BSGE Tech 8-1

Education enhances lives. It ends generational cycles of poverty and disease and provides a foundation for sustainable development. A quality basic education better equips girls and boys with the knowledge and skills  necessary to adopt healthy lifestyles, protect themselves from HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, and take an active role in social, economic and political decision-making as they transition to adolescence  and adulthood. Educated adults are more likely to have fewer children, to be informed about appropriate child-rearing practices and to ensure that their children start school on time and are ready to learn.

Education is a fundamental human right: Every child is entitled to it. It is critical to our development as individuals and as societies, and it helps pave the way to a successful and productive future. When we ensure that children have access to a rights-based, quality education that is rooted in gender equality, we create a ripple effect of opportunity that impacts generations to come.

In addition, a rights-based approach to education can address some of societies’ deeply rooted inequalities. These inequalities condemn millions of children, particularly girls, to a life without quality education – and, therefore, to a life of missed opportunities. UNICEF works tirelessly to ensure that every child – regardless of gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic background or circumstances – has access to a quality education. We focus on gender equality and work towards eliminating disparities of all kinds. Our innovative programmes and initiatives target the world’s most disadvantaged children: the excluded, the vulnerable and the invisible.

I came away from the experience with a lot more than the standard shock at the poverty and conditions in the developing world. Instead, I was surprised by how little is really needed to change those conditions.

The children we worked with were up against more than just shabby schools. In Ecuador, as in many developing countries, public education costs money. Between books, matriculation fees, uniforms, and supplies, each child must pay at least 200 dollars a year—an impossible amount for families living on two dollars a day.

This year, that number totaled 48 matriculating students. Second, we prepare the students with summer courses in mathematics and English, subjects in which the students are typically lacking. Working in accordance with Ecuadorian standards for secondary education, we train volunteers to teach summer classes in the village schools.

"[School] toilets are not clean and well maintained. The current design and location of toilets are not acceptable for children, particularly girls... There are no facilities for grown-up girls," Stanikzai said.

In 1985 the structure of the educational pyramid consisted of three years of noncompulsory preschool education; six years in primary school; and six years in middle school, divided into two years of intermediate education and four years of secondary school, or into four years and two years (Plan de Reforma). Students who continued to that point received their high school degree (bachillerato) and might continue to the tertiary education provided by the Dominican universities, which conferred either licentiates (licenciaturas), ingenerias, or doctorados (doctorates—for law and medicine only), depending on the field of study.

Support school construction, provide educational materials, train teachers With your help, “Schools for Africa” will support the construction and reconstruction of schools and the provision of education materials in six African countries, Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa and Zimbabwe. It will develop training programmes for teachers and strengthen school governance and management. In the six countries, schools will be established mainly in rural areas.

over 1,000 pupils and students are now suffering from overcrowding in various schools in the different parts of the region because of the lack of classrooms following the destruction of 259 school buildings following the onslaught of typhoon "Pepeng."