Updated on: Monday, November 12, 2012
A meeting of education ministers of nine most populous countries concluded today with the adoption of the New Delhi Commitment to work together in curriculum reform and strategies to make schools inclusive.
The E-9 meeting, which took stock of the progress made towards education for all by 2015, decided to work towards development of teaching and learning material, use of ICTs for enhanced access and learning and develop institutional capacities for assessing learning outcomes.
'E' stands for education and '9' represents the nine most populous countries Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan.
These countries are home to not only more than 60 per cent of the global population but also to more than 70 per cent of the world's adult illiterates, about two-thirds of whom are women and girls.
One of the targets of this group is 'education for all' by 2015. "All member countries have made good progress towards attaining the objective. Now our aim is quality and reducing the gap between boys and girls who are out of school," HRD Minister M M Pallam Raju told reporters.
The member nations also decided to expand their cooperation in the area of inclusive, relevant quality education for all.
They recognised relevance and equity as key dimensions of quality in their future efforts and resolved to address the same by making their education systems more flexible and responsive, a statement issued by the HRD Ministry said.
Minister of State for HRD Shashi Tharoor said that during the deliberations, Nigeria appreciated India's success at getting children into school.