Education Quality

Why focus on quality?

Although some of the international treaties,

by specifying the need to provide education on

human rights, reproductive health, sports and

gender awareness, touched on educational

quality,2 they were generally silent about how

well education systems could and should be

expected to perform in meeting these objectives.

This remained true as recently as 2000, when the

United Nations Millennium Declaration's

commitment to achieve UPE by 2015 was directly

and simply set out without explicit reference

to quality (see Box 1.1). Thus, in placing the

emphasis upon assuring access for all, these

instruments mainly focused on the quantitative

aspects of education policy.

It seems highly likely, however, that the

achievement of universal participation in

education will be fundamentally dependent upon

the quality of education available. For example,

how well pupils are taught and how much they

learn, can have a crucial impact on how long

they stay in school and how regularly they attend.

Furthermore, whether parents send their

children to school at all is likely to depend on

judgements they make about the quality of

teaching and learning provided - upon whether

attending school is worth the time and cost for

their children and for themselves. The

instrumental roles of schooling - helping

individuals achieve their own economic and

social and cultural objectives and helping society

to be better protected, better served by