Education for All

Education in general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts. In its narrow, technical sense, education is the formal process by which society deliberately transmits its accumulated knowledge, skills, customs and values from one generation to another, e.g., instruction in schools.

Education theory can refer to either a normative or a descriptive theory of education. In the first case, a theory means a postulation about what ought to be. It provides the "goals, norms, and standards for conducting the process of education." In the second case, it means "an hypothesis or set of hypotheses that have been verified by observation and experiment." A descriptive theory of education can be thought of as a conceptual scheme that ties together various "otherwise discrete particulars. . .For example, a cultural theory of education shows how the concept of culture can be used to organize and unify the variety of facts about how and what people learn." Likewise, for example, there is the behaviorist theory of education that comes from educational psychology and the functionalist theory of education that comes from sociology of education.

The Education for All – Fast Track Initiative officially became the Global Partnership for Education with an announcement and unveiling at the United Nations General Assembly on September 21, 2011. This change builds on the initiative’s successes over the last 10 years and is part of a redoubled commitment to making sure all children in low-income countries have access to quality education and opportunities to learn.

The Global Partnership for Education is built on the principles of country ownership and local-level empowerment, as well as mutual accountability and donor harmonization rooted in the Monterrey Consensus and Paris Declaration principles. Its vision encompasses:

1. country preparation of a sound education sector plan addressing policy, capacity, data, and funding gaps as well as a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP);
2. endorsement of the plan by the country’s Local Donor Group, to signal to bilateral and multilateral financiers that the plan is investment-ready;
3. alignment and harmonization of donor support around this country-owned, investment-ready plan.