DO BANGLADESH AND PERU REACH UNITED NATIONS MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS BY 2015? A COMPARATIVE PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT

Education is a society’s main instrument for reproducing itself and a compelling ingredient for lasting meaningful socioeconomic change. Therefore at the beginning of new millennium when the United Nations Member States was trying to reach a global consensus for global sustainability and development, issues related to universal primary education was a rational choice for them. This paper compares the status quo of the access to universal primary education (UPE) and possible scenario by 2015 in Bangladesh and Peru, where ‘development’ takes place in reality. The increase of universal primary school enrolment is closely related to the national and international spending on education sector for these countries and in addition to this, issues like population growth and poverty traps also put increased pressure on the resources allocation to education. Mostly based on secondary information (e.g. literature analysis and analysis through World Development Indicators, United Nations Millennium Development Goals Indicators and United Nations Children’s Fund Data), this paper highlights the macro level comparative scenarios and challenges that how these two countries are putting their efforts and facing challenges in achieving universal primary education enrolment targets as part of their UNMDGs commitments by 2015