Launched today – ‘The Missing Piece of the Puzzle: Financing a Learning Generation’

Today: the Send My Friend to School campaign calls on the UK Government to pledge US$500 million to the Global Partnership for Education.

Education is fundamental to ending poverty, improving health outcomes and empowering girls and women. Yet, latest figures estimate that the number of children who are not in school today is around 263 million – with hundreds of millions more receiving education of such poor quality that they leave after a few years without achieving basic literacy or numeracy skills.

The international community made a promise – through Sustainable Development Goal 4 – to ensure inclusive, quality education for all by 2030. But we are massively off track. By current projections it will be 2084 – over 50 years late – by the time we achieve this goal.

The world is experiencing an education crisis – together, the international community know how to solve it and have committed to doing so – but the missing piece of the puzzle is how to pay for it.

Investing in education is essential to building a more secure and sustainable future for us all but the world is not investing enough. Over the past decade, aid for education has declined and learning outcomes have stalled.

A major test of the world’s commitment to achieving quality and inclusive education for all will be the next replenishment round of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE). GPE is the world’s only global funding platform dedicated solely to ensuring inclusive, quality education in developing countries.

GPE is scaling up its ambitions and asking donors to contribute a total of US$3.1 billion to support its work from 2018 to 2020. If this replenishment target is achieved, GPE will be able to support the education of 870 million children and youth in up to 89 developing countries that are home to approximately 78 per cent of the world’s out of school children.

Today the Send My Friend to School campaign is launching a briefing paper – The Missing Piece of the Puzzle: Financing a Learning Generation – which calls on the UK Government to pledge US$500 million (£392 million) as its contribution to GPE’s replenishment.

While the primary responsibility for funding education lies with national governments in developing countries, wealthier countries like the UK also need to keep their promise by investing more in aid for education. The UK Government is a world leader in funding global education, and its leadership role in the education sector is as important as ever.

Thousands of schools across the UK – from Orkney to the Isle of Wight – have joined the campaign calling on the UK to increase its investment in the Global Partnership For Education: join the campaign today!