| The United Nations Millennium Summit was held in September 2000 and established eight world goals to be achieved by 2015. The second of these goals resolved that all boys and girls throughout the world will be allowed to receive a primary education through the fifth grade. This study compared the progress of six developing countries toward the United Nations' Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education and their demographic, economic, and human resource statistics.;This study examined two developing countries each from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The countries used as case studies were Afghanistan, Nepal, Algeria, Uganda, Peru, and Venezuela. Specifically, the comparison between changes in the countries' percentage of primary education enrollment and the countries' rural-urban demographics, the student-teacher ratios, and their expenditures on education as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from 2000 and 2005 were examined.;This study used a qualitative research design, in which a collective case study examined the six chosen countries. In addition to the research questions that guided this study, additional political, economic, and social factors were discussed as significant factors affecting a country's success in achieving primary education. As a result of this study, it was concluded that, at the current rate, not all developing countries will achieve the Millennium Development Goal of primary education by 2015. Among the main themes that emerged from this study are (1) countries with smaller rural populations have higher primary enrollment rates, (2) countries that have smaller student-teacher ratios have higher primary enrollment rates, (3) the expenditures devoted to primary education as a percentage of the GDP vary greatly among developing countries, and (4) it is apparent that there are many other political, economic, and social factors that can affect a country's progress toward primary education. |
