KIWANJA, 19 July 2010 (IRIN) - It is a sunny day at the Mashango primary school in the
Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC's) North Kivu Province. That is good news for teacher Dusaba Mbomoya who is holding a geography exam under a roof filled with holes in a classroom where flapping
pieces of plastic do duty as walls. Even the blackboard has holes large enough for students to peer through. "When it rains we allow the pupils to go back to their houses," said Mbomoya.
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Reuters AlertNet - DRC: Where schools have flapping plastic walls - 0 views
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Congo Education Under Attack Education in Emergencies students education violence conflict
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Most classrooms are dark and crumbling with limited teaching materials. With the government opting out, Save the Children estimates that parents are forced to finance 80-90 percent of all public education outside the capital Kinshasa, though under the DRC's 2006 constitution elementary education is supposed to be free. Teachers' salaries go unpaid which means parents must contribute to their wages via monthly school fees of around US$5 per pupil. Large families and an average monthly income of just $50 means such fees are entirely unaffordable for large swathes of the DRC population - with serious consequences. Estimates from Save the Children and others suggest nearly half of Congolese children, more than three million, are out of school and one in three have never stepped in the classroom.
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Save the Children's research shows that teachers' pay is so low and so irregular that many take on other jobs, such as farming, taking them away from their classrooms and students. The situation is particularly bad in North Kivu where hundreds of thousands have been uprooted by years of war. Some like Laurent Rumvu live in camps for the internally displaced. None of his five school-aged children are in regular education.
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Ransacked Schools in the area were closed for several months in late 2008 and early 2009 when fighting between rebel soldiers in the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP - now a political party) and the DRC army brought chaos to North Kivu. Children were forcibly recruited from schools by militia groups and the army and students and teachers were shot and abducted, according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF). Schools were ransacked and many were occupied by either soldiers or IDPs.
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After the war, he said 120 fewer pupils returned to classes. At Kasasa, CNDP soldiers occupied the school for several weeks, taking books and causing damage. Some pupils were killed during the fighting, and Nkunda said others were traumatized. "Of course the war has had an effect," he said. "Imagine going to school after your parents have been killed." Getting displaced children back in school is a priority for international agencies including the Norwegian Refugee Council.
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"Education is extremely important to the future of Congo," said Mondlane. "With large numbers of displaced children it is extremely important to invest in education in this humanitarian crisis." "Bad government" Kasasa student Shirambere Tibari Menya, 22, lost four years of his schooling to war. Most recently, he fled to Uganda during the fighting in 2008 and is now close to finishing secondary school. But one obstacle remains - a one-off series of final exams which all DRC pupils must take before graduation. Tibari is confident he will pass and would like to go on to study medicine but says his family does not have the $12 he must pay to take the tests. "I don't accept that I'm going to lose another year, but you can see that we are studying in bad conditions," he said. "For our parents the main activity is to go to the fields, but they are raped and attacked so we have the problem of food and no money. "I blame the government. We are in a bad country with a bad government."
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In wake of conflict, students return to school in Kyrgyzstan | Back on Track - 0 views
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Ms. Fanilievna added that Kyrgyzstan’s schools are planning to include peace and tolerance education in response to the recent strife. The first month of school will be dedicated to Peace and Reconciliation, and UNICEF has cooperated with The Ministry of Education to finalize the peace-building lessons which will be integrated in the regular curriculum.
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As the head teacher speaks, several female principals from other Osh schools come to the distribution point at Lomonosov to pick up their School-in-a-Box kits – bundles of basic education supplies designed for up to 80 students in an emergency setting – which were delivered by UNICEF to some 277 schools in Osh and Jalal Abad provinces.
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“All the rest of my life depends on my education, and you find your best friends at school,” she said. “Schools also have a great peace-building potential as they are uniting students from different backgrounds.“For instance, at Lomonosov School we have 14 ethnicities,” Nazbiyke added. “We communicate and stay friends. Our hope is that this, in turn, will influence our parents and the community.”Nazbiyke knows that her parents are aware of the major role schools play in bringing peace back to the communities. The vital effect of school starting, of teachers and students coming together, resounds through Osh. It is bringing a sense of normalcy to a province that desperately needs it.
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PUNJAB, Pakistan, 3 August 2011 – “Before the floods, this village had a one-room Masjid [mosque] school. Most of the children sat under a tree. We now have this beautiful school, and the children love it,” says Mukhtar Ahmad, Headmaster of the Government Primary School in Mullanwala village, located in the Muzaffargarh District of Pakistan’s Punjab Province.
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Last year’s unprecedented floods in Pakistan forced the bulk of the population in Mullanwala to relocate to safer areas. When the floodwaters receded and people returned, they discovered that not a single structure in the village was standing – not even the one-room Masjid school.
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Now, a year after the floods, the TLC has turned into a transitional school housed in semi-permanent buildings. As part of its initiative to quickly improve education facilities for flood-affected children in Pakistan, UNICEF plans the construction of 500 such transitional schools by December 2011. Indeed, the process is already under way.
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Its teachers use a ‘child-friendly’ approach to schooling that takes the needs of the whole child into account – including needs for protection, recreation, safe water and sanitation, and more.
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“Before the floods, I used to go to a one-room school,” recalls Shahbaz. “When the floods came, we moved to high ground in Muzaffargarh. When we returned after the floods, our school had been destroyed. Then we got a tent school, books, bags and everything else. Later, they made us this school building.”
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“Teaching without corporal punishment is something new in this environment,” she notes. “Since children don’t get beaten up in school, parents are also learning that physical punishment is detrimental to a child’s upbringing.”
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EGYPT: Modern Teaching Practices Spur 15-Year Old to New Beginnings | CREATIV... - 0 views
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“I believe the school environment was the main reason I dropped out. Mainly, I didn’t feel that I was learning anything. Teachers preferred using force and intimidation instead of listening to the students. I wasn’t able to understand a thing during class, and was constantly so scared.”
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“I thought many times of going back to school, especially since my new school is very close to home. But at the time, my parents said I was too old to go back and that I’ll soon get married and have a home of my own. I still felt something missing from my life, and it was difficult for me to see my peers at the preparatory level going to school every day, while I stayed home.”
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Safaa had the unique chance to tell her story to the USAID Mission Director, Mr. Jim Bever, on a surprise visit to Abou Harb School. “It was a really nice visit and had a huge impact on me. People came from such a far off place to visit our school, and spend time to talk to me! It really made a difference to me personally. I felt important and people were interested in listening to me and what I had to say.”
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Upon returning to school, Safaa was surprised by the changes in mindset, in teaching practice, and in the classroom environment as a whole. Although she was overwhelmed to be returning to the 6th grade after leaving school in the third, the changes she witnessed motivated her greatly to overcome her obstacles. “My first impression was my amazement with the class set up. The girls were sitting in groups, thinking together, discussing, and working as a team. No punishment, no intimidation, and everyone trying to help each other learn.”
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“I have something to say to every girl thinking of dropping out of school: you will regret every day you spend away from school and from learning, for the rest of your life. I am very happy and would like to thank everyone who helped me and encouraged me to return to school. “Thank you TILO for helping my school to change and for helping me to learn again.”
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In post-flood Pakistan, temporary learning centres offer education amid uncer... - 0 views
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Pakistan flood natural disasters education UNICEF temporary learning centres in emergencies
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With UNICEF support, a Temporary Learning Centre (TLC), or emergency tent school, has been established in the camp. One of her brothers is a regular attendee, and Luxmi has started going as well. It is the first chance she has had to go to school, and it is opening up possibilities that were previously unimaginable.
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“I want to learn more. When I grow up, I can start working like girls in the cities,” she said. ”Maybe I can become a teacher. But it is difficult. I have only just learnt my alphabet and counting.”
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With 60 per cent of schools in affected areas damaged, UNICEF has established 2,070 TLCs, benefiting over 100,000 children in Sindh and Balochistan. Intended to ensure that education is not interrupted, the TLCs have also attracted over 39,000 children to school for the first time, including 16,000 girls.
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With UNICEF support, a Temporary Learning Centre (TLC), or emergency tent school, has been established in the camp. One of her brothers is a regular attendee, and Luxmi has started going as well. It is the first chance she has had to go to school, and it is opening up possibilities that were previously unimaginable. "I want to learn more. When I grow up, I can start working like girls in the cities," she said. "Maybe I can become a teacher. But it is difficult. I have only just learnt my alphabet and counting." © UNICEF Pakistan/2012/Chaudhry Luxmi and her younger brother learn to count at a UNICEF-supported Temporary Learning Centre in Naukot, Pakistan. With 60 per cent of schools in affected areas damaged, UNICEF has established 2,070 TLCs, benefiting over 100,000 children in Sindh and Balochistan. Intended to ensure that education is not interrupted, the TLCs have also attracted over 39,000 children to school for the first time, including 16,000
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Children and school buildings are increasingly becoming targets in conflicts across the world, warns Save the Children as one of the key findings of a report published today.
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The organisation finds that the risks of violence to schoolchildren in conflict-blighted areas are on the rise as schools are increasingly used as symbolic, easy targets by armed groups. These risks to children will continue to grow unless the international community takes urgent action to protect them from attack.
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The report - The Future is Now - points out that civilians now make up more than 90% of casualties in the world's conflicts and about half of those are children. It warns that education is under attack by armed militias, criminal groups and even governments through the bombing of schools and is threatened by military interference in humanitarian work - all of which put children's lives in danger.
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Among the most dangerous countries is Afghanistan where between 2006 and 2009 there were 2,450 attacks on schools - in recent weeks, 50 schoolgirls in northern Afghanistan were reportedly left unconscious and sick after poison gas attacks by the Taliban. In the war-torn Helmand and Badghis provinces 80% children are out of school.
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In Liberia 73%of primary-aged children are out of school. • In Somalia, 81% of school age children have no access to education.
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They can and must be protected - in Nepal, where schools were being targeted by armed groups, Save the Children's introduction of schools as ‘Zones of Peace' directly led to a rise in attendance.
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"Children in conflict zones should not have to forgo an education. Their schooling is crucial not only for their personal health and development but for the future peace of their communities - with every additional year of formal schooling, a boy's risk of becoming involved with conflict falls by 20%.
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KENYA: Education boost for girls in Muhuru Bay - AlertNet - 0 views
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"I know that my life will change for the better when I complete school; I hope to become a teacher so that I can serve as a role model for the many girls who give up on education as soon as they give birth or get married," Gor said.
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Like Gor, many girls in Muhuru Bay, with a population of about 25,000, have a slim chance of a secondary education as only four public schools in the area admit both genders. The few private schools are out of reach for many poor parents.
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"We are trying to reverse this trend by conducting frequent assessments of schools as well as holding education days where we inform parents and pupils on the importance of education. We welcome efforts by individuals and charitable organizations to sensitize the communities on keeping children in school."
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For Gor and 60 other girls, the establishment of the Women's Institute for Secondary Education and Research (WISER) two years ago has helped them obtain an education that was otherwise only a dream.
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"We try to help the girls by teaching them how to think and reason for themselves, not what to think; the focus is to produce holistic Kenyans," Oyugi said. “To the girls, I say: ‘whatever women do, they must do it twice as [hard as] a man to be thought they are half as good, they must work hard’.”
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According to a 2010 report by the Nyanza Education Women's Initiative, girls in the province have in recent years fared badly compared with boys in national examinations. The report says poverty, sexual abuse, lack of motivation and the absence of role models were some of the factors affecting girls' performance in school
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"When I completed primary school at the age of 15, I hoped my parents would somehow find the money to take me to secondary school; but they did not," Gor told IRIN. "With peer pressure, I soon found myself pregnant; I then got married and before too long I had had five children, but I didn't give up, I persuaded my husband to allow me to return to primary school and try again."
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Gains in girls' education in Afghanistan are at risk: Real lives - 1 views
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Afghanistan girls' education girls education reform report Oxfam
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As of September 2011, there were 2.7 million Afghan girls enrolled in school, compared to just 5,000 in 2001. There are two main challenges here. One is the lack of security in this country. There aren't many places which are peaceful where girls can go to school easily. Secondly, we don't have enough schools, books, chairs, tables or professional teachers. These are the things that close the path to school for many girls in Afghanistan. The biggest problem here that it is a mixed school. There are four thousand female students and not enough room for them. In the morning, both boys and girls come while in the afternoon it's just girls. But it is difficult because many people are not open-minded and do not like the girls and boys being educated together. We need a separate school for the girls but right now we have no choice.
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Thailand takes first steps on long road to inclusive mainstream education | Global deve... - 0 views
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Cultural barriers continue to deny disabled children access to schools, but progress on inclusive education is finally gathering
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The strict hierarchy of Thai society means the drive for inclusive education needs strong commitment from both politicians and school leaders. In the past decade, there has been significant political progress in moves to implement a system that ensures children with disabilities have access to mainstream schools. However, with cultural barriers and resistance from some headteachers, the journey towards fully inclusive education has only just begun.
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Some headteachers Lennon spoke to were amenable to the concept of inclusive education, but didn't feel they had the resources or training to implement it effectively. Others, with decades of experience of working in special schools, felt this institutional model was more suitable.
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However, many headteachers in Vorapanya's study cited the Buddhist belief in the need for compassion as a reason they support inclusive education. Meanprasat private school in Bangkok, which combines western-style "child-centric" learning with a Buddhist ethos of moral ethics and regular meditation, is recognised as a national leader in integrated educational practices. In total, 130 of its 1,300 students are disabled. The school's philosophy is that children with disabilities "should have the chance to mix with society and be accepted by it". More than 5,000 teachers visit the school annually and attend workshops held to help spread good practice.
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Nanthaporn (Nuey) Nanthamongkol, a six-year-old girl with Down's syndrome, was due to be sent to a distant boarding school before he intervened. "Without our work, Nuey would have been separated from her parents, sent to a school 80km away," says Lennon. "For kids with Down's syndrome, this is the worst possible thing you could do."
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State schools, however, which have much less funding, have been described by Vorapanya as having "woefully insufficient resources" to implement inclusive education properly. Headteachers have complained that while schools can now access a minimum of 2,000 baht (approximately £41) funding for each disabled child, this is not enough to cover the required resources or training expenses. Another problem is that this funding can only be given if the child has been officially certified with a disability. Teachers have reported that some parents do not want this social stigma or are fearful that this certification will lead to discrimination.Despite the significant challenges, Lennon is optimistic. "We are making great strides," he says. "If we keep doing good, the results will surely follow."
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Afghan girls' education backsliding as donors shift focus to withdrawal | Global develo... - 0 views
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Afghanistan girls' education girls funding schools education report
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Education has long been held up as a shining example of reconstruction in Afghanistan. Donors have ploughed approximately $1.9bn into rebuilding the Afghan education system since 2001. The Back to School campaign, launched in 2002 as a joint Afghan government/UN Initiative, was labelled an "inspiration" and the flagship of reconstruction and development efforts in Afghanistan.
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The achievements of the Back to School campaign were undeniably impressive. In just the past two years, 2,281 schools have been built across the country. Around 5,000 Afghan girls were enrolled in school in 2001. Now there are 2.4 million, a staggering 480-fold increase.
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Now, according to the report, Afghanistan's education system is sliding backwards and becoming crippled by poverty, increasing insecurity and a lack of investment in infrastructure and trained staff.
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The report's research claims that far fewer of the 2.4 million girls enrolled in school are actually in the classroom. In 2009 approximately 22% – around 446,682 – of female students were considered long-term absentees.
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While 2,281 schools have been built in the past two years, data from the Afghan Ministry of Education shows that 47% still have no actual building. A lack of investment in female teachers is proving a significant obstacle to girls attending school.
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In the past years schools and girl students have been targeted by anti-government forces or other extremist groups, prompting teachers to leave their jobs and parents to keep their children out the classroom. In 2009 there were 50 attacks on schools across Afghanistan every month.
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Mexican Teachers Push Back Against Gangs' Extortion Attempt - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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gangs extortion teachers Mexico schools education violence Education Under Attack
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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.
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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.
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“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.”
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State officials have tried to play down the school closings, which are concentrated in public schools in some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. But after an estimated 7,000 teachers protested on Wednesday, the Guerrero State governor, Ángel Aguirre, met with teachers on Thursday, promising a host of new security measures, including increased police patrols and the installation of panic buttons, telephones and video cameras in every school.
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“Extorting teachers is risky; it generates a great deal of social disgust,” said Raúl Benitez, a security specialist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. “It’s just a stupidity.”
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On the first day of school at La Patria es Primero Elementary School (which translates roughly as “Country First”) in the Zapata neighborhood, three men sauntered in pretending to be parents and then drew guns on the teachers, making off with money, school documents and a laptop belonging to a fifth-grade teacher who would give only his first name, Ricardo. The school’s payroll officer received a message demanding that she hand over information about teachers’ salaries and has left the city, Ricardo said. “It could just be low-level kids taking advantage,” he said, “but they are spreading a psychosis among the population.”
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BBC News - Should Creole replace French in Haiti's schools? - 0 views
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"The percentage of people who speak French fluently is about 5%, and 100% speak Creole," says Chris Low. Continue reading the main story “Start Quote It's like a toddler who is forced to start walking with a blindfold” End Quote Michel DeGraff Associate Professor of Linguistics at MIT "So it's really apartheid through language."
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He argues that French should be taught in Haiti as a second-language - after children have learnt basic literacy skills in Creole. "Learning to first read and write in a foreign language is somewhat like a toddler who is forced to start walking with a blindfold, and the blindfold is never taken off," he told the BBC World Service.
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No matter which indicators you pick, Haiti has an appalling record on education. One recent report rated it as the third worst place in the world, after Somalia and Eritrea, to go to school. Continue reading the main story A brief history of Haitian Creole It emerged towards the end of the 18th Century as slaves from Africa began mixing African languages with French Lots of the vocabulary comes from French, but the grammar is quite different Spelling was standardised in 1979 A law called the Bernard Reform was introduced in the early 1980s, designed to boost Creole in schools The 1987 constitution states that French and Creole are both official languages in Haiti It's estimated that about one-third of children never enrol at primary school, and only about one in 10 complete secondary school.
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"Whether we want it or not, we are influenced by French because of the history of colonialism - this is not something we can get rid of quickly," he told the BBC World Service. "I don't think education should be only in Creole - Creole is not a scientific language."
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The belief is widely held in Haiti that Creole is somehow a primitive, inferior language - possibly because of its origins in the days of slavery. The earthquake in 2010 destroyed about 80% of schools But linguists are at pains to counter this perception. Creole is "fully expressive", as well as being rich in imagery and wisdom says Prof DeGraff.
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Creole is the mother tongue in Haiti, but children do most of their schooling in French. Two hundred years after Haiti became the world's first black-led republic, is the use of French holding the nation back?
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Effective policies give children in Angola a second chance to learn | Back o... - 0 views
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Angola UNICEF ECE education conflict in emergencies reform students
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Despite recent economic development, Angola remains a society deeply scarred by the still-recent civil war. The conflict caused massive internal displacement and refugee outflows, along with the collapse or destruction of key agricultural, health, education and transportation infrastructures, limiting the government’s ability to provide basic public services. This has resulted in a series of barriers to children enrolling and remaining in school.
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Children living in emergencies or post-conflict contexts are often excluded from schooling or start school late. Their educational progress suffers and they lack the necessary tools for learning, leading them to drop out of school.
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Many of today’s adolescents in Angola were born during the prolonged civil war and missed several years of schooling or never had the opportunity to attend primary school at all. These youth often do not fit in the primary school setting, and classrooms are already crowded with much younger children.
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UNICEF’s Accelerated Learning Programme, called Programa de Alfabetização e Aceleração Escolar (PAAE) in Angola, provides a second-chance learning opportunity for literacy, numeracy and life skills for adolescents through a condensed and adapted primary school curriculum, which can be completed in two-and-a-half years rather than the full six years of primary schooling. It thus encourages out-of-school adolescents to complete primary education, come back into the school system and continue to the second level.
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“The Accelerated Learning Programme is a critical national strategy of the Government of Angola but what is more important is that this strategy is translated into a second chance and a renewal of hope for adolescents, and girls especially, to continue to learn and develop,” said Paulina Feijo, UNICEF Angola, Education Project Officer.
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Which countries spend more on arms than primary schools? | News | guardian.co.uk - 1 views
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developing nations teachers education conflict schools report
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"When wars break out, international attention and media reporting invariably focus on the most immediate images of human suffering. Yet behind these images is a hidden crisis. Across many of the world's poorest countries, armed conflict is destroying not just school infrastructure, but the hopes and ambitions of generations of children."
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According to the report's data, 21 developing countries spend more on arms than on primary schools. Meanwhile, only 2% of humanitarian aid goes towards education (with the vast majority of aid requests for education in conflict-affected states left unfulfilled).
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The consequences are stark. In poor countries affected by conflict: 28 million children of primary school age are out of school (42% of the world's total) a child is twice as likely to die before their fifth birthday (compared with a child born in a poor but stable country) about 30% of the young people aged 15-24 are illiterate (compared with 7% in other poor countries)
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But while the Unesco report examines the effects of conflict on education, it criticises donor countries for skewing assistance towards a small group of "strategic" countries while neglecting the world's other equally poor and equally conflict-affected countries. While aid for basic education increased more than fivefold in Afghanistan during the past five years, for example, it stagnated or declined in other conflict-affected countries, such as Ivory Coast.
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Globally, more children are going to school than ever before but, according to the report, the number of children out of school is falling far too slowly, and progress is far too varied across the different regions of the world.
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Half-of the world's out-of-school children live in just 15 countries. The largest population of out-of-school children is in Nigeria (8.3 million), followed by Pakistan (7.3 million), India (5.6 million), Ethiopia (2.7 million), and Bangladesh (2 million)
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In sub-Saharan Africa, about 10 million children drop out of school every year
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It also points to key capacity gaps – for example, that another 1.9 million teachers will be needed by 2015 to achieve universal primary education
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43,000 Thai schools and hospitals pledge to uphold safety at national launch of United ... - 0 views
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Bangkok – The Thai Government today launched the “One Million Safe Schools and Hospitals” initiative in Bangkok, with top government officials from the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministries of Education, Public Health and Interior and partner agencies promising to make safety a priority at 43,004 schools and hospitals.
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n recent years, Thailand has been experiencing intense disasters with increasing frequency. A series of flash floods in October and November 2010 – declared “one of the worst natural calamities” to hit the country – killed more than a hundred people, displaced thousands and affected six million in 38 provinces. Thousands of students were forced to evacuate their schools, with more than a thousand schools reportedly damaged.
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“Our Government and partner agencies have pledged to spread awareness among 43,000 schools and hospitals to maintain or upgrade their safety standards.
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“Young people and their education are critical to a country's future. The Thai Government promises to make sure its schools can function, even in a disaster, which is a powerful statement about its commitment to human development and resilience.”
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Bangkok - The Thai Government today launched the "One Million Safe Schools and Hospitals" initiative in Bangkok, with top government officials from the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministries of Education, Public Health and Interior and partner agencies promising to make safety a priority at 43,004 schools and hospitals.
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As turmoil continues, children remain out of school in Côte d'Ivoire | Back o... - 0 views
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Cote D'Ivoire education schools Education Under Attack
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“We arrived at school at 7:30 a.m. as we always do on a school day. At exactly 8:30 we could hear shooting coming from the direction of a neighbouring village,” recalls Pafait Guei, a 14-year-old boy in sixth grade, who usually attends Beoua village primary school in western Côte d’Ivoire.
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Pafait and his friends have not been in school since that day, on 17 March. Côte d’Ivoire has been through political crisis and violence following disputed presidential elections last year. Although the political deadlock has been resolved with the new President, Alassane Outtara, sworn in, there is still a tremendous push required to restore the volatile situation in the country.
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UNICEF, with the support of the Government of Côte d’Ivoire and its partners, has been targeting one million children for the national ‘Back to School’ campaign in the 10 most vulnerable regions in the western and southern parts of the country.
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“I don’t know when school will start. I know that it’s not good for me to be sitting at home, but none of the teachers have returned to Beoua as their homes are still occupied by the military,” says Pafait.
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Several schools in western Côte d’Ivoire remain closed, due to the occupying of teachers homes and, in some cases, school buildings by the armed forces. UNICEF is currently actively engaged in negotiations with the Government of Côte d’Ivoire to get the occupied homes and buildings vacated immediately.
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Learning in a safe and protective environment is crucial for a child. One of UNICEF’s main challenges here remains access to education for the most vulnerable children in the conflict-affected areas because of insecurity.
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Angola is facing a teaching crisis that seems without end | Alex Duval Smith | Global d... - 0 views
www.guardian.co.uk/...ovince-angola-teacher-shortage
teaching teachers shortage Angola teacher development education
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The shortage is so great," he says, "that those who do come into the system choose where they will work. We do not have the resources to pay incentives to place them where they are most needed.''
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In his office in the provincial capital, Lubango, director of education Américo Chicote, 48, describes a "crisis'' that seems without end. "Our biggest challenge is to get children into school but then we have to find people to teach them. In Huíla province we have about 700,000 children of school age and 19,000 people teaching them. At the end of the war we had 200 schools. We now have 1,714 schools but we are still teaching 40% of our pupils under trees, and the school-age population is growing at a rate of 3% per year. Results are suffering. There are 171 days in the school year but there are not 171 days of good weather. We just have to do our best.''
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Currently, anyone with a grade 10 education can sit the exam to become a teacher.
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"We estimate that around 40% of our teachers are not properly qualified. So far, training initiatives have reached about 3,000 teachers in the province. The scheme needs to be expanded to reach more teachers across more subjects,'' he says.
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"I am doing my best,'' says Florinda, who has a grade 10 education and eight years' experience as a teacher. She hopes in due course to be given on-the-job training. "I would love to learn some methods for animating my teaching. But to tell you the truth, in all this dust and heat, if I can just keep their attention for a whole lesson I feel I have done well.''
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School Bullying and Current Educational Practice: Re-Imagining Theories of Educational ... - 1 views
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Background/Context: Bullying within schools continues despite thoughtful and well-researched anti-bullying strategies deployed against it. The bulk of research targeted toward understanding and eradicating bullying within schools is of an empirical nature. In other words, through data collection, questionnaires, interviews, ethnography, observation, case studies, etc., researchers have sought to carefully assess bully/victim characteristics as well as the social processes that fuel bullying within schools. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: This project considers educational transformation (i.e., how we might transform those we educate) through a variety of pertinent, yet diverse, lenses. Specifically this paper is situated in the conviction that in order to stop bullying we must affect desire. We ask, then, how philosophical theories of transformation, specifically those regarding changes in dispositions, might contribute to our understanding of school bullying and current strategies aimed at reducing it. In short, the driving question underlying this project simply asks: how can we help the bully to no longer desire to bully?
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NCEA: Canterbury Pupils Excel Despite Earthquakes | Stuff.co.nz - 0 views
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Christchurch's earthquake-displaced secondary schools overcame a disruptive year to achieve better academic results than in 2010. Thousands of pupils at a number of the city's schools spent most of last year sharing sites after earthquake damage forced them from their schools. There had been fears pupils' academic results would be tarnished by the upheaval of having less teaching time each day and travelling to another school site, often across town. However, statistics released by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority show the displaced schools accomplished even better National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) results last year than they did in 2010.