Financial Crisis and Education in Poor Nations

UN report: Crisis will keep children out of school, By Angela Charlton (AP), January 19, 2010, BusinessWeek: “The world financial crisis not only hurt balance sheets but could sabotage poor countries’ efforts to get more children into school, according to a report released Tuesday by the U.N. education agency. UNESCO urged more funding and attention for those shut out of education systems such as ethnic minorities and rural girls, who make up a disproportionate part of the legions of school-age children who have never seen the inside of a classroom…”
India still home to largest illiterate population: UNESCO, January 20, 2010, The Hindu: “India still has the largest number of illiterate adults in the world, but has made ‘rapid advances’ in cutting down the numbers of school drop outs, a new UN report on education has said. The Education For All-Global Monitoring Report, released here on Wednesday finds that out of the total 759 million illiterate adults in the world, India still has the highest number. ‘Over half of the illiterate adults live in just four countries: Bangladesh, China, India and Pakistan,’ the report said, adding the progress has been ‘painfully slow’ and threatens to obstruct the Millennium Development Goals…”