Essay On Universal Primary Education

One of the most widely heralded educational policy reforms of the past few years has been the elimination of primary school fees in countries where pupils and parents have been responsible for such costs. According to the 2009 World Bank report, as a result of financial barriers to primary education, UNICEF in recent years have spearheaded a school Fee Abolition Initiative together with many policy makers, educators and development economist (World Bank, 2009).

Universal Primary Education has, since 2000, been a goal for most countries worldwide. A few countries in Africa have implemented the free education policy with mixed cases of success and challenges. Oketch and Somerset (2010) hold that, despite the introduction of Free Primary Education

He argues that the increase in enrollments that follow the school fees abolition may be far above the available supply of schools, teachers, and educational materials as was the case in Malawi where the ratio of pupils to classrooms increased to 119:1, the ratio of pupils to teachers increased to 62:1, and the ratio of pupils to textbooks increased to 24:1. The same author also reported that the abolition of school fees in Cameroon, Uganda and Mozambique, also resulted in a rapid pupil ratio which remained well above 50:1, thus having a direct impact on the quality of education. “Recent evidence suggests that little learning takes place in schools when the pupil: teacher ratio exceeds 50” (Plank, 2007:4). The consequence has been to ask teachers to work with twice as many students or employ large numbers of unqualified teachers which is likely to lead to academic failure for many students, most notably the poor and vulnerable children who are the supposed beneficiaries of abolishing school fees. “… Due to competing priorities, it is difficult to adequately finance high-quality primary education. In those cases, user fees can be a necessary supplement to government funding and have the potential to improve the quality of