| projects & activities Making the Millennium Development Goals a Reality One hundred and ninety countries, including Nepal, have committed themselves to achieving eight Millennium Development Goals aimed at eradicating extreme poverty and improving the welfare of their people. The second of these goals is to “achieve universal primary education” with the specific target of ensuring that “by 2015 children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.” This commitment to the world’s children echoes a similar promise undertaken by many of the same countries in Jomtien, Thailand in 1990 that remains unfulfilled. Delegates to The World Education Forum in Dakar in 2000 acknowledged that in certain countries the enrolment, persistence and completion rates that denote achievement in primary education had fallen. Despite the investment of substantial resources in education infrastructure and teacher training, significant populations of children in these countries—and girls in particular—were not succeeding at school. Particular reference at The World Education Forum in Dakar was made to barriers, both visible and invisible, that impede the progress of children at school. The Millennium Development Goal of achieving universal primary education includes three indicators used to measure progress:
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