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“You can have a school without a building, books, pens, desks and blackboards. But you can’t have a school without a teacher.”

Urgent action needed to keep pace with MDGs in education

10 December 2006

Commonwealth Secretary-General delivers opening address at 16CCEM in Cape Town, South Africa

Urgent action is needed if Commonwealth countries are to keep pace with Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in education, Secretary-General Don McKinnon has said.

“The clock is ticking. The small print of the second Millennium Development Goal reads that all children must complete a full cycle of primary school by 2015. That means they must be in primary school by the end of 2007,” Mr McKinnon said at the opening ceremony of the 16th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (16CCEM) in Cape Town, South Africa.

“Africa alone reckons it needs 5 million new teachers if it is to achieve universal primary education by 2015,” the Secretary-General stated, putting the spotlight on the lack of teachers in Asia and Africa.

Mr McKinnon saw the training of teachers as key to quality education.

“You can have a school without a building, books, pens, desks and blackboards. But you can’t have a school without a teacher,” he said.

“Education is the key to everything. It’s the key to peace and democratic stability, to jobs and economic growth, to good health, to respect and harmony. It is the key to billions of unique human beings fulfilling their unique potential.”

The full text of Mr McKinnon’s opening address at 16CCEM is available here.

To listen to excerpts from Mr McKinnon's opening address click here.