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Enrolment at primary schools nationwide has leapt from 59% in 2000 to 95.4% today, putting the impoverished country well on course to achieve the second millennium development goal (MDG) of primary school education for all by 2015.

half of pupils will fail to qualify for secondary school, with 3,000 girls a year dropping out due to pregnancy.

The progress has come with a lesson in the law of unintended consequences. Enrolment has grown so fast in Tanzania that the school system is creaking with overcrowded classrooms, shortages of books, teachers and toilets, and reports of corporal punishment being used to keep order. In short, it seems that quality has been sacrificed for quantity.

ACAPULCO, Mexico — The message is delivered by a phone call to the office of one school, a sheaf of photocopied papers dropped off at another, a banner hung outside a third.

The demand is the same: teachers have until Oct. 1 to start handing over half of their pay. If they do not, they risk their lives. Extortion is a booming industry in Mexico, with reported cases having almost tripled since 2004. To some analysts, it is an unintended consequence of the government’s strategy in the drug war: as the large cartels splinter, armies of street-level thugs schooled in threats and violence have brought their skills to new enterprises. But the threat to teachers here in this tarnished tourist resort has taken the practice to a new level. Since the anonymous threats began last month, when students returned to classes after summer break, hundreds of schools have shut down.

“We are all scared,” said a high school drawing teacher who would give her name only as Noemi. “We are targets because we have a salary that is a bit more stable than the rest.”

What factors influence whether or not teachers trained in peace education actually teach about peace?

It involves getting the adult students to express their concerns about violence in their lives, presenting an analysis of different peace strategies, and arguing that teaching about alternatives to violence is an effective way to deal with the threats of violence both in schools and in the broader community.

The objectives of the course are to explore the role of violence in the lives of students, to consider the effect of violence upon educational practices, to examine how peace education can help deal with violence, and to provide examples of peace education activities and curricular ideas.

These lessons may be freely copied and used in a classroom but they remain the copyrighted property of the author.

PeaceBuilders is an organization that provides training for teachers, parents and others involved in the lives and wellbeing of young children and teens. The training goes beyond the nurturing and disciplinary aspects usually associated with child care, and also strives for a peaceful environment more conducive to learning.

One of the steps teachers will implement as part of the PeaceBuilders program will be a campaign to give up "put-downs." Other time will include the PeaceBuilders pledge, "praise people" activities, and seeking wise people for input, making them the subjects in a PeaceBuilders Hall of Fame.

Teachers were also offered tips as "First Aid for Anger," strategies that work well in a school setting as well as the home, to help build a more positive life."It's a program that has many applications in life, regardless of age," Bustos said.

Kigali — Early last year, the government introduced the 9-Year Basic Education (9 YBE) programme, which offers six years of primary education and three years of secondary education to all Rwandan children free of charge.The idea was to have school-going children unable to access education in the past to do so, and be able to compete in the job market regionally. The Ministry of Education also hopes that the programme will reduce the dropout rate in schools.Information from the Ministry of Education indicates that already, the current enrolment rate stands at 97 percent for boys and 98 percent for girls.

According to UNESCO, this is the highest enrolment rate in the region. So far, many countries are implementing free primary education. Few, however, have put in place a programme for post-primary education.

Several Headteachers say the programme has gained momentum following a recent schools construction campaign that has seen thousands of new classrooms built across the country. Nearly all the classrooms have been voluntarily built by parents, teachers, university students or government officials. They say the strategy of free education for all is beginning to pay off. The enrolment rate has increased as more children go to school.

KAZAN — Google has become a classroom tool in Tatarstan as the republic, already ranked by Forbes as Russia’s best region for business, invests heavily in digital technologies for its schools in hopes of becoming the best region for education as well. Tatarstan's annual budget for education has doubled over the past five years to 36 billion rubles ($1.2 billion), and it is spending 1.92 billion rubles over 2010-11 to develop computer-based education, the republic's education and science minister, Albert Gilmutdinov, said at the Electronic School 2011 conference in Kazan. In addition, 103.2 million rubles in federal funding is being used. Gilmutdinov recalled the Russian saying "a miser pays twice" as he explained the republic's hefty investment in education. To be commercially successful in the 21st century, Tatarstan will have to be well-educated, he told The Moscow Times at the conference last week.

The microprocessor producer has donated Intel-based computers to a Kazan classroom and conducted free teacher training in Tatarstan, said Sergei Zhukov, the Russia and CIS director of Intel's World Ahead Program, which works with governments to increase access to technology. The program's work in Tatarstan is one of  its largest projects in Russia, he said.

The republic's educational development strategy for 2010-15 includes installing computers and high-speed Internet in all of Tatarstan's 1,940 schools, purchasing digital educational content and training teachers to use the new technology. All schools will offer services such as school web sites, text messaging for parents and digital records and schedules. The region is working with partners including Intel, Google, Microsoft and the Tatarstan IT company ILC-KME CS.

Though today more than half of the students at the Liberté VI school are girls, Ms. Kidjo said there was more work to be done. Violence in school remains a reality for many Senegalese children, especially for girls.

Student Aida Yacine Sy, 8, said girls must be careful. “My mom told me not to wear short clothing. I should not go into a room alone with a teacher or a group of boys. It is not smart,” she said as her friends nodded in agreement. Other students at the school said violence could mean anything from bullying to rape. Seated alongside students at a small wooden desk, Ms. Kidjo listened to their stories. Violence, she told them, is never the answer. “When I was young, kids bullied me because I was small. My dad told me that my brain is my best weapon,” she said. “You must have a strategy. You must speak to your teachers and parents.”

A safe learning environment is essential to keeping girls in school. In Senegal, violence in school, early marriage, sexual abuse, gender discrimination and poverty can impede a girl’s ability to learn.