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Rwanda makes gains in all-inclusive education | Society | Guardian Weekly - 0 views

  • In Rwanda, children with disabilities typically face discrimination and are excluded from school and community life. Silas Ngayaboshya, a local programme manager for Handicap International (HI), says that "many families hide their kids at home because having a disability is a shameful thing for the child and the family, as it's considered to be a punishment from God".
  • Rwanda's ministry of education says that 10% of young people have disabilities, while the Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report 2010 concludes that the number of disabled children at school is likely to be small. A few attend their local mainstream school, though most go to special schools and centres in urban areas, too far for most Rwandans and mainly for children with visual or hearing impairments.
  • Despite these shortcomings, Rwanda's education system overall is considered to be one of the most progressive in Africa. The government recently introduced free compulsory education for the first nine years of school for all Rwandan children (this initiative is expected to increase to 12 years from next year). According to Unicef, Rwanda now has one of the highest primary school enrolment rates in Africa (95% of boys and 97% of girls in 2009). 
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  • Currently, the ministry of education and Unicef fund 54 "child-friendly" schools across Rwanda, which also provide "best-practice" examples to other schools in their cluster areas. A 2009 Unicef report on the initiative indicates that they have assisted 7,500 disabled children. The government is aiming to expand the programme to 400 schools nationwide by 2012, and has also adopted it as the basic standard for all Rwanda's primary schools.
  • Ngayaboshya, who worked with Claude, says that his inclusion plan also involved preparing the teachers and the other children at his school through measures such as pinning up Claude's picture in the classroom, talking in class about how disability can occur, inviting the class to contribute ideas that could help to include him, and encouraging Claude's father to visit the school and show teachers simple measures to assist his son.
  • It took weeks to integrate Claude into school life, but he now gets good grades and is making friends. And he walks over a kilometre every day on his crutches to go to school. Although it is a long way he doesn't mind the journey, and is excited about the classroom. 
  • Undoubtedly there are complex challenges for disabled learners in Rwanda. These include the lack of awareness among families that children with disabilities can attend school; poverty (poor families might need their children to support them with looking after animals, fetching water or firewood); the effects of the genocide in 1994, including the massacre of thousands of teachers that has reduced their numbers (the pupil-teacher ratio in Rwanda is as high as 60:1 according to HI); and the burden placed on resources by a curriculum shift from French to English as the official language of instruction.
Teachers Without Borders

UNESCO Uses Souktel Mobile Alerts System to Keep Gaza Schools and Students Safe - 0 views

  • UNESCO staff in Gaza recruited Souktel to create an SMS alert/survey system that warns parents and their children of any danger happening near local schools. The service forms a key part of UNESCO’s Crisis and Disaster Risk Reduction project, which aims to ensure that schools are secure community spaces.
  • "In conflict zones, when it's not safe to leave your house to get information, mobile phones can bridge the gap and keep everyone connected," says Souktel co-founder Jacob Korenblum. "This basic technology allows aid workers, educators and local families to stay in contact at all times." 
  • Here’s how it works: At each school, principals and teachers are given password-protected access to a web interface, where they can send SMS alerts to all parents’ mobile phones. In an emergency, they could write, "Attack near school today, please keep your children at home." Once the violence has ended, another message could go out saying, "Shelling has stopped; please come to school this morning."
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  • So far, 29 schools have been targeted for this project, with more than 11,700 students benefitting from the service.
Teachers Without Borders

Fake Facebook identities are real problem for schools | StarTribune.com - 0 views

  • The impersonator posed as a real Cottage Grove sixth-grader, created a Facebook page and posted threats that he would bring a gun to school and shoot three students. Fights broke out in school as students argued over who created the fake profile that ridiculed the boy, a special education student. It was not only the viciousness of the lies and threats that caught the attention of Cottage Grove police, but the youthfulness of those involved, only 11 and 12.
  • Amid a wave of proliferating Facebook fakes and cyber-attacks like this one -- including children too young for Facebook's minimum age of 13 -- Cottage Grove police and other metro law enforcement agencies find themselves coping with outdated state laws, limited resources and a steep learning curve on children's use of social media.
Teachers Without Borders

In Zimbabwe, school grants provide equal learning opportunities to girls | Ba... - 0 views

  • BULILIMA, Zimbabwe, 7 December 2011 – After completing the fourth grade at the top of her class, 13-year-old Ellen Mbedzi was forced to drop out of Mafeha Primary School in Bulilima, a district in south-western Zimbabwe. Her unemployed father did not see the value of spending the family’s limited resources on a girl.
  • Ellen became a recipient of the Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM) programme, a school grant programme that helps disadvantaged children stay in school, or, in Ellen’s case, return to the classroom. Her school also received support from the Education Transition Fund (ETF), which provided textbooks in four core subjects – math, English, environmental sciences and a local language – to every student in the school.
  • ETF, an innovative partnership of the government, UNICEF and the international donor community, offers large-scale support to the education sector, and provides much-needed resources and textbooks to every primary school. So far, 15 million textbooks were distributed around the country, and an additional distribution of 7 million is planned.
Teachers Without Borders

LOCAL - Teachers in Van ask for better conditions - 0 views

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    As only a few days remain before education restarts in the quake-hit city of Van, school teachers in the city complain of poor living conditions. Due to their quake-damaged houses, many teachers live in other housing such as large shipping containers or preschools and have complained about the living conditions. Among the teachers' complaints are communal living standards, such as communal toilets shared by more than 40 people, heating and the inability to cook.
Teachers Without Borders

Broken schools breed S.Africa's 'lost generation' - TrustLaw - 0 views

  • Despite pouring billions of dollars into education, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) has little to show for its money except for public primary schools regarded as among the worst in the world and millions of students destined for a life in the underclass. "If you don't have an education, you don't have a chance in life," said Netshiozwe, who is unemployed with little prospect of finding regular work. She and her HIV-infected aunt live together and scrape by on about $100 a month in welfare benefits. Nearly half of South Africa's 18 to 24 year olds -- the first generation educated after apartheid ended in 1994 -- are not in the education system and do not have a job, according to government data. Academics have called this group the "lost generation" and worry it will grow larger unless the government fixes a system riddled with failing schools, unskilled educators and corruption that stops funding from reaching its intended destinations.
  • Corruption eats away at money. Teachers are poorly trained and challenged by a constantly shifting curriculum. Schools are often shut by teachers' strikes.
  • Once almost exclusively white, universities now reflect the racial composition of the country with more people from groups disenfranchised by apartheid climbing the ladder with a degree or diploma. But at the same time, the number of people living in poverty has changed little since apartheid ended, with no remedy in sight given the structural problems in education.
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  • This month, the central government said Limpopo, which has recorded some of the country's worst results in standardised testing, had unauthorised expenditure of 2.2 billion rand ($275 million). The province had more than 2,400 teachers on the payroll, including 200 "ghost teachers" who were not in classrooms but were still paid.
  • Hundreds of schools do not have electricity or running water and absenteeism has become such a concern that President Jacob Zuma has begged teachers to show up for classes. A study by graft watchdog Transparency International last year pointed to massive local level corruption resulting in millions of students not having desks, chairs or books.
  • A cosy relationship between the ANC and organised labour, formed in their partnership against apartheid, has hampered apprenticeship programmes.
Teachers Without Borders

Children severely tortured in detention centers / schools used as detention centers - 1 views

  • Syrian army and security officers have detained and tortured children with impunity during the past year, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch has documented at least 12 cases of children detained under inhumane conditions and tortured, as well as children shot while in their homes or on the street. Human Rights Watch has also documented government use of schools as detention centres, military bases or barracks, and sniper posts, as well as the arrest of children from schools.
  • “Children have not been spared the horror of Syria’s crackdown,” said Lois Whitman, children’s rights director at Human Rights Watch. “Syrian security forces have killed, arrested, and tortured children in their homes, their schools, or on the streets. In many cases, security forces have targeted children just as they have targeted adults.”
  • Some of the arrests took place in schools. “Nazih” (not her real name), a 17-year-old girl from Tal Kalakh, told Human Rights Watch that in May 2011, security forces entered her school and arrested all the boys in her class, after questioning them about the anti-regime slogans painted on the school walls.
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  • Ala’a,” a 16-year-old boy from Tal Kalakh, told Human Rights Watch that Syrian security forces detained him for eight months, starting in May 2011, after he participated in and read political poetry at demonstrations. He was released in late January 2012 after his father bribed a prison guard with 25,000 Syrian pounds (US$436). During his detention he was held in seven different detention centres, as well as the Homs Central Prison. Ala’a told Human Rights Watch that at the Military Security branch in Homs: When they started interrogating me, they asked me how many protests I had been to, and I said “none.” Then they took me in handcuffs to another cell and cuffed my left hand to the ceiling. They left me hanging there for about seven hours, with about one-and-a-half to two centimetres between me and the floor – I was standing on my toes. While I was hanging there, they beat me for about two hours with cables and shocked me with cattle prods. Then they threw water on the ground and poured water on me from above. They added an electric current, and I felt the shock. I felt like I was going to die. They did this three times. Then I told them, “I will confess everything, anything you want.” 
  • A number of adult detainees and security force members who had defected and who were interviewed by Human Rights Watch confirmed the presence and torture of child detainees in facilities across Syria. “Samih,” a former adult detainee held in a political security facility in Latakia, told Human Rights Watch that children were subjected to worse treatment than adults, including sexual abuse, because they were children.
  • The government has used schools as detention centres, sniper posts, and military bases or barracks. “Marwan,” from the Insha’at neighborhood in Homs, and other Homs residents told Human Rights Watch that the army attacked Bahithet Al-Badiyah school on Brazil Street on November 4, and that military security forces then turned the school into a detention centre. Local activists also told Human Rights Watch that military security turned Al-Ba’ath elementary school in Joubar, another Homs neighborhood, into a military base and detention center in late December.
  • Children also told Human Rights Watch that their schools closed in 2011 due to violence, or that it was no longer safe for them to go to school. “Mohammed,” a 10-year-old boy from Homs, said, “I went to school for only one day [this year]. The teachers just gave us the books and told us not to come back. The road to school was not safe because of snipers.”
  • “Schools across Syria are closed because it’s too dangerous for students to attend, or because the military thinks schools are better used as detention centres than educational establishments,” said Whitman. “How long will Syrian children pay the price for the violence around them?” 
Teachers Without Borders

Settling school disputes before they escalate - latimes.com - 2 views

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    Settling school disputes before they escalate
Teachers Without Borders

UNICEF - At a glance: Niger - Food shortages force children to drop out of school in Niger - 0 views

  • NIAMEY, Niger, 6 February 2012 – The effect of food insecurity on children’s health is obvious; children, particularly those under age 5, are vulnerable to life-threatening malnutrition. Less obvious is the devastating impact of the crisis on children’s education. When there is not enough to eat, school can quickly become an afterthought. This is the scenario now facing countless families in the Sahel region of Africa, where a food crisis is looming. Particularly at risk are children in Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad and localized areas of Senegal.
  • “We have never had so little food,” said Oumou. “Of course, I want to continue going to school, but sometimes I am so hungry and low on energy that I cannot even see the blackboard.”
  • “Last year was okay, but not this year,” Souleye said. “I eat at school during the day, but it is not enough. Sometimes, I cannot sleep at night because of stomach cramps.”
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  • In Niger, 66 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line and educational indicators are already among the lowest in the world. Given these conditions, the importance of keeping children in school cannot be overstated.
Teachers Without Borders

Chinese children endure 'world's most dangerous school run' - Telegraph - 0 views

  • Four times a year, 80 children from a remote village in the Pamir mountains set off on a school run that would make most parents blanch, scaling 1000ft-high cliffs and fording swollen rivers to get to class.
  • "There is only one way to get to the village, and you have to climb up in the mountains," said Su Qin, the head teacher at Taxkorgan Town boarding school, where the children study. "The village is completely cut off. The roads only take you further away," she added.
  • The most dangerous part of the route is a path, which narrows to just a few inches wide, that has been cut into a cliff face some 1,000ft above the valley beneath. Without safety harnesses, the teachers gingerly shepherd their charges along.
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  • "Actually the parents think it toughens the kids up, and gives them good experience," said Ms Su. "However, some of the parents are reluctant to let their children go to school. They are so cut off from the world they do not appreciate the importance that having knowledge will play in their children's lives."
  • Guo Yukun, the local Communist party secretary, told China Central Television (CCTV) that a road is now under construction to the village. However, because of the difficulty of the terrain, it is not expected to be finished until late 2013.
  • "Our main task is to get these 80 primary and middle schoolchildren out of Pili village [and bring them to the school] safely. Our national policy is to make sure children have a free education. So the teachers take good care of them," he said.
Teachers Without Borders

ReliefWeb » Document » UN agency calls for more support for its school feedin... - 0 views

  • Nancy Walters, the chief of school feeding policy at WFP, told a New York forum on hunger that the programmes have many benefits beyond the immediate goal of ensuring children do not go hungry. They help children stay in class, reduce levels of diseases and other health problems, empower girls, lift education standards and free many youngsters from having to work.
  • Some 66 million schoolchildren in dozens of countries currently receive meals through the programmes, and Ms. Walters said WFP would continue to fund and implement them with the help of its current partners.
  • "We have seen the impact of fortified biscuits on anaemia levels in Bangladesh, for example. We know about the impacts in terms of gender, social protection, stability, income transfer, freed parental labour, combating child labour impacts and how school feeding can be a platform to local production, nutrition, hygiene and HIV information." She also emphasized their value to efforts to reach the social and economic targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which have a target date of 2015.
Teachers Without Borders

allAfrica.com: Uganda: Rwanda Wants 1,000 English Teachers - 0 views

  • Kampala — RWANDA needs close to 1,000 English teachers following the country's switch from French to English as the language of instruction in schools.Rwanda wants teachers from Uganda and other neighbouring countries to support its switch to English.
  • "The Education Service Commission in collaboration with the ministry of education of Rwanda announced that the government of Rwanda has embarked on a massive recruitment of teachers of English," he wrote. "Teachers (will be sourced) from within and outside Rwanda; including the East African Community region."
  • owever, other sources say English teachers are needed across the country, giving an estimate of between 500 and 1,000 vacancies."ILMI is ready to hire talented instructors to teach English and/or Business English to government officials and business executives in Rwanda," read an announcement on ESL-Jobs, an online jobmart.
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  • Rwanda has accordingly embarked on building the English language teaching capacity of all primary and secondary school teachers by organising and conducting English language training.
  • However, Rwanda's remuneration of teachers is not far better than Uganda's. According to an article published in the New Times, Rwanda's daily newspaper, last year, primary teachers in public institutions earn between Frw20,000 (about sh73,666) to Frw62,000 (about sh228,365) per month depending on their experience.
  • Until October 2008, education in Rwanda was dispensed in a mixture of its three official languages: local Kinyarwanda; French, which is spoken mainly by educated elite; and English, which was added in 1994.
  • Outside major towns, a vast majority speak only Kinyarwanda. Part of the government's rationale for the switch was that it intended to join the Commonwealth club of mainly former British colonies, which it did in late 2009.
Teachers Without Borders

BANGLADESH: School's In To Drive Poverty Out - IPS ipsnews.net - 0 views

  • The poor, who make up some 45 percent of Bangladesh’s 164 million population, are the main beneficiaries of the country’s education efforts. In addition, girls have overtaken boys in rates of enrolment, attendance and completion of primary education. With over 94 percent net enrolment, Bangladesh is one of only a handful of the world’s least developed countries that are close to achieving the U.N. millennium development goals of 100 percent enrolment rate in primary schools by 2015.
  • For example, schools by the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) – whose 1.2 million students account for 76 percent of all students in NGO-operated primary schools – are unique in that local community members decide and implement all academic programmes in consultation with parents and stakeholders. "We enrol drop out (and) non-enrolled children – mostly girls – from poor families, ensure high attendance, child friendly pedagogy and high completion of five-year academic studies in our primary schools," Safiqul Islam, director of BRAC’s education programme, told IPS.
Teachers Without Borders

Global Voices Online » Chile: The Legacy of the 1960 Earthquake in Valdivia - 0 views

  • Fifty years ago, the strongest earthquake ever recorded in history rocked the city of Valdivia, Chile. On May 22, 1960, the 9.5 magnitude earthquake struck the epicenter near the city of Cañete. However, Valdivia was the hardest hit locality with nearly 40% of its building destroyed and leaving close to 20,000 homeless.
  • From the city of Valdivia, Betsabé Sandoval (@_Nahra) has been uploading various vintage photos at Twitpic of the destruction from the 1960 earthquake, including this photo of the damage to the Valdivia Cathedral. In total, she has uploaded 10 different photographs.
  • There are many Twitter users who currently live in the city of Valdivia. Throughout the day, they have been reacting to the developments of the 2010 earthquake and how their fellow residents were affected. The Twitter user @tapeks writes about the current mood of the city: Se ve el temor en la gente, todos andan intranquilos y las calles se ven desoladas, se ve tan raro #Valdivia You can see the fear in the people, everyone walks around restless, the streets are desolate, it looks unusual
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