Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger Achieve Universal Primary Education Promote gender equality and empower women Reduce child mortality Improve maternal health Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases Environmental sustainability Build a global partnership for development

Goal 2: achieve universal primary education

goal 2 iconGoal 2: achieve universal primary education

Goal 2 is to ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of free primary schooling. Universal schooling has already been achieved in some developing countries; particularly in Latin America but also in several countries of Africa and Asia. With a strong, international effort, we can ensure access to primary education in all other parts of the world.

In our world today:

  • Around 72 million children still do not go to primary school—57 percent of them are girls. 
  • Significant gaps in school enrolment still exist between children in urban and rural areas, and between boys and girls.

Progress on Goal 2:

  • Globally, 88% of children now go to primary school compared to 80% in the early 1990s. But in some African countries, it is still less than 50% of them who do so.
Kids at School

Photo by Christoph Schmitz

Success story from Kenya

Free basic education became a political issue in Kenya during the 2003 national elections following several years of sustained campaigning by Elimu Yetu, a civil society pressure group. Elimu Yeta led a campaign called “Basic Needs as Basic Rights”, through which they highlighted that education was a fundamental human right. In its first week of power in Dec. 2003, the new Kenyan government made education free, immediately giving hundreds of thousands of children the opportunity to go to primary school.

Text from the United Nations Millennium Campaign's Human Rights and the Millennium Development Goals: Interdependent Commitments

 

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