Development Management Policy Seminar “Global Education Targets Post 2015: Priorities, Policies, and Politics”

The above seminar was held on February 6th, 2015 in the main conference room of the Graduate School of International Cooperation Studies (GSICS) building. The speaker was Dr. Aaron Benavot who is the Director of UNESCO’s Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report (GMR 2015). His lecture was titled; “Global Education Targets Post 2015: Priorities, Policies, and Politics”.

In his presentation, Dr. Benavot gave a brief overview of the Dakar EFA agenda, highlighting its membership (164 countries), the establishment of six EFA goals and monitoring mechanism. He presented the progress made and recent results of six EFA goals’ since the start of implementation in 2000. Dr. Benavot also shared an analysis of trends in aid to education by donors and NGOs and explained progress toward EFA from three aspects: demographic, economic and strategies.

In the final segment of his lecture, Dr. Benavot highlighted some serious challenges that have been encountered during the implementation of the Dakar EFA agenda in the past fifteen years. Specifically, he cited the reliability of data, the validity of indicators and the disparity between international and national political will. He reiterated the importance of merging education priorities with broad development priorities and aligning EFA goals and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). He went on to share with the students present the Post 2015 Education Goal and Targets Open Working Group proposal for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The seminar was highly informative and beneficial, to the students present since it provided an update on the Dakar EFA Agenda and post-2015 education development agenda. During the question and answer session, the participants asked a number of questions, aimed at understanding the Dakar EFA Agenda and the new SDGs. In general, the seminar provided the participants with the opportunity of broadening and deepening their knowledge and understanding in global education targets in post-2015.

By Meng Xiaodong