PARIS: Malaysia fully subscribes to all efforts in helping fellow Unesco member states to achieve their Education for All (EFA) objectives, says Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.
In a speech made at forum organised by Unesco here, he said commendable successes had been attained since the adoption of the EFA goals and the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the year 2000.
“In spite of this, much needs to be done in light of recent data released by Unesco’s Institute for Statistics (UIS) that 57 million children of primary school-age and 69 million children of lower secondary school-age do not have access to basic education.
“Some 250 million children are still illiterate and have not acquired basic skills despite having had four years of formal schooling.
“Over 84% of the world’s adults are now literate, but some 774 million adults remain illiterate of whom two-thirds are women.
“Most of the world’s illiterate originate from the South and West Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa regions.
“About 3.5 million new secondary education positions will have to be established by 2015 and 1.6 million additional teachers will be required to achieve Universal Primary Education by 2015,” he said at the 37th Session of the Unesco General Conference Leaders’ Forum here yesterday.
Muhyiddin said Unesco should further strengthen the role of education as well as contributions from the sciences, culture and communication and information sectors, in shaping the post-2015 development agenda.
Muhyiddin, who is also Education Minister, said Malaysia’s attainment of the EFA goals and MDGs was well ahead of the due date of 2015.
“In recognising this, the United Nations had on Oct 24 bestowed Malaysia the UN Malaysia Award for achieving the Millennium Development Goal 2 – Achieving Universal Primary Education.
“The provision of infrastructure to ensure educational access for the rural poor was partly central to this success,” he said.
Several heads of state and some 150 ministers and delegates from all 195 Unesco member states gathered here from Tuesday for the organisation’s general conference. — Bernama