To the Editor:
Millions of children are back to school. But not in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia or the Middle East.
Around the world, almost 57 million elementary school-aged children - especially girls - don't go to school at all. Millions more receive a poor-quality education and will not be able to read, write or count.
Investing in basic education is one of the best ways to fight poverty. Over the last twelve years, the number of out-of-school primary school-aged children has decreased from 102 million to 57 million, with support from mechanisms like the Global Partnership for Education (GPE). Such a decrease will surely have a huge impact on reducing poverty over a long period of time.
The GPE is an effective global partnership, devoted to ensuring that all children are enrolled and receiving a quality basic education. Through its pooled funding model, the GPE provides development partner countries with additional incentives to develop and implement sound national education plans. As more countries recognize the importance of basic education, there has been an unprecedented demand for educational resources globally.
Canada is among the rich countries contributing to the GPE, but is still not contributing is five per cent share as a developed country. To do so, it would need to increase its contribution from $45 million to $125 million over a period of three years. Lets just hope Canada will make this move in the right direction over the next months.
One hundred twenty-five million dollars over three years is not such a big commitment for a country like Canada. Let's remember that by restoring corporate tax rates to their rate before 2008, Canada would have saved $5.4 billion two years ago and $11.2 billion last year.
Bruno Marquis, Gatineau QC.
