Ten years after the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child guaranteed education for all children, the promise is still a distant dream. More than 125 million children, most of them young girls, never see the inside of a classroom. Another 150 million children receive schooling of such low quality and at such high cost that they drop out of school soon after they start.

Not willing to let this injustice continue, a powerful alliance of international organizations and national movements have joined forces to launch the Global Campaign for Education. The campaign intends to mobilize public pressure on governments to fulfill their promises to provide free, quality education for all people. Article 28 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child requires governments to make primary education compulsory and available free to all, while Article 29 calls for education that develops full human potential and prepares children for responsible life in a free society.

Bringing together organizations working in 180 countries, the campaign's steering committee includes: Education International, Oxfam International, ActionAid, the Global March Against Child Labour, the South African NGO Coalition, the Campaign for Popular Education (Bangladesh), and the Brazilian National Campaign for the Right to Education. This campaign marks the first time leading social organizations have joined together in
a determined drive for universal education.

"It is time that governments and the international financial institutions recognize that education is a fundamental human right," said Elie Jouen of Education International. "Governments must provide the resources and implement the reforms needed to achieve education for all."

A mere 1% of what the world spends each year on armaments would be enough to provide education to every single person worldwide.

The Convention broke new ground in getting governments to agree that the right to education goes beyond the right to a seat in a classroom. It calls for education which builds tolerance and equality, and enables each child to develop to his or her fullest potential. But schools serving poor and minority groups too often abuse children's dignity, stifle their abilities and promote intolerance and prejudice. In these cases, fundamental reforms are urgently needed to engage children, teachers and parents in creating a better system.

The Convention also legally obliges countries to promote and encourage international cooperation in support of education. But throughout most of this decade, Western governments have done the opposite, squeezing out interest payments and service charges on third world debts at the cost of children's health and education.

The Global Campaign for Education will be demanding at least eight years of education for all children, and a second chance for adults who have missed out. The campaign also calls for better provisions for early childhood education and care, a public commitment of 6% of GNP for education, the mobilization of new resources through aid and debt relief, reform of IMF and World Bank structural adjustment policies, an end to the exploitation of children for their labour, democratic participation of civil society in education, fair and regular salaries for teachers, properly equipped classrooms and quality textbooks, and nondiscriminating in the provision of education.