Excluding the Poor : globalisation and educational systems

The article starts from the fact that one billion adults are illiterate world-wide, that more than 100 million children of school age are not schooled, and that the democratisation of the access to education is often only rhetorical. On the basis of available statistics it tackles successively three questions. First, who finances education and how much do they spend? Secondly, what resources or means are devoted to the education of an individual, and how can these data be evaluated. And finally, do the inequalities between individuals, social groups or nations tend to de- or increase with respect to education access. It will be shown that, for example, in developed countries like France, the social inequalities when it comes to education have widely diminished and can appear as relatively minor when compared to those affecting children from the poorest countries. At macro-economic level the ‘tendentious reduction of education systems' productivity is not valid. Schools are unequally efficient with the same means. The traditional distinction between developed and developing countries is changing, part of which is due an unequal development of developing nations. The least advanced have remained outside of the race, and the distance is increasing.