Report says poor countries face education crisis after $4.6 billion in global education cuts

Report: poor countries face education crisis

NAIROBI, Kenya — A new report says poor countries are teetering on the brink of an education crisis after $4.6 billion has been cut from education budgets worldwide.

Monday’s report by the Global Campaign for Education said the financial crisis is hitting education budgets hard.

One of the U.N.’s Millennium Development goals was for universal primary education. The U.N. says the number of children not in school has dropped from 106 million in 1999 to 69 million in 2008.

Still, only 76 percent of children in sub-Saharan Africa are in class. The continent accounts for almost half of the total number of children not in school.

World leaders meet at U.N. headquarters this week to discuss the Millennium Development Goals.