Basic Education
A - Overview
Even in the 21st century there are about 800 million illiterate adults worldwide and the number of children who do not attend school stands at about 100 million (55% of whom are girls). Under such circumstances, the World Education Forum was held in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, in 2000. Delegates from 181 countries, international organizations, and NGOs participated in the forum, which reconfirmed the importance of basic education* and adopted the Dakar Framework for Action.
The framework set up goals such as ensuring access to primary education of all children by 2015 and eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005. Two of the eight MDGs announced in the UN General Assembly in 2000 are related to basic education, and various activities are implemented in respective countries to achieve these global common goals.
B - Our Efforts
Under the basic policy of providing cooperation in line with the needs of developing countries, we have identified the following five points as priority areas for cooperation in basic education:
1) Increase of enrollment in primary and secondary education
2) Improvement of the quality of primary and secondary education
3) Reducing gender disparities
4) Promotion of non-formal education
5) Improvement of education management.
1. Increase of enrollment in primary and secondary education
Activities for quantitatively expanding primary and secondary education include building facilities, and improving the educational environment surrounding children inside and outside of school.
There are various reasons why children are not enrolled: for example, parents cannot afford to pay the tuition; children have to work so they cannot go to school even when they have access to school. One of the more notable reasons is that children cannot learn sufficiently even if they go to school because of a shortage of teachers. To raise the enrollment rate, it is necessary to develop an environment inside and outside of school under which children can go to school.
For these reasons, in order to increase the understanding of parents and communities, efforts are made such as an awareness campaign, a school management committee, school improvement by community participation, teaching material development, and teacher development.
In developing countries where gender disparities in education are significant, emphasis is placed on improving education for girls as well.
2. Improvement of the quality of primary and secondary education
In developing countries, there are not a few classes focused on rote memory, and the demand for classes that boost children’s interest and understanding is becoming more intense. In response to these needs, we have been working to enhance teacher quality by improving both pre- and in-service teacher training, improving teaching methods, and developing and disseminating textbooks and teaching materials.
Science and mathematics education is of particularly high interest to the developing world and since the middle of the 1990s, we have implemented projects for training pre- and in-service teachers as well as developing teaching methods, textbooks, and teachers’ manuals. As in Strengthening Child-centered Approach in Education, cooperation to improve teaching methods in subjects other than science and mathematics has been provided.
In addition, in Africa and Central America, region wide cooperation in which the outcomes of teacher training projects in Kenya (Strengthening of Mathematics and Science in Secondary Education) and Honduras (The Improvement of Teaching Method in Mathematics) are spread to other countries in the region has been started.
Recently, cooperation in the integrated areas between education and health such as infant care, early childhood development (ECD), and school health has also begun.
3. Promotion of non-formal education
Education needs are too large to be accommodated by school education alone. Cooperation for non-formal education that is defined as organized educational activities outside the school education system is very important from the viewpoints of satisfying basic learning needs and realizing human security that ensures the existence, livelihood, and dignity of humankind and assures the freedom to act for oneself. Non-formal education is widely intended for people from adults to children and specific activities include promotion of literacy programs and life skills** acquisition programs.
Non-formal education excels in diversity, flexibility, and readiness, and contributes to various fields such as health, natural environment conservation, peace building, and livelihood generation, in addition to education. We have been strengthening activities in this field recently, and projects have been implemented in developing countries.
4. Improvement of education management
Education management, including education administration and finance, formulation of education plans, decentralization, and school management, is an issue common to all educational stages. Improvement in this area is crucial for the self-sustaining development of education. For education development, it is critical to formulate education development plans that reflect local needs, secure education budget, ensure an effective use of the budget, and establish education statistics. In addition, at the school level, securing an adequate school budget, promoting student enrollment, and improving teaching skills by providing teacher training are the keys to improving the quality and quantity of education.
Establishing a cooperative relationship with communities is also an important factor for improving education. It has come to our attention that if the community participates in school management through discussions and collaborative activities and their interests in schools increase, parents are more likely to send their children to school, resulting in improved working situations for teachers and a positive impact on their teaching.
* Basic education is defined as educating activities enabling individuals to acquire the knowledge and skills required to live in society. Specifically, pre-primary, primary, lower secondary education and non-formal education are collectively called basic education.
** Life skills is a collective term for various types of know-how and skills necessary for life; for example, social life skills such as decision-making, problem-solving, critical thinking and effective communications and simple vocational training, environmental education, health and hygienic education and infectious disease control such as HIV/AIDS, in addition to literacy and numeracy.