A proposed new global online university “has enormous potential to lend hope, learning and access to marginalized groups who presently could not reach higher education.” This is the message of Rabab Fatima, Secretary-General of the Fifth UN Conference on the Least Developed Countries, known as LDC5.

Notwithstanding progress in increasing enrolment rates for primary education, 16.2 per cent of children of primary school age were out of school in least developed countries (LDCs) in 2019 and almost half of children out of school worldwide are in those same countries, with girls, children with disabilities and other children in vulnerable situations disproportionately represented.

Enrolment and completion rates for tertiary education remain low, which has far-reaching implications for the structural transformation agenda of the least developed countries. Most of them depend on aid for their education budgets. At the secondary and tertiary levels, gender disparities and disparities for the poorest and most vulnerable exist.

“Clearly, the education systems in the LDCs require significant development to equip their young people with the skills they need for the future,” said Ms. Fatima, who is also the UN High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (UN-OHRLLS) at an LDC5 high-level side event on the proposed online university for LDCs.

Source: United Nations