Using Indicators in Planning Education for Rural People: A Practical Guide

Despite all the efforts deployed by the countries of the world and the vigorous mobilization of the international community, rural people are lagging far behind in education and are particularly hard hit by poverty and hunger. In developing countries, the slow progress towards universal education is largely due to the sluggish growth of school enrollment among rural people, and the consequent persistence of very low enrollment rates in rural areas. The poverty, hunger and underdevelopment afflicting rural areas are holding back educational development. These instances of interdependence illustrate the complementarity of goal 1 (eradicating extreme poverty and hunger) with goal 2 (achieving universal primary education) of the Millennium Development Goals as well as with the Education for All (EFA) goals. This guide sets out the principles and techniques used to develop tools specifically for the monitoring and guidance or rural education strategies, focusing more particularly on the development of a coherent set of indicators to monitor national education strategies for rural people. Another aim of the guide is to promote transparency in the use of the considerable resources that have been, and continue to be, allocated to educational development for rural people. Although the guide mainly concerns the national level, some guidelines will be provided on producing similar sets of indicators to measure regional diversity within a country. Includes appendix: Strategic Goals and Secondary Objectives: Examples. (Contains 6 tables, 6 figures, 1 box, and 5 footnotes.)