Brown urges global free education

Gordon Brown said education was the 'greatest gift' for poor nations

Chancellor Gordon Brown has called for free education to be provided for every child in the world.

"Education could be the greatest gift the richest nations make to the poorest," said Mr Brown in an article for The Guardian newspaper.

The cost would not be "prohibitive," with an extra £10bn a year needed by 2010, he says.

He said the plan could help combat the "fundamentalist indoctrination" offered by religious extremists, Mr Brown says.

Mr Brown said the cost of his scheme would be "only 2p a day for each person in the richest nations".

Today education for all makes not just moral and economic sense, but strategic sense too Gordon Brown Chancellor

Mr Brown hailed Britain's commitment of £8.5bn over 10 years - "enough for 15m school places" - but said more could be done.

"The alternative is what I saw outside Abuja, in Nigeria: madrassas created by religious extremists, offering free education but fundamentalist indoctrination, filling the void created by our failure to act.

"Today education for all makes not just moral and economic sense, but strategic sense too."

Linking education to this year's 200th anniversary of Britain voting to end the slave trade, he said abolishing child labour "could be no better commemoration".

"The best way to commemorate the end of the slave trade in 1807 is to end the slavery of ignorance in 2007," Mr Brown said.

He wants "every parent, student and school in Britain and the developed world to become campaigners, calling on every government to give every child access to schooling."

With International Development Secretary Hilary Benn, Mr Brown was launching a pamphlet for teachers and pupils entitled "Education for every child" to promote links between British schools and developing countries.