The UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) is pleased to announce the release of the latest addition to its flagship series, Fundamentals of Educational Planning, which was first launched in 1967. This valuable contribution from University of Sussex professor Keith M Lewin opens new avenues towards making the right to quality education a reality for all.
Entitled ‘Educational access, equity, and development: Planning to make rights realities’, the book explores key concepts for planning basic education through to 2030. It charts the dynamics of education system development, identifies clusters of countries with different challenges, and offers a framework for planning for an expanded vision of access and participation.
With a clear view on how educational exclusion operates, Lewin’s book emerges at an opportune time. World leaders have recently agreed on the Sustainable Development Goals, which include a commitment to ensure that all children and youth have access to quality primary and lower secondary education by 2030.
The present book makes very useful suggestions which should help planners and decision-makers implement this goal. It should inspire planners in those numerous countries which have not succeeded in implementing universal primary education and are working toward an enlarged vision of access to basic education," wrote the book's editor, Françoise Caillods, and IIEP Director, Suzanne Grant Lewis, in the preface to the book.
As the millennium development goals evolve into the ambitious SDG agenda, the global education community is also faced with an opportunity to reflect on its 25-year effort to attain Education for All (EFA). With as many as 250 million children still excluded from successfully completing a full cycle of nine years of education, Lewin advocates strongly for long-term educational planning and close monitoring of progress at all levels – school, community, regional, and national level.
The author also stresses the importance of a complete diagnosis of the education sector, which includes identifying reasons why potential students never enter school, drop out prematurely, age out or perform poorly. With the largest number of out-of-school children being in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, Lewin draws on examples from four countries in these two regions.
Concurrently, this vital book for the post-2015 era appreciates that all education systems operate in a unique context with their own political and administrative traditions. For that reason, Lewin’s extensive list of possible interventions is no panacea, but rather provides concrete inspiration for education planners and policy-makers working towards inclusive, quality education for all.
Download your free copy or e-mail Estelle Zadra, Head of Information Services Unit, at e.zadra@iiep.unesco.org to order a print version.
