The Education for All (EFA) movement and the education targets within the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) have provided an impetus for many African countries to push for
Universal Primary Education (UPE), often with extensive external support. Aside from the rights
based argument for the importance of UPE, policy documents have frequently justified the need
for investment in education by pointing to the poverty alleviating benefits that have found to be
associated with it (see for examples UNESCO 2002, 2003). The focus on the primary sector is
justified by arguments of equity and evidence that in countries where primary education is far
from universal, investments in the primary sector give the highest social rates of return. As noted
elsewhere (Willliams 2005), there is an ominous sense of déjà vu about this rush to achieve UPE
by 2015. Many countries in Africa have at sometime in the past half century come close to
achieving UPE and yet the hoped-for benefits in terms of social and economic development
have not been very evident. Impressive surges in primary enrolments in the 70s and 80s were in
many cases followed by regression in the 90s.