Seven years ago 164 governments, together with partner organizations from around the world, made a collective commitment to dramatically expand educational opportunities for children, youth, and adults by 2015. Participants at the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal, endorsed a comprehensive vision of education, anchored in human rights, affirming the importance of learning at all ages and emphasizing the need for special measures to reach the poorest, most vulnerable and most disadvantaged groups in society. This sixth edition of the "Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report" assesses the extent to which these commitments are being met. There is clearly a "Dakar effect," evidence that rallying around common goals can mobilize countries to empower individual lives. Partly because of the abolition of tuition fees, more children are enrolled in school than in 2000, with the sharpest increases in the regions farthest from the goals set in Dakar. Many governments have introduced targeted strategies to reach the poorest households and to encourage girls' schooling. A growing number are conducting national assessments to measure pupils' learning achievement, valuable evidence for improving education quality. Though a recent downturn is cause for concern, aid to basic education has increased rapidly since 2000. As education systems expand, however, they face more complex and more specific challenges. They must address the increasing number and diversity of student populations by ensuring that all children and youth, regardless of their backgrounds, gain access to a quality education. They must act upon the challenges of the era: rapid urbanization and the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the demands of knowledge societies. Any failure to deliver on these obligations breaches commitment to universal basic education. The EFA Global Monitoring Report offers an authoritative reference for comparing the experiences of countries, understanding the positive impact of specific policies and recognizing that progress happens when there is political vision and commitment. (Contains 48 figures, 80 tables, 25 text boxes, 8 maps, and 20 footnotes. The following are appended: (1) The Education for All Development Index; (2) Prospects for the achievement of EFA by 2015: Methodology; (3) National learning assessments by region and country; (4) National policies to advance Education for All in thirty countries; (5) Statistical tables; (6) Aid tables; (7) Glossary; (8) Abbreviations; and (9) Index.) [This report was produced by United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)'s EFA Global Monitoring Report Team, under the direction of Nicholas Burnett.]