It is said that education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today. In this context, Qatar accomplished an important milestone by making millions of children ready for tomorrow by empowering them with knowledge and education.
Chairperson of Education Above All (EAA) H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser announced on Saturday that EAAs Educate A Child (EAC) program had succeeded in its objective of helping 10 million out of school children to receive quality, primary education.
Most of them came from the most marginalised, most vulnerable communities in the world. Many, had been displaced, due to conflict; others were refugees, some were fleeing poverty or natural disasters. And none of them were in school.
The announcement came during an Education Above All event co-organized with UNICEF at the New York Public Library. The event gathered world leaders and high-level figures such as the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the President of Ghana Nana Akufo Addo, Permanent Representative from Qatar to the UN Sheikha Alia Ahmed bin Saif Al Thani, and Executive Director of UNICEF Henrietta Fore.
Qatar’s efforts assume importance given the enormity of the problem of illiteracy in around the globe.
According to a new United Nations cultural agency report, some 263 million – one-in-five – children, adolescents and youth worldwide are out of school, a figure that has barely changed over the past five years.
Around 61 million aged 12 to 14 years and 139 million between the ages of about 15 to 17 – one-in-three – are not enrolled in school. The older group are four times more likely to be out of school than children of primary age, and more than twice as likely to be out of school as those of lower secondary age, according to United Nations.
Across sub-Saharan Africa, one-in-three children, adolescents and youth are out of school with girls more likely to be excluded. For every 100 primary age boys of out of school, 123 girls are denied the right to education.
Her Highness stressed that the next five years will see Educate A Child work to expand its existing programs and implement new ones. “We will take what we have learned and apply it to the new challenges we face.
Going forward, our efforts will require more than money and good intentions,” Her Highness said.
Since this project began, Educate A Child has participated in 82 partnerships across 50 countries. They leveraged together a $1.8bn investment. A third of that sum was from the government of Qatar.
Qatar has achieved a milestone that would motivate others to educate children that will make world a better place to live for everyone.
