Education
(L-R) Ross Srey Meng, 4, and Both Srey Aun, 5, at school in Cambodia.
Photo: Nicolas Axelrod/ActionAid
Education is a right. It’s the key to a better childhood, and a better future for children, their communities and their countries.
It is the responsibility of the state and a core element of any development policy committed to social justice. Yet for many children worldwide, the right to education remains unfulfilled.
While the global number of out-of-school children declined over the past 15 years (falling from 105 million in 1990), recent statistics show that progress has slowed down since 2005. As of 2012, as much as 61 million children are out of school.
In addition, cultural and social beliefs, attitudes, and practices prevent girls from benefitting from educational opportunities to the same extent as boys. In fact, for every 100 boys of out school, there are still 117 girls in the same situation.
ActionAid's work on education
Over the past 40 years, ActionAid has been working to increase access to quality primary education globally. Our approach has evolved from delivering education services to adopting a rights based approach. Beyond a mere focus on access to education, ActionAid believes in improving the quality of education while amplifying children and young people's voices.
Our three focus areas are:
- Promoting rights in schools by supporting active mobilisation enabling citizens to hold the State accountable for providing quality education in a concrete and sustainable manner
- Securing adequate resources for education by equipping citizens with the tools to demand and monitor a just, equitable and effective allocation of resources
- Empowering women and girls through literacy using our Reflect approach to social change
Key to achieving these goals is challenging and transforming the socio-economic and political factors keeping girls out of school, including violence, HIV and AIDS and poverty.
We work alongside children, parents, teachers, communities, teachers unions, researchers and education coalitions to undertake evidenced-based advocacy and campaigning, to inform innovative community-based interventions and research efforts. We connect to regional education networks – CLADE, ASPBAE and ANCEFA and the Global Campaign for Education as a founding and current board member.
How we work on Education
Education blogs
