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Summary: On Friday the 25th November, Peruvian NGO members of the World Campaign for Education - of which Save the Children forms an active part - welcomed the news that the budget for education and associated programmes for childhood and adolescence will receive an increase in resources and funding for the year 2006. Peru: Putting Children First in the Public Budget On Friday the 25th November, Peruvian NGO members of the World Campaign for Education - of which Save the Children forms an active part - welcomed the news that the budget for education and associated programmes for childhood and adolescence will receive an increase in resources and funding for the year 2006. This was achieved following intense lobbying of the authorities. Dozens of the most high-profile personalities from the worlds of Peruvian literature, history, science, journalism and the arts signed up to a public petition stating that the Peruvian State could no longer continue to deny the right of Peruvian children to education; that it could no longer allow more than 3 367,000 (three million, three hundred and sixty seven thousand) children to finish school unable to read and write and more than 1 500,000 adolescents to leave secondary school illiterate and without understanding the four basic arithmetic operations. Furthermore, the education system is unprepared to face the reality of more than 1,500,000 children who both study and work, nor can it attract nor keep in education more than half a million rural girls excluded from school. In addition, the Peruvian State has so far been unsuccessful in turning around the huge disadvantages in health, nutrition and protection suffered by millions of school-age children. The Law of the Public Budget and Fiscal Balance approved by the Republican Congress on the 25th November forms a milestone with regard to the budget for childhood and adolescence, since at least 30% of the additional funds received by the state in 2006 (income is predicted to be greater than 2005), will be invested in child-related schemes, including education, health, early intervention and programmes prioritising the poorest rural areas of the country. It has also been agreed that Regional Governments will respect the budget guidelines regarding childhood and adolescence. Out next challenge is to ensure that the Minister for Education incorporates the recently approved budget into the existing one, and that the highest political authorities, to be chosen through the electoral process next year, are familiar with and indeed apply, the recent developments. Teresa Carpio, Co-ordinator of Save the Children UK’s Peru Programme