Coalition pledges $4.5B to get world’s children in school by 2015

NEW YORK (AP) — A coalition of governments, charities and U.N. agencies pledged $4.5 billion Thursday in an effort to get all the world’s children in school by 2015.

A meeting — which included British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Australian Prime Minister Mark Rudd, Jordan’s Queen Rania, World Bank chief Robert Zoellick and former child laborers — was meant to boost the effort to eradicate illiteracy and provide universal primary schooling by 2015.

That was the target year established by a U.N. summit in 2000, but as Brown noted, the pace at this point would not reach the goal even by the end of this century.

Among those joining in to try to change that were rock star humanitarians Bono and Bob Geldof, who pledged to do their part by opening two new teacher training colleges in Malawi and Rwanda. The soccer federation FIFA chipped in, too.

The donations were announced at Thursday’s “Class of 2015: Education For All” pledging summit, which has a goal of getting 75 million more children into school — and ending discrimination against girls, who are frequently the last to be sent to school and the first to be pulled out in much of the world.

The meeting opened with appeals by two girls who escaped from child labor with the help of humanitarian groups.