afrol News, 21 April - Almost all countries endorsed by the Education for All Fast Track Initiative (EFA FTI) are on track to achieve a primary school completion rate of at least 80 percent by 2015 according to the latest World Bank supported publication entitled “Sounds from the classroom” launched yesterday.

“Sounds from the classroom” features five EFA FTI countries that include Ghana, Madagascar, as well as Guyana, Mongolia and Yemen, focusing on how basic education programmes supported by the EFA FTI partnership have impacted the lives of children, parents and communities positively, the World Bank revealed in the statement.

Amongst other features, the new publication tells the story of a nine-year old girl from Madagascar who will be the first of her family’s eight children going beyond fifth grade and hopes to continue to high school. It also tells about a grade two student of an elementary school in Accra, Ghana who just loves to go to school everyday to learn and eat her bowl of boiled ‘yam and ‘kontomire’ which keeps her going for the whole day, with also other interesting stories from the countries featured.

The programme notes that the past decade has seen unprecedented gains in access to education in developing countries. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, the countries supported by the EFA FTI, an international partnership established in 2002 to help achieve universal primary education, saw a net gain of 15 million primary school students over a six-year period.

"Despite these high enrollment rates, much more remains to be done, but this is real progress, catalysed in part by the EFA FTI which has seen the allocation of over US$ 1.4 billion through its main Catalytic Trust Fund," the World Bank statement said.

The Education for All Fast Track Initiative is an international partnership that connects donors with low-income countries on the basis of countries’ national education plans that include giving children a chance for a proper education.

The EFA FTI manages, among others, a USD 1.5 billion trust fund to support countries in achieving their education goals. It currently endorses the education programmes of 37 developing countries, and hopes to help around 18 million more children who are still out of school by 2010.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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