African ministers create body to monitor recommendations
African education ministers have created an Education
For All (EFA) regional monitoring mechanism whose role will be to assess
the implementation of regulations adopted during their just-ended 8th
conference in Dar es Salaam.
Addressing journalists at the end of the 8th Conference (MINEDAF VIII),
the director of the UNESCO regional office for Education in Africa (BREDA)
Armoogum Parsuramen said Nigeria will chair the body.
The main objective of the mechanism will be to prevent a recurrence
of old recommendations. Apart from Nigeria, other members will be drawn
from the continent's seven sub-regions,
including Northern Africa to be created soon.
Parsuramen said that the meeting laid particular emphasis on the follow-up
of EFA and to mobilise the necessary resources for that purpose.
Africa's financial partners and civil society organisations would also
be involved in view of their expressed willingness to work in partnership
with the continent, which was reaffirmed during the five-day meeting
in the Tanzanian economic capital.
Meanwhile, Tanzania's Science, Technology and High Education Minister
Pius Ng'wandu, the MINEDAF council's chairman, who co-addressed the
press conference insisted that countries must follow the strategies
adopted by the just-ended conference to uplift the continent's educational
systems.
He also urged countries that had not yet adopted their EFA plan as was
decided during the World Forum on Education held in Dakar in 2000, to
fulfil this requirement before the expiry of the new deadline in December
2003.
Like Parsuramen, Ng'Wandu expressed satisfaction with the results of
the 8th MINEDAF attended by 49 of the 53 countries expected.
The conference adopted a number of important resolutions and an appeal
to the international community to make education one of the pillars
of Africa's development.
Dar es-Salaam - 06/12/2002
PANA Correspondent
