Formal education systems in poor countries are typically expensive and exclusive. A small proportion of children receive a disproportionate share of their benefits. Attention is slightly shifting towards making the first cycle of education more widely available and more generally useful to children in the primary age group. But recent proposals to reduce the costs of the primary cycle by introducing shorter and cheaper basic education programmes which would run in parallel with orthodox primary schools are ill‐conceived. Reforms which include all schools and which include changes in the institutional links between the school system and the labour market appear to be required if the basic educational needs of rural populations are to be served effectively.