Commissioner Piebalgs announces high level summit on education in developing countries
Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs is taking part this week (17-21 April) in the World Bank-International Monetary Fund Spring meetings in Washington DC. In order to push forward the role of education in the Post-2015 sustainable development agenda, the Commissioner will announce a High Level conference on Education and Development which he will host on May 23 in Brussels.
The Conference will focus on challenges in countries most off-track in achieving international education goals and will count on distinguished speakers such as: European Commissioners Kristalina Georgieva (International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response) and Androulla Vassiliou (Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth), Gordon Brown (United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education), and Her Royal Highness Princess Laurentien of the Netherlands (UNESCO Special Envoy on Literacy for Development). Commissioner Piebalgs will make the announcement at today's Learning for All Ministerial Round Table, where participants will discuss how key solutions to accelerate progress in the countries where more children remain out of school, such as Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of the Congo or South Sudan. Since 2004, thanks to Commission support, more than 9 million children worldwide have been enrolled in primary education, more than 720,000 primary school teachers have been trained and more than 85,000 new female students have been enrolled in secondary education. For more information: http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/what/education/index_en.htm
