WASHINGTON, Feb 17: Investing in universal primary education is one of the best ways for poor nations to boost economic growth, their citizens' health and other indicators of development , says a new report released by a group of 16 private US development and relief agencies.

The report, "Teach a Child, Transform a Nation," took raw data from the World Bank and other United Nations development agencies and found a high correlation between education and the benchmarks, such as economic growth and health statistics, which determine a country's development.

Education provides the foundation upon which stable nations are built, said Stephen Moseley, chair of the Basic Education Coalition (BEC), which includes CARE, International Youth Foundation, Save the Children and Women's Edge, among other groups.

While the report indicates that enrolment in primary schools is increasing around the world, foreign aid from donor countries for boosting enrolment is still not keeping up with demand.

Of some 680 million primary school-age children worldwide, some 115 million - about 60 per cent of them girls - are not now in school. And one-half of those who are enrolled in primary school today do not finish.

More than one-third of primary school-age students in South Asia and Africa are not attending school, the report says. The correlation between primary education and economic productivity is quite dramatic, it adds.

One year of additional education increases individual output by between four and seven per cent, the report notes, while a farmer with just four years of basic education is found to be nearly 10 per cent more productive than his neighbour with no primary education at all.

Educating girls, in particular, is found to increase per capita income and reduce poverty in all countries. Educated women generally assume more responsibility for household finances and are also seen as more responsible in how money is spent, particularly with respect to the health and education of children.

The report stresses that education is not by itself sufficient to generate successful development, but that it is indispensable to increasing economic productivity and improving health, as measured by life expectancy and lower infant mortality rates.

Educated people also are better able to protect themselves from becoming infected with HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases. Women with at least some secondary education were found to be three times more likely to know how HIV is transmitted than women with no education at all.

Similarly, poorly educated girls and women are more likely to be caught up in trafficking, sex trade and child labour.

Similarly, countries with higher levels of secondary school enrolment are politically more stable than those with lower levels of education. Higher levels of education appear to be critical in reducing corruption as well, adds the report.

The BEC was created after the 2000 World Education Forum (WEF) in Dakar, Senegal, where officials from 164 UN member-states pledged to make primary education truly universal in their countries by 2015.

While 83 countries are on schedule to meet that goal, according to the study, 71 nations are falling short, about one-half of them in sub-Saharan Africa, the world's poorest region.

In addition to high rates of HIV/AIDS infection, sub-Saharan Africa suffers from a huge foreign-debt load. International agreements have made some progress in reducing the debt, precisely to provide countries with more resources for health and education, but many development activists say these accords must go much further to ensure that the WEF goal of education for all can be achieved.

Developing countries on average spend about 40 US dollars per child on primary education, compared with 100 times that amount in the wealthy developed countries of North America, Europe and Asia.

When Kenya last year made primary education free - a major step toward the WEF goal - it found some 1.5 million children who had not been attending school flocked to classes. But the system was not prepared for such an influx, and average class size rose from 40 to 120.

According to the report, the experience demonstrated how developing countries needed far more resources for education and that, in the absence of greater debt relief, those resources would have to come from wealthy donors.

But it is not only a question of more money to reduce class sizes to manageable levels. The developing world currently has about 26 million primary teachers in their schools, but reaching the WEF target will require that between 15 and 35 million more be deployed, the report says.

Altogether, an extra 5.6 billion dollars will be required to reach the WEF target, according to the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), which the United States rejoined this year after a 20-year boycott.

That additional funding is roughly equivalent to what Washington currently spends in Iraq and Afghanistan every six weeks. -Dawn / Inter Press News Service