Congo seeks partnership with Oman on education

Augustin Matata Ponyo Mapon, Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo has said that his country faces lots of challenges on the education front. "More than 3.5mn children in Congo are out of school.

We need to build 20,000 schools and pay salaries to 80,000 primary school teachers," he said on the sidelines of the first Global Education For All Meeting being held at Al Bustan Palace, a Ritz-Carlton Hotel on Wednesday.

He said that Congo is looking for constructive partnership with Oman. "Though we have not decided the structure and type of collaboration, we will look into the areas which can be worked upon. Oman is an extremely progressive nation and its achievement in education is laudable."

Irina Bokova, director general, Unesco in her opening speech, condemned the abduction of more than 270 girls in Nigeria by extremist groups.

Highlighting educational achievements across the world, Irina spoke about the programmes launched in countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and India. But she said that Unesco’s Education for All Global Monitoring Report shows, "we are not there yet".

Quoting the report, Irina said 57mn children and 69mn adolescents in the world still do not have access to education. Of these half of them live in conflict zones. "Basic education is underfunded by US$26bn a year and international aid is declining specially when countries need it the most," she said.

The Global Education for All meeting reviewed the progress of educational goals that were set 15 years ago.

The conference opened under the auspices of H H Sayyid Asaad bin Tariq al Said, representative of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said, prime minister of Congo, H E Dr Madeeha bint Ahmed bin Nassir al Shaibaniyah, Minister of Education, Kate Gilmore, deputy executive director, United Nations Populations Fund and other dignitaries.

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