AMÉRICA UPAEP. EDUCACIÓN PARA TODOS

The countries that make up the UPAEP issue a stamp with a common theme devoted to a major social issue: Education for All.

In the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UNESCO, it is asserted that ”Every person has a right to education”. However, in spite of all the efforts made by countries around the world to make these words a reality, schooling and education are still unreachable goals for many children, young people and adults. During the World Forum on Education for All (EFA) in 2000 more than 1,100 participants from 164 countries gathered in Dakar, Senegal, for the World Education Forum. They affirmed their commitment to achieving Education for All by the year 2015. They identified six key education goals which aim to meet the learning needs of all children, youth and adults by 2015: 1. Expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children 2. Ensuring that by 2015 all children, particularly girls, children in difficult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities, have access to, and complete, free and compulsory primary education of good quality. 3. Ensuring that the learning needs of all young people and adults are met through equitable access to appropriate learning and life-skills programmes. 4. Achieving a 50 per cent improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015, especially for women, and equitable access to basic and continuing education for all adults. 5. Eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, and achieving gender equality in education by 2015, with a focus on ensuring girls’ full and equal access to and achievement in basic education of good quality. 6. Improving all aspects of the quality of education and ensuring excellence of all so that recognized and measurable learning outcomes are achieved by all, especially in literacy, numeracy and essential life skills. At the beginning of 2007, UNESCO published the EFA Report stating that despite continued overall global progress at the primary level, too many children are not in school, drop out early or do not reach minimal learning standards. By neglecting the connections among early childhood, primary and secondary education and adult literacy, countries are missing opportunities to improve basic education across the board — and, in the process, the prospects of children, youth and adults everywhere. The stamp depicts by way of a jigsaw puzzle a collection of letters of the alphabet with the inscription Education for All and the emblem of the UNESCO.