Rationale, Issues, and Conditions for Sustaining the Abolition of School Fees • 31
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solving the perennial problem of shortage of low-cost, adequatequality textbooks Effective programs to deal with overage children and to better adapt formal primary schools to a variety of local circumstances Methods of sustaining community participation in a fee-free environment.
Finally, many of the countries implementing school fee abolition are monitoring the process to learn how to better address challenges. SFAI should provide assistance in this area by facilitating exchange of experience between the national teams and by helping them systematize the lessons learned, thus further developing the knowledge base.
CONCLUSION To achieve universal completion of primary education and acquisition of the knowledge and skills specified in national curricula will require concerted action to improve quality. In turn, this will require a comprehensive package of reforms as well as additional financing for nonsalary inputs at the school level. One of the key purposes of SFAI is to promote “bold actions” whereby school fee abolition becomes a catalyst for other basic reforms to reach the objective of equity in both access and quality learning opportunities. This suggests that SFAI give more importance to the quality improvement component of the actions needed to reach this objective. Progress in literacy and learning, especially through universal primary education, has done more to advance human conditions than perhaps any other policy. Our generation has the chance of becoming the first generation ever to offer all children access to good-quality basic education. However, this will only happen if we have the political commitment—at the country as well as at the international level—to give priority to achieving this first in human history. It will also only happen if those who cannot afford to pay school fees can benefit from a complete cycle of goodquality primary education. Investment in good-quality fee-free primary education should be a cornerstone in any government’s poverty-reduction strategy. However, as concluded in the Malawi case study, the major lesson in implementing school fee abolition initiatives is that FPE is no quick fix; it requires planning, adequate financing, and resources. Implementation of FPE without sufficient resources and without thorough planning can undermine the quality of the education system and result in poor education outcomes.