This blog post was originally published by the Education for All Global Monitoring Report’s World Education Blog. With less than three years until the deadline for the Education for All goals, I sincerely hope 2013 is a year of urgent action to accelerate progress – particularly given the recent stagnation , with 61 million children still out of school. It’s likely we will have unfinished business in 2015, as well as new challenges, so I also hope we see consensus this year on the central place of equitable educational access and learning in the broader post-2015 framework. Even though 2015 is not far away, there are three actions that can be taken to accelerate progress: 1. Make primary schooling fee-free Many countries have abolished primary school fees over the past decade, resulting in a massive boost to enrolment that has particularly benefited children from poor households, and especially girls in these households. But more needs to be done to reach children in countries where fees are still being charged, and to ensure schooling really is free even where fees have been abolished. Evidence in our latest EFA Global Monitoring Report shows that in seven countries that have officially abolished fees, they still make up at least 15% of household education spending, reaching over 30% in Uganda. 2. Set national priorities by identifying marginalized groups Identifying the groups that are being left behind is the first step to addressing the problem of the remaining 61 million children out of school. In 2012, the EFA Global Monitoring Report team developed a new, user-friendly, interactive website, the World Inequality Database on Education (WIDE), that allows easy identification of groups who are being denied education opportunities, whether due to poverty, gender or where they live – the groups that need to be given priority in national policies. The website also shows where progress is being made. Comparing Bangladesh and Pakistan, for example, it is clear that Bangladesh’s policies targeting disadvantaged girls by providing stipends has helped to narrow gaps, which remain wide in Pakistan. The percentage of the poorest girls in Pakistan who have never been to school fell from 78% in the early 1990s to 62% in the late 2000s, a much smaller drop than in Bangladesh, where it fell from 91% to 44% over a similar period.