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According to US AID, there are approximately 600,000 displaced people living in 416 makeshift camps in Port-au-Prince. Sanitation conditions in the camps remain a grave concern. With heavy seasonal rains fast approaching, the population is extremely vulnerable to exposure and water-born disease.

Two leading directors of Doctors Without Borders have called the relief effort to date "broadly insufficient." In a March 5 interview, they say that, “The lack of shelter and the hygiene conditions represent a danger not only in terms of public health, but they are also an intolerable breach of the human dignity of all these people.”

Conditions are also critical outside the earthquake zone. Cap Haitien, Haiti’s second largest city located 120 km north of Port au Prince, has received an estimated influx of 50,000 refugees. Its mayor, Michel St. Croix, recently told the Miami Herald, “We need housing, sanitation, security -- we need everything.'' He said the city has received next to no assistance from the United Nations nor the International Red Cross.

In an interview with Associated Press on March 5, Haiti’s Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive repeated his government’s growing concern with the international aid effort. "Too many people are raising money without any controls, and don't explain what they're doing with it."

Farmer warned against the “trauma vultures” descending on Haiti. He asked why so many years of aid and charitable funds going to Haiti has left the country poorer than ever.

Canada was one of the few large countries in the world that did not send civilian emergency rescue teams to Haiti. Its official aid mission arrived one week after the earthquake in the form of two warships and 2,000 military personnel. They pitched into the relief effort and earned praise for their work. But most of the assistance brought by the military, including its field hospital in Léogâne and its emergency health center in Jacmel, have now been withdrawn.

“The Canadian military is not a relief agency. It helped out with short-term needs. Aid and reconstruction is a long-term process. Who is going to pick up where the military’s work left off?”

Prior to the earthquake, Cuba had some 350 health professionals volunteering in Haiti. That number, including graduates and students from the Latin American Medical School (ELAM) in Cuba, has expanded considerably. Since 2005, 550 Haitian doctors have graduated from ELAM. The school received its first Haitian students in 1999. Currently, there are 570 students from Haiti attending the school.

Timely and informative articles and videos are also posted to the website of the Canada Haiti Action Network (http://canadahaitiaction.ca/) and the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (http://ijdh.org/).

Ms Bitamazire also urged head teachers to supplement the theoretical teaching with vocational knowledge to enable students attain survival skills. "It doesn't really help to speak good English when you cannot practically do anything .These (vocational skills) many despise are the ones that change people's lives," She said

The UNICEF Representative stressed that by embracing the Child Friendly School concept, schools would be managed in a way that ensured a child’s holistic development. It would also address the questions of equity, access and quality of education.

Bisi Olateru-Olagbegi, executive director of the Women's Consortium of Nigeria (WOCON) and board member of WILDAF, said educating girls with both formal and practical education was key to addressing the gender imbalances and breaking the cycle of poverty. "When a women is empowered and she can assert her rights in the community she can rise up to any position and be part of decision making and raise the status of women," Olateru- Olagbegi said.

Although enrolment levels have risen in many developing countries since 2000, UNICEF estimated there were still more than 100 million children out of school in 2008, 52 percent of them girls and the majority living in sub-Saharan Africa.

Subsequently there has been a measurable increase in girls attending school, a trend that has led to fewer early marriages and teenage pregnancies as well as a reduction in the number of youths who are trafficked and prostituted. In spite of the gains, however, girls are still largely underrepresented in the science and technology fields. "Even when girls go to school there is a bias that girls are not supposed to learn science and technology; they're still doing the social sciences and humanities," Olateru-Olagbegi said. "They don't think that the faculties of girls are developed enough and it's mere discrimination."

"When I returned from Tanzania, I hoped to continue with my studies but I had no chance of doing so because I didn't understand French or Kirundi," Imed Hakiza, now a small-scale trader at Mabanda market, said.

“The situation is complex. The school is not recognized by Burundian law but teachers and the principal are doing something good, which made us decide not to close the school even though we were asked to do so," he added.

"Besides language training, we are adopting a holistic approach in providing returnees with life skills like sports for integration, culture and arts, awareness-raising and discussions of youth-relevant issues such as HIV/AIDS, sexual and reproductive health, environmental awareness and conflict resolution," Zeus said.

According to RET, some 690 students are enrolled in intermediate level courses to learn French and Kirundi and culture clubs have been set up in 37 secondary schools across the provinces of Bururi, Makamba and Rutana.

But within India, there is widespread recognition that the country has not invested enough in education, especially at the primary and secondary levels.

In the last five years, government spending on education has risen sharply — to $83 billion last year, up from less than half that level before. Schools now offer free lunches, which has helped raise enrollments to more than 90 percent of children.

But most Indian schools still perform poorly. Barely half of fifth-grade students can read simple texts in their language of study, according to a survey of 13,000 rural schools by Pratham, a nonprofit education group. And only about one-third of fifth graders can perform simple division problems in arithmetic. Most students drop out before they reach the 10th grade.

Those statistics stand in stark contrast to China, where a government focus on education has achieved a literacy rate of 94 percent of the population, compared with 64 percent in India.

Campaigners want to raise awareness in a country that is becoming dangerously polarised. Pakistan's elite educates its offspring at expensive schools in Pakistan or abroad, and so education has slipped off the political agenda.

Politicians use schools as patronage, and although public teachers are relatively well-paid, 15%-20% are absent from class on any given day.

Critics said the campaign fails to focus on the outdated curriculum in Pakistani schools that promotes a narrow view of Islam, hatred of Hindus and other bigotry.

The Android 2.2-based device has two USB ports and 256 megabytes of RAM. Despite hopes for a solar-powered version — important for India’s energy-starved hinterlands — no such option is currently available.

India, after raising literacy to about 78 percent from 12 percent when British rule ended, is now focusing on higher education with a 2020 goal of 30 percent enrollment. Today, only 7 percent of Indians graduate from high school.