Knowledge is power

The literacy rate of the population of Belarus remains one of the highest in the world, meanwhile, different regions of the planet experience devastating increases in the number of children and young people who are not covered by school education 

Last week, the country began the 2022 admission campaign. It is planned that about 53,500 applicants will become undergraduate students at 49 universities, about 39,500 more people will study in institutions of secondary specialised education and about 26,700 young people — in institutions of professional training education. In general, the adult literacy rate in Belarus has always been one of the highest in the world, now it reaches 99.9 percent, and the enrolment rate in preschool or primary education is higher than in Europe and North America. The world is at risk of facing a major crisis in education: almost 200 million children in different countries have not attended school in recent years. However, it will obviously not be possible to solve this problem by 2030...

Hard mark to hit

Ensuring quality education for all is the fourth goal in the list of 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. And, as it turned out, one of the most difficult to achieve. World education was in crisis even before the pandemic, the consequences of COVID-19 restrictions made the situation catastrophic.
According to a new UNESCO report, only one in six countries will be able to achieve the fourth Sustainable Development Goal and ensure universal access to quality education without additional action by 2030. 

Analysts estimate that 84 million children and young people will still be out of school by the end of the decade.

Today, UNESCO Member States expect the proportion of students who have acquired basic reading skills at the end of primary school to increase from 51 percent in 2015 to 67 percent in 2030. However, it is not out of the woods yet: according to various estimates, 300 million children and youth will not master the basic numeracy and literacy skills they need to succeed in life. Experts point out that, despite the promise of universal secondary education, only one in six countries aims to achieve this target by 2030, only four out of ten young people in sub-Saharan Africa will complete secondary education.

Belarusian path 

The compilers of ‘A Roadmap for SDG Implementation in the Republic of Belarus’ emphasise that, unlike many neighbouring countries, Belarus, having gained independence in 1991, did not undertake a large-scale and disruptive restructuring of its education system. As a result of this stable continuity, the country has made significant progress in achieving high enrolment rates at all levels of education. 
Net enrolment rates put us on par with most high-income countries in the world. The authors of the document also emphasise that the high rates of higher education make it possible to classify the youth of Belarus as the most educated in the world. 

The country’s adult literacy rate has consistently been one of the highest in the world and currently stands at 99.9 percent. In terms of enrolment of children in primary and secondary education, Belarus is included in the group of countries with the highest level of development.

Figures and facts
Belarus ranks 32nd in the education index in the Human Development Index and has the best result among the CIS countries.  
Belarus ranks 17th among 163 countries of the world according to the ‘Access to Basic Knowledge’ indicator in the Social Progress Index for 2020. The leading positions among the CIS member states in terms of coverage of children aged from one to six years old attending preschool education institutions have been strengthened. In 2021, it amounted to 88.5 percent.
Almost 1.3 billion rubles were provided for financing the education sector in the 2021 budget, and more than 1.4 billion rubles in the 2022 budget. 

Education in Belarus 
(at the beginning of the 2021/22 academic year, according to Belstat)

► Institutions of preschool education — 3,760.  The total number of children — 405,500 people.
► Institutions of general secondary education — 2,967.  The number of students — 1.1 million people. 
► Institutions of professional training education — 172.  The number of students — 59,900 people. 
► Institutions of secondary specialised education — 221. The number of students — 107,500 people.
► Institutions of preschool education are attended by 88.5 percent of preschool children. Preparation for school in Belarus covers all 5-year-olds.
► The number of teachers in institutions of general secondary education is 106,700 people.
► There are on average ten students per teacher, five in rural schools, and 12 in urban schools.
► In 50 institutions of higher education, there were 243,000 undergraduate students, of which 18,500 were foreign citizens  (7.6 percent of the total number of students). 
► There were 12,300 postgraduate students at the second-cycle higher education level.
► There are 273 students and undergraduates of higher education institutions per 10,000 people of the population of Belarus.

What about the world? 
(From the UNESCO 2019 Global Education Monitoring Report and the UNICEF State of the Global Education Crisis report, December 2021)

Even before the pandemic, the global education system was in a global crisis: 56 percent of primary and 61 percent of senior school children (617 million children and adolescents in total) could not read and count. The UNESCO outlined the inability of many children to attend school as the main reason for this state of affairs.

Other indicators of access to education are even more dismal: 16 percent (61 million) of children are not enrolled in lower secondary education, and 36 percent (138 million) in upper secondary education. One in five children between the ages of six and 17 does not attend school, and one in three young children does not receive preschool education.

Before the pandemic, 750 million adults worldwide remained illiterate. Almost half of them are residents of Central and South Asia, more than a quarter are the population of sub-Saharan Africa. Two-thirds of illiterate adults are women.

More than 1.6 billion children and adolescents have been completely or partially stopped from school due to coronavirus lockdowns. Since the beginning of the school year in September 2020, only 16 percent of students worldwide have attended school — 35 percent in September 2021. In total, schools were closed for 18 weeks in 2020-2021 — half of the school year.

By Polina Konoga