17. EDUCATION FOR ALL Education for all (EFA) is a global movement led by United Nations Economic and Social Council (UNESCO), aiming to meet the learning needs of all children, youth and adults by 2015. UNESCO has been mandated to lead the movement and coordinate the international efforts to ensure that education reaches all. Governments, development agencies, civil society, non-government organizations and the media are some of the partners working toward reaching these goals.
An initiative called fast track initiative was set up to implement the EFA movement, aiming at "accelerating progress towards quality universal primary education". Another movement known as World Conference on Education for All was launched in 1990 in Jomtien, Thailand, where, representatives of the international community, i.e. 155 countries, as well as representatives from some 150 organizations agreed to "universalize primary education and massively reduce illiteracy at the earliest possible".
From this conference, the World Declaration on Education for All was adopted, which stressed that education is a fundamental human right and asked countries to strengthen their efforts to improve education in order to ensure the basic learning needs for all were met. The Framework for Action to Meet the Basic Learning Needs established the following six goals: (i) Universal access to learning; (ii) A focus on equity; (iii) Emphasis on learning outcomes; (iv) Broadening the means and the scope Of basic education; (v) Enhancing the environment for learning; and (vi) Strengthening partnerships.
