At this point it is clear that there is no sustainable turnaround in the slow progress along all 6 EFA goals across Asia and the South Pacific. Governments are clearly not doing enough for education despite high economic growth rates reported across many of the countries.  

ECCD, adult literacy and relevant quality learning for youth and adults such as life-skills, remain second-class goals with donors and governments failing to pay required attention and resources. Though there is greater recognition of ECCD in national policy level discourses, coverage remains sparse, largely privately provided and out of reach for poor families.  Life skills and adult education continue to suffer poor coverage, although continued lobbying by education campaign coalitions have secured some small gains: integrating vocational and life-skills in the secondary school curriculum, increasing community learning centers, establishing accreditation and equivalency mechanisms between formal and non-formal education, mobile education opportunities. However, most of these initiatives have remained ‘pilot’ and disparate programmes.  The resources to meet the literacy needs of Asia’s lion share of the more than 800 million adult illiterates are far from forthcoming. The continuing scarcity of funds allocated for this area, compounded by general government and donor apathy and disinterest in strengthening the data-base for adult literacy and non-formal education and arriving at a clear profile of the countries’ adult illiterates  – who they are, where they are, what they need – exacerbates the problem.

It is well recognised that most of the huge numbers not in school or at high risk of dropping out of school belong to the poorest, most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups in the region. Yet, user fees and other charges continue to be leveled throughout the region, with discriminatory impact on poor students, adversely affecting their participation. Further, programmes to address quality are often not designed to target these most disadvantaged groups. Where programmes which attempt to address the differentiated needs of poor learners are identified such as alternative delivery modes, flexible calendar approaches for example, these are not given necessary funds, for (among others) teacher training or the development of appropriate instructional materials. While it has to be recognised that there is more awareness among EFA policy planners on ‘inclusive education’ this has largely remained at the national levels without permeating the rank-and-file teachers and school administrators.

There has been no lack of pronouncements from governments and donors on the need to decisively address quality issues in education in tandem with measures to expand access in both primary and secondary education (e.g. in the elimination of school fees, provision of education incentives), but actual practice still lags behind the rhetoric. Massive teacher shortages have not been filled with many countries still resorting to hiring under-qualified para-teachers to fill the gaps. Investments in teacher-training remain paltry despite much talk about increasing quality standards for teachers.

Governments continue to invest very little in educating their citizens. Developing countries in the region allocate less than 6% of their GDP to education. Inefficiencies in the delivery systems aggravate the problem of scarce resources. Donors have also been slow in their contributions to fill the financing gaps. Low income countries in the Asia Pacific which face the most severe education problems (e.g. Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh) are yet to be FTI eligible; only four countries in South East/East Asia have received FTI support: Mongolia, Cambodia, Vietnam and East Timor.

The volatile political climate, conflict in countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Myanmar, East Timor and Solomon Islands (even Thailand to a lesser extent), show how the shifting political terrain has been responsible for the drifting attention of governments from EFA and a standstill in needed policy action. Concern for displaced children and young adults in emergencies – whether caused by conflict or by disasters – have been given scant attention in official government MDA reports, with responsibility for them taken up neither by the State nor by non-State actors, and neither by host countries in cases of cross-border refugee camps.   Political instability and its impact on democratic spaces in the countries have also affected the CSOs ability to engage effectively on education policy issues.