Elementary Education

Primary education or elementary education often in primary school or elementary school is typically the first stage of compulsory education, coming between early childhood education and secondary education.

The United Nations Millennium Development Goal 2 is to achieve universal primary education by the year 2015, by which time they aim to ensure that all children everywhere regardless of race or gender, will be able to complete primary schooling.

Due to the fact that the United Nations OF specifically focusing on Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia, as they are both home to the vast majority of children out of school, they hypothesize that they might not be able to reach their goal by 2015. According to the September 2010 fact sheet, this is because there are still about 69 million school-age children who are not in school and almost half of them are in sub-Saharan Africa and more than a quarter are in Southern Asia. [1]

In order to achieve the goal by 2015, the United Nations estimates that all children at the official entry age for primary school would have had to be attending classes by 2009. This would depend on the duration of the primary level as well as how well the school schools retain students until the end of the cycle. In half of the sub-Saharan African countries, however, "at least one in four children of primary-school age were out of school in 2008."

Also, not only is it important for children to be enrolled but countries will need to ensure that there are a sufficient amount of teachers and classrooms to meet the demand. As of 2010 and 2015, the number of new teachers needed in sub-Saharan Africa alone equals the current teaching force in the region.[2]

The gender gap in the number of students not in school has also narrowed. Between 1999 and 2008, the number of girls not in school decreased from 57 percent to 53 percent globally. In some regions, however, there is a greater percentage; for example, in Northern Africa, 66 percent of "out-of-school children" are girls. [3]

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