Major Concerns in Education

The first concern of public authorities responsible for education is adequately to finance and manage education and training to ensure both universal access and quality instruction. Reductions in public sector budgets linked to structural adjustment policies and loans to highly indebted developing countries in the 1980s caused educational investments to decline as well, negatively affecting teachers' employment, education sector salaries and working conditions, including money for buildings, books, supplies and training equipment, and enrolments. Continued growth (in part driven by previous educational contributions) in OECD member countries and newly industrializing countries of Asia enabled them to maintain or increase investments in education, but the public share is relatively stagnant.

The strains on governments' ability to pay for education, and concerns over its quality and relevance, have led many to: (1) decentralize a great part of educational management to local and school levels; (2) increase the percentage of local and private sector financing of education; and (3) redistribute resources among education levels. Secondary and university education have been particularly affected. Reconstructing balanced and effective systems is therefore a major concern of many developing countries.

Another major preoccupation of governments worldwide is to adapt education and training to the needs of the economy, especially the relationship between education and labour markets/employability. These concerns are especially shared by employers' and their organizations, sensitive to the ability of educational systems to produce sufficiently qualified workers for an increasingly competitive and global economy. The concept of lifelong learning, and how best to finance, manage and evaluate outcomes is an emerging priority of dynamic economies.

Teachers and other educational workers, and their organizations, are preoccupied with the declines in salaries and working conditions, but also with their marginal role in decisions. Teachers are expected to implement major reforms, yet they are rarely consulted or able to bargain collectively on key components of education sector adjustment. Collective bargaining on terms of employment is non-existent in many African and Asian countries, and restricted by public sector budget cuts in many industrialized nations. This has not prevented strikes and industrial unrest when conditions deteriorate seriously or radical reforms are proposed without teacher input; education is then disrupted, and even ministers or governments have been known to fall.

Women teachers and trainers, a majority of teachers in primary and secondary education, have a stake in greater equality of opportunity in career development. Where they are a minority (Africa and South Asia, and in technical education everywhere) increased recruitment has a direct bearing on female access to education