Primary school years Under the Millennium Development Goals,
Madagascar hopes to achieve primary education for all by the
year 2015. The country’s growing primary school enrollment rates
over recent years have been impressive; and the number of
children enrolled in primary school has increased from almost
2.5 million in 2001-2002, to nearly 4.5 million in 2008-2009.
Yet with the onset of the political crisis in 2009, and the
economic decline that has followed, national spending on
education has been cut. Exacerbated by this immediate threat,
there are serious constraints facing primary education. Low
completion rates are a direct result of a lack of capacity:
there are not enough trained teachers in Madagascar, and there
are not enough classrooms.There are still 400,000 children (14
percent) between the ages of six and ten that are not in school.
Among those who are enrolled, many will not receive an adequate
education, or complete their primary school years. An estimated
2,000-3,000 classrooms will be needed