To read a UN Report on the crucial role of education in the achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), click here.
From the report: "The MDGs with targets for 2015 crystallized the growing consensus which emerged during the 1990s, namely, that poverty reduction and the provision of basic social services need to be at the centre of development policy. Of the eight MDGs, two are directly related to education:
MDG 2 calls for the achievement of universal primary education by 2015 whereby every child will complete a full course of primary education.
MDG 3 calls for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women with the elimination of gender disparities at primary and secondary school levels by 2005 and across all education levels by 2015."