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UNESCO sponsors world education conference in Senegal in late April |
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April 12, 2000
PARIS, APR 11 (AP) - A UNESCO-sponsored summit later this month on worldwide education will look at ways to improve learning amid debilitating crises such as widespread AIDS in Africa and gender discrimination, the group's director said Tuesday.
The World Education Forum, to be held in the Senegalese capital of Dakar from April 26 to 28, is expected to draw leaders including U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the presidents of Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal and Uganda.
The U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's new director, Koichiro Matsuura, said he made worldwide learning one of his key concerns after being named leader of the Paris-based group in November.
"Education is the most urgent priority and most noble challenge the organization should take up in the 21st century," Matsuura told a news conference. He said the forum aims to be a "serious and frank admission of setbacks and progress."
UNESCO has asked 183 nations to draw up a review on education in their countries. The group will use the results to publish worldwide status report and adopt an action plan for 2015.
The world literacy rate for adults was 80 percent in 1999, compared to 75 percent ten years ago, Matsuura said. But problems persist, such as women's more limited access to schooling. Only 74 percent of adult women are literate, compared to 85 percent of men, according to UNESCO figures.
More than 100 million children, about two-thirds of them in developing countries, don't have access to primary schooling.
The World Bank and the U.N.'s Development Program, Children's Fund and Population Fund are partners in the summit.
UNESCO sponsored a similar meeting, the World Conference on Education for All, 10 years ago in Thailand.
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