12 Oct 2005

UNESCO in NZ hails progress in region

7:33 pm on 12 October 2005

The New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO says Pacific island nations are making good progress towards meeting "Education for All" goals.

The Chair of the Commission, Margaret Austin, applauded the progress during a speech at a special UNESCO session.

Mrs Austin said despite huge challenges of the region and mainly young populations, real achievements are being made towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals of Education for all by 2015.

She said UNESCO must address issues of access, provision of a quality curriculum, teacher eduation and infrastructure.

The estimated cost of reaching the 2015 goal is about 70 billion US dollars.

Mrs Austin says priority must be given to working out where this funding will come from if further progress is to made in the next five years.

She says the expected adoption of the Pacific Plan later this month will help ensure education for remains a prority.