South Asia and basic education: Changing UNICEF's strategic perspectives on educational development and partnerships

Conclusion

Having adopted rights-based programming, UNICEF co-operation programmes within education are undergoing substantial change. Achieving a goal (such as a 95% enrolment of boys and girls of primary-school are in a primary school) can no longer be considered sufficient when there are children whose right to basic education has yet to be realized. In turn, this has stimulated considerable attention to excluded children and to the strategies required to ensure that they have access to good-quality basic education. As new presentation tools become more widely used, disparities within countries have become more visible, and efforts have been directed to more effective strategies to enrol, retain, educate and graduate all children.

Linked to the sub-national, national, regional and global work associated with the Education for All 2000 Assessment, there is a renewed commitment to the care of infants and young children, and necessary services and support to those who care for them. Educational programmes extending to much younger children reflect the realization that survival, growth, development and protection depend very much on what happens early in life. ECC for survival, growth, development and protection of infants and young children has emerged as a global priority focus within UNICEF, consistent with its mandate within the United Nations system and the evidence suggesting that the greatest neurological malleability exists in the first few years of life.

As countries shift their expectations and standards beyond primary schooling, UNECEF has been evolving its programmatic support for adolescents, and within education, to addressing life-skills and livelihood skills as necessary features of any relevant learning environment.

From these expanded perspectives of basic education, UNICEF must gain more experience in its work with partners, make more efficient use of the new information technologies, address the challenges of integrated programming, and ensure that its support is both effective and efficient within the framework of rights programming.