The social purposes of education are long term and oriented towards the construction and maintenance of a sustainable future. This article focuses on developing-country contexts with relatively low formal school enrolment rates, where dropout and failure rates are alarming, and where many children leave school semi-literate, soon to relapse into…

Although education provision has recently improved in Bangladesh, the exclusion of children in the poorest families remains a pressing issue. Surveys in Bangladesh about school attendance have to date been confined to the dominant ethnic groups. Data are lacking for ethnic minorities such as indigenous children. To address this issue, we surveyed…

Despite improvements in educational indicators, such as enrolment, significant challenges remain with regard to the delivery of quality education in developing countries, particularly in rural and remote regions. In the attempt to find viable solutions to these challenges, much hope has been placed in new information and communication technologies…

This document reviews progress in the nine high-populations countries towards the goal of Education for All (EFA). The nine countries are Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, and Pakistan. Since the Thailand conference in 1990, most countries have shown improvement with primary education increasing by over 40…

The articles in this issue are mainly concerned with how to reach the poorest and most disadvantaged sections of the population and how best to help once contact has been made. "Nijera Kori in Retrospect: In Search of an Organization of the Rural Poor" (Mohiuddin Ahmad) provides extracts from an evaluation of this grassroots,…

This study examines the work of the Asia-Pacific Programme of Education for All (APPEAL) since its 1987 inception. Efforts to assess educational achievement at the local, regional, and national levels in Bangladesh are examined with a view to achieving universal primary education; eradicating illiteracy; and providing continuing education in…

The third workshop on the preparation of materials for the newly-literate in Asia and the Pacific was designed to train participants in the development, production (including design and illustration), distribution, and utilization of neoliteracy materials relevant to the needs of rural people. Workshop activities included: (1) discussions on…

Explores the positive impact of the non-formal education programme (NFPE) of the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) in the achievement of basic education for rural Bangladeshi children. Assesses three groups with different educational experiences: (1) children who attended BRAC's NFPE, (2) those attending formal school, and (3) children…

This report by the UNESCO Institute for Education compares approaches to providing nonformal education to out-of-school children in Bangladesh, Burundi, Colombia, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The report analyzes some of the educational and demographic characteristics of the six countries, and the countries' policies concerning universal primary…