Teachers Without Borders

Another mass failure has been recorded by students across the country in the just announced 2011 June/July Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) results. Registrar, Chief Executive of the Council, (NECO) while announcing the results in Minna Friday, exonerated the Council from the poor outing of students nationwide, adding that structures that ensured that appropriate standards of excellence and transparency were maintained before, during and after the examinations were put in place.

GANTA TOWN, Liberia, 16 September 2011 – War, bullets and bloodshed – words which generations of Liberians are still more familiar with than books or schools. It’s only been eight years since the country knew peace; the scars from its paralyzing 14-year civil war remain visible as its people try to heal. Today, the government is working to rebuild the infrastructure that was completely destroyed – large parts of Liberia doesn’t have roads and millions are living without basic access to water, healthcare or electricity. But ask any Liberian what they need most and the answer is the same – education

KABUL, 12 September 2011 (IRIN) - Despite billions of dollars in aid and government funding over the past decade, Afghanistan still has about four million school-age children out of school, officials say. "Overall our biggest challenge is our operating budget, which is not enough to cover the salaries of our teachers... and of the roughly 14,000 primary and secondary schools in the country, some 7,000 lack buildings, forcing children to study in the open, under trees or in tents," Education Ministry spokesman Aman Iman said.

"My class is very close to the main road - in a tent. Sometimes even stray dogs get in," Khan told IRIN. "Passing cars blow dust into our tent, which gets into our clothes, hair and even notebooks. I really do not want to go to school, but what can I do? My family is forcing me to go."

Currently, only eight million of the 12 million school-age children are in school, according to the Education Ministry.

13 September 2011 – A new report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) highlights significant gaps in areas such as education and health, mostly favouring males, as boys and girls in developing countries grow older. “While there is little difference between boys and girls in early childhood with respect to nutrition, health, education and other basic indicators, differences by gender appear increasingly more pronounced during adolescence and young adulthood,” said Geeta Rao Gupta, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director.

The data shows that girls are significantly more likely to be married as children (under 18 years of age) and to begin having sex at a young age. Young women are less likely to be literate than young men and are less likely to watch television, listen to the radio and read a newspaper or magazine. In addition, young men are better informed about HIV/AIDS and are also more likely to protect themselves with condoms during sex. Young women in sub-Saharan Africa, the report says, are two to four times more likely to be infected with HIV/AIDS than young men.

Across OECD countries, governments are having to work with shrinking public budgets while designing policies to make education more effective and responsive to growing demand. The 2011 edition of Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators enables countries to see themselves in the light of other countries’ performance. It provides a broad array of comparable indicators on education systems and represents the consensus of professional thinking on how to measure the current state of education internationally.

ISBN: 9789264114203 Publication: 13/9/2011 (click on the image to download the publication)   Education at a Glance 2011: OECD Indicators Across OECD countries,

The indicators show who participates in education, how much is spent on it, and how education systems operate. They also illustrate a wide range of educational outcomes, comparing, for example, student performance in key subjects and the impact of education on earnings and on adults’ chances of employment.

GARISSA, Kenya, 12 September 2011 – Dekha Mohamed Noor, 15, has not seen her family for more than a month. At the end of July, after schools closed for the August holidays, they sent her to live with a relative in Garissa, a bustling commercial hub 165 km west of her home village, Modogashe. The drought in north-eastern Kenya and much of the Horn of Africa had decimated their livestock, throwing the family into a desperate scramble for survival.

This week, with schools across Kenya reopening for the new term, Dekha joins thousands of other children from drought-affected areas who will not be returning to their former schools because they have migrated to other, better-off districts.

These new arrivals are placing enormous strains on local resources in host communities. Abdinoor Hussein, head teacher at Dekha’s new school in Garissa, Yathrib Primary School, says class sizes have ballooned from 50 to an average of 92 pupils, and the school’s 10 teachers are having a hard time coping with the surge

Associated Press= TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Boys and girls chanted slogans against Moammar Gadhafi and teachers hanged an effigy of the fugitive leader Saturday as many Libyan children started their first school year without the "brother leader" dictating the curriculum. Euphoria filled the halls, but teachers admitted a lot needed to be done to overhaul an educational system where a main goal for nearly 42 years was to instill adoration of Gadhafi and what he touted as the greatest system of rule in the world — the "Jamahiriya," a utopian "rule by the masses" that in reality boiled down to rule by Gadhafi.

The school opening is part of attempts by the National Transitional Council, once the leadership of the rebellion and now closest thing to a government in the North African nation, to restore a sense of normalcy despite continued fighting in three southern and central areas that remain loyal to Gadhafi.

Not all facilities in Tripoli opened their doors, and school officials urged patience, saying it will take time to build a new curriculum and provide new equipment after years of strict control by Gadhafi's regime. "I believe the National Transitional Council will give us new books, computers and tapes," said headmistress Moofidha Nashnoush as she rushed through the halls hanging up new flags and hugging her colleagues. "We need to help the children forget the Gadhafi era and start fresh."

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Taliban ambushed a Pakistani school bus on Tuesday, killing four boys and the driver in a hail of bullets and rocket fire on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar, police said.The children studied at an elite English-language school of a type reviled by hardline Islamist militants who oppose what they see as Western-imported, secular education.Two seven-year-old girls on the bus were also wounded, officials said.

Police said the bus was taking children home at the end of the school day, which in Pakistan finishes in the early afternoon.Senior police official Kalam Khan said from the scene that four boys were killed along with the bus driver."The gunmen were waiting for the bus in fields and attacked when it came close. They fired a rocket and then fired bullets on the van," he said.

Shoaib Khan, a 15-year-old student wounded in the attack, said gunmen first opened fire on one side of the road, then waited for pupils to start fleeing before widening the attack.

Girls' education brings enormous benefits far beyond improving the lives of the girls themselves.  Once an educated girl becomes an adult, there are many continuing benefits of her education, not only for herself, but also for her community.  

OSH PROVINCE, Kyrgyzstan, 1 September 2011 – Hundreds of children from Shark village have settled down in the new Tolstoy School following a year-long journey. After the civil strife that struck Osh Province in June 2010, when their school was burned down, they studied in tents. Then, when winter came, they shared classrooms of the hospitable Sharipov School nearby. Now, they finally they have come back to their home village to attend a newly built school.

“I had to convene parents six times before they were convinced that it would be safe to let their children go to Sharipov School,” said Tolstoy School director Muradil Moidinov. “UNICEF supported minibuses, which went from house to house to collect children in the mornings and bring them back after school.” Mr. Moidinov promised the students and parents that a new school would be built. He refused to let the children be dispersed among other Osh schools. “It would have been impossible. The nearest schools are so far away. We are very thankful to UNICEF for all the great support they provided,” he said.

The new Tolstoy School’s opening was long-awaited in a community that has seen its share of hostility between people of different ethnic backgrounds. For their part, students still remember the old school warmly. “It was like home” said Muazam Mamadjanova, 15. To make the new building more like home, children have brought in pots of flowers to adorn the windowsills. They are also planting flowers in the beds near the school entrance. In autumn, they plan to plant trees as well.

Many schools across the country were on Tuesday shut down by a teachers' strike called to pressure the government to recruit an additional 28,000 teachers. The strike does not affect private schools. In Nairobi, the Kenya National Union of Teachers said the strike would continue until their demands are met.