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Tens of thousands of teaching days have been lost in Wales through teachers taking time off due to stress, new figures show.

The Welsh Assembly Government said action had been taken to reduce the amount of stress teachers faced.

He said: "It could be because of pupil behaviour, because of workload, it could be because of things such as pressure for results. There could be bullying and harassment issues or it could be because of inspections. "Some of the days lost that are not put down to stress may be stress related in some way, but people don't necessarily want to put stress down as a reason. "In the more enlightened times that we're in now, we would like to think people would specify the true reason they're off but we do find for people who've been off for a long period of time, it might be stress but called something else."

When the only Haitian public teacher training institute collapsed in Port-au-Prince as a result of the earthquake, the once sparse availability of professional development opportunities for Haitian teachers became non-existent. Understanding the importance of continuous teacher training, Fanfan Joseph, an English teacher and President of the English Club of Cap-Haitien, organized a four-day training workshop for 50 English teachers in Cap-Haitien. Focusing on lesson planning, reflexive teaching, and cooperative learning techniques in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom, Joseph trained participants on practical skills that they could use in their classrooms immediately. The participants of this workshop celebrated Joseph’s efforts and encouraged him to organize another workshop, which he promptly did. This September, Joseph’s follow-on workshop focused on skills for effective teaching and learning in large classrooms. Teachers around the world struggle with large class size; a typical school in Haiti can include as many as 250 students in one classroom. The participants in Joseph’s workshops represent many different schools across northern Haiti, and each of them teaches hundreds of students. As a result of Joseph’s workshops, thousands of students across northern Haiti are engaged in interactive classrooms with teachers who have benefited from this recent and relevant training.

Another English teacher, Abel Mercier of Port-au-Prince, recognized that one of the most important things children need during times of crisis is the permission and space to have fun. “The secret to coping with post-traumatic stress in a community after an event such as the earthquake is to promote recreational activities among the children, teenagers, and adults,” says Mercier. This summer, Mercier organized a “Day of Fun” for over 80 high school students from Lycée Cité-Soleil in Port-au-Prince, the capital city that was hardest hit by the earthquake. Students gathered at the beach for a stress-free day of sports, arts, games, and more. By including a short workshop on the geological forces that cause earthquakes, and another on understanding the effects of psychology trauma, Mercier elevated his “Day of Fun” to a meaningful experience for a community in the midst of recovery.

Jovenal Thomas, another English teacher from Cap-Haitien, collaborated with Red Cross volunteers to deliver CPR training to high school students. “There is no Civil Defense Warning Program here, no 911 telephone number to call, limited ambulance service and very little access to medical treatment,” says Thomas. “Students need to be trained to deal with emergencies when they encounter them.”

water crisis threatens Yemen’s long-term stability.

But environmental problems don’t always make for exciting news stories, and amongst the plethora of threats to Yemen’s stability, the water crisis is often lost in the background.

Water resources are being rapidly depleted in many countries around the world, including the western United States, and access to clean water is a common problem through out the developing world. But even in the context of worldwide fresh water depletion, Yemen’s crisis is staggering: Yemenis use about a fifth of the amount of water recommended by the World Health Organization for healthy and hygienic living; the capital, Sana’a, may be the first world capital to run out of its own water supplies; and thousand-meter wells have recently been drilled in the country’s highlands to get at so-called “fossil water.”

“My seven-year-old said he will only go to school if I sit beside him,” said Jean “Neil” Moretta,

Neil “Junior” and his mother, Kateline, were at her aunt’s house when the 12 January earthquake struck, so were unharmed when their apartment building collapsed.  But Neil “Junior” is still distraught about losing his home. Luckily, the grown-up Neil had had a house built in Port-au-Prince and already was in the process of moving his family there.  So he’s optimistic things will settle down for his son very soon.

The first days and weeks after the quake were not easy for Neil.  He swiftly relocated his wife and son to their new home.  He helped pay for emergency medical treatment for his wife’s first cousin, Danny, whose leg was crushed when her building collapsed, killing her 5-month-old baby and her aunt.  Neil stayed by her side as volunteer Cuban doctors amputated her leg the day after the earthquake.  The surgery was performed under a tent outside the city’s general hospital.  With no anaesthesia.

Despite a decade-old commitment by world leaders to tackle the crisis, some 8.8 million children still die annually before they reach the age of 5. Nearly all of these needless deaths are easily preventable at little cost. Consider that number, 8.8 million. That is more than all Canadians aged 19 or younger. And that's how many young children die every year. It works out to 24,000 children per day. Seventeen per minute. Or 400 school bus loads every day, 365 days a year. All dead.At the same time, 500,000 mothers die annually in childbirth or from other pregnancy-related causes. In other words, simply being pregnant can kill you, depending on where you live. As the mother of a nearly 2-year-old child, I am reminded daily how fortunate I am to live in Canada. It is unimaginable to me that my child could die, as 1 million do every year, from the lack of a $10 bed net to protect him from malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

Diarrhea kills 1.5 million children annually. It is easily treated. So is malaria. Also, child blindness, too common in the developing world, can be prevented by just two vitamin A pills per year. Total cost: 4 cents. Better nutrition and safer birth conditions would annually save the lives of several hundred thousand pregnant women. Ten years ago, the nations of the world pledged to reduce hunger and death from a lack of basic health care. In one of their UN Millennium Development Goals, leaders committed to reduce maternal mortality rates by three-quarters and child mortality rates by two-thirds within 15 years. But, sadly, neither will be achieved by that target date, just five years away, unless donor countries like Canada reinvigorate the initiative.

Today, the world spends $49 billion (U.S.) on pet food every year. If half of that amount were added to current annual spending on maternal and child health, the child death rate could be cut nearly in half.

DR Congo, a vast country the size of Western Europe, has been mired in war and political unrest for decades. The United Nations has kept its largest peacekeeping mission here since 1999. It is also the world’s second poorest country, with 59 per cent of the population living below the international poverty line of $1.25 a day.

The gross enrolment rate for primary school in DR Congo – that is, the proportion of children of any age who are enrolled in primary school – decreased from almost 100 per cent 30 years ago to 64 per cent in 2005. Gross enrolment for girls today is at 58 per cent.

he programme is part of an initiative to place education in emergency and post-crisis transition countries on a viable path in order to achieve quality basic schooling for all children. “The school provides a protective environment,” UNICEF Goma Education Specialist Elena Locatelli said, noting that a few hours spent in the classroom each day also keeps children “occupied with activities that don’t let them think of the difficulties of their past.”

TUNIS, 9 February 2011 – He says he’s 16, but he looks 14, if he is a day. I met him at the fish market in central Tunis, on a weekday, at a time when he should have been in school. Hamza left school two years ago. He says the school principal kicked him out, for no valid reason. According to recent data, 98 per cent of children of primary-school age in Tunisia are entering primary school. Thousands of them, however, drop out every year, although education is compulsory between the ages of 6 and 16. In 2009, an estimated 69,000 children left school.

“I would like to sign up for a vocational training class,” he says. “I would still work at the market on my days off so that I can make some money. But I would really like to learn a skill.”

Until Hamza really turns 16, the minimum legal age for work, he will not be able to fulfill his wish. The principal at his former school will not give him the school certificate necessary to sign up for vocational training classes.

Picture a mother, hunching over a field with a Medieval-style hoe in hand, spending day after day tilling the soil under a beating hot sun - only to retire home to care for her family without electricity or running water.This is not a 12th century image, but a typical working day for scores of rural women in today's developing world, where lack of access to education and technology has forced many to resort to traditional and often painful methods of livelihood.

Women in Law and Development in Africa (WILDAF), a pan- African network bringing together individuals and organisations from 23 countries, is among the key regional groups tackling this issue head on. WILDAF believes lack of knowledge about education rights, specifically among young girls, is one of the main reasons forcing rural people to endure lives of agricultural hardship.

"We want to teach them how to develop projects, from tilling the ground to seeding, all the way through to packaging at an international level so the food will be accepted by everybody in other countries," she said. Agu cited a project where female farmers of moringa – a nutritious African plant – were able to increase the efficiency and ease of production, through simple modern conveniences.

CAIRO - Fatema Salah said her students had never sung the Egyptian national anthem quite the way they did Sunday, the first day back to school for most Cairo pupils. Before, they shuffled through the morning ritual, heads down and sleepy. This time, standing in the school's shady courtyard for the first time since the revolution, they belted it out.

"Today, everybody sang loud," said Salah, principal of the Dar El Tarbiah School, a secondary school in central Cairo. "It was real. Many of them were in [Tahrir] Square themselves. They are very proud."

But with the pride, nervousness remained. Nearly half of Salah's students were absent, and across the city thousands of families ignored the reopening of school, which had been anticipated as a step toward post-revolution normality.

Full-day kindergarten may be having a negative effect on the learning and personal development of some children, according to new research.Early results from a pilot study focusing on two classrooms in southwestern Ontario revealed that teachers in a regular school setting were often caught in the tension that exists between meeting curriculum expectations and teaching to student interests.

"There is an emphasis on standardization like never before . . . that is being pushed down on young children," said lead researcher Rachel Heydon. "This is something that is being created that doesn't exist elsewhere."Heydon said the findings can't be generalized to every full-day kindergarten classroom, but the results do raise questions about whether the practice will help children in the long-term.She said that standardized tests in Grade 3 created a "washback effect" that pushed aside student interests and development in favour of academic goals.

The Ontario government believes that the program has merit, saying in a release this week that students who have early success in schools are "more likely to go on to post-secondary education and training and gain the skills they need to succeed in the global economy."

"Going to school should not be a luxury, especially for the children in Dadaab. On the opposite, this is a powerful way to make their lives safer," emphasizes Stephen Gwynne-Vaughan, country director for CARE Kenya. "If children are left idle in the camps, they are most vulnerable to abuse, drugs and other threats."

When attending classes, children do not only learn how to read and write, but also build up their self-confidence by learning about their rights, good hygiene practices and other matters related to life in the camps. While schools are closed during the month of August, CARE has started an accelerated learning program for newly-arrived children, many of whom have never been to school before. In the first two days of the program, 1,100 children were admitted to class and are now getting up to speed to participate in regular school programs after the break. However, once classes resume in September, the schools' capacity to provide quality primary education for the growing number of children may be an impossible task.

CARE currently manages five regular schools in Dagahaley camp, reaching more than 15,100 children. Adults from the refugee population are trained as teachers and receive teaching material. Many of those teachers have been living in Dadaab since their early childhood themselves and were educated in the camps before becoming educators themselves.

NEW YORK, USA, 4 October 2011 – As school enrolment continues to climb throughout most of the developing world, the roles teachers play in our lives have become even more crucial. Tasked with providing a quality education to our current generation of students, teachers also have a significant hand in shaping the future by instilling in children essential cultural and social values such as tolerance, gender equality and open dialogue. Despite the heavy responsibility placed on their shoulders, in many parts of world they are rewarded poorly and in some countries even subject to deadly attacks.

This Wednesday will mark the annual celebration of World Teachers’ Day, and to commemorate the event, UNICEF’s podcast moderator Femi Oke spoke with Jamila Marofi, a high school teacher from Afghanistan, Gorma Minnie, a school administrator from Liberia and Professor Fernando Reimers from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in America.

Professor Reimers went on to highlight the need to provide educators with the proper training before and during the school year as well as creating an environment conducive to effective teaching.

In her job as a teacher-training co-ordinator in Huíla province, 43-year-old nun, Sister Cecília Kuyela witnesses school overcrowding every day. Primary School 200, which serves the poor area of João de Almeida, has 7,348 pupils for 138 teachers and eight permanent classrooms. At peak periods, classes are held in the street. But that is the least of Sister Cecília's worries.

During the war, people with only a grade 3 or 4 education became teachers. Since 2002, the pressure to meet MDG2 and to reduce Angola's 27% teenage illiteracy rate has seen the country recruit thousands of untrained school-leavers into teaching.

According to Unicef, less than 10% of five-year-olds have access to preschool. Only 76% of children between six and 11 are in primary school. Overall, more than 1 million six- to 17-year-olds are out of school.