharan has made strides in education since the Education for All (EFA) goals were adopted in 2000, which 160 countries committed themselves to.

In general, primary education has risen and the gender inequality gaps have closed, the report said, but it added that even with these gains, the economic crisis continues to threaten any gains.

With the 2015 target date to achieve the Millennium Development Goal in achieving universal primary education, the report warned that the window of opportunity for getting back on track is closing.

It said there has been a collective failure by the donor community in acting on their EFA goal in 2000 and calls for countries to step up their efforts in their aid commitments to basic education.

The report called the UN secretary-general to convene a high- level pledging conference in 2010 to address the financing shortfall.

(Xinhua News Agency January 20, 2010)