I - Foundational issues -- Michael Omolewa's advocacy of widening access to education -- Widening access by bringing education home -- Access to education: a global perspective -- Conceptualizing the widening of access to education as social justice -- Education, law, and social justice -- Globalization and state socialism: end of illusions or new educational opportunities? -- II - Overviews -- Widening participation for social justice: poverty and access to education -- HIV/AIDS as a depleting factor in widening access to education -- The dialectics of poverty, educational opportunities, and ICTs -- UNESCO policies and conferences: widening access to education to further social justice -- Universalizing access to basic education: UNESCO's normative action -- III - National case studies -- Reaching the unreached learner: lifelong learning, adult and community education in Victoria, Austra -- Access and participation issues in New Zealand Adult, Community, and Tertiary Education -- The United States' "No Child Left Behind Act" and its implications for widening access to education -- Towards comparative equality but persisting inequality in relation to the ambitions of Swedish education -- Problems and prospects of access to education in China -- Contexts and challenges of widening access to education in Japan -- Social justice and access to education: a case study of Pakistan -- Opportunities and challenges of widening access to education: adult education in Botswana -- Access and equal opportunity in higher education in the United States: the effects of education and public finance policies -- IV - llustrative and special cases -- From exclusion to participation in English higher education -- African school curriculum as a front on which to widen access to education -- Educational access for girls: the case of Kano State of Nigeria -- Widening access to university education in Nigeria: the Open University option -- Mature age entry and widening access to university education: a Southern African perspective -- Access to basic education for girls: the Nigerian experience -- V - Future directions -- Widening access to education in the era of globalization: future policy thrusts -- Widening access to education in the era of globalization: future research thrusts.

Access to education for all, everywhere, is among the priorities advanced by the International Panel on Democracy and Development. It would be illusory to seek to promote development or to claim to strengthen democracy without focusing, at the same time, on eradicating the scourge of illiteracy, which still, today, affects one adult in five in the world. Universal access to education, a gage of social justice, is much more than a right—it is an open door to freedom: the freedom to initiate, to act and to take one’s own destiny in hand. True, access to education has progressed considerably in recent years, notably to the benefit of women who, nonetheless, still represent two-thirds of illiterate adults. But the strides made conceal widening disparities, with some countries still suffering from a combination of backwardness and inequality. This means that we must step up our efforts. This book, issued in honor of the President of the General Conference of UNESCO, Michael Abiola Omolewa, who has devoted his life to the cause of education, is a major contribution to helping women and men of goodwill, who must more than ever fight to secure for the have-nots of this world the right to education. Boutros Boutros-Ghali Chairperson of the International Panel on Democracy and Development, UNESCO Former Secretary-General of the United Nations.