The rest are The Gambia; Ghana; Mauritania; Mozambique; Niger; Senegal; Sierra Leone; Togo and Rwanda and the Prime Minister of Lesotho.

In a letter to their counterparts in donor countries, the leaders emphasized the need for education which serves as a tool in reducing poverty and creating an overall healthier and skilled population.

A statement from the Accra Office of the World Bank on Tuesday said: “Unfortunately, despite impressive gains in enrolling children into schools in African countries and primary school completion rates and external aid for education in low-income countries was faltering.”

The statement added: “These African government leaders ask in particular support for the Education for All Fast-Track Initiative (EFA-FTI), which is seen as a key ally in their efforts to provide a quality education to all boys and girls in their countries.”

The EFA-FTI has provided support to education in 24 African countries and has helped to enrol 19 million more children in school in these countries.

The completion of a full course of primary school for all children by 2015 is one of the eight Millennium Development Goals, which was discussed at a 1GOAL Education for All Summit in South Africa convened by South African President Jacob Zuma on the day of the World Cup finals.

It marked a culmination in efforts led by the 1 Goal Campaign of football’s world governing body, FIFA, to push basic education in Africa higher up on the global agenda. Progress on the education goals will also be a key topic of a UN Summit in September 2010.

The Leaders in their letter called for increasing support to FTI which would help to reach the millions of children around the world, about half of them in Sub-Saharan Africa, who still did not go to school.

An estimated 14 million out-of-school children, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa, live in countries seeking support from EFA FTI this year and next.

Since its creation in 2002, EFA-FTI has grown to become a global partnership endorsing the education plans of 41 low-income countries around the world, including 24 in Sub-Saharan Africa.

To date, EFA FTI has granted US$ 2 billion to support the education strategies of developing countries. These funds have helped to train more than 300,000 teachers, construct 28,000 classrooms and to distribute over 200 million textbooks.