Teachers Without Borders

A total of 129 Senor High School girls, from the three Northern Regions, are to benefit from a GHc 74,000 scholarship scheme to guard against school drop-out. The World Food Programme and the Ghana Health Service Girls Project seek to support the less privileged girls, who attained the aggregate 06 to 16 in the 2010 Basic Education Certificate Examination.

As part of the programme she said, girls who attended school of a minimum of 85 percent of the month were rewarded with a take-home food package of cereal, vegetable oil and iodized salt.

"We at WFP are proud of the success of the girl child education programmes, but we are equally wary of challenges, including inadequate classroom, high teacher pupil ration, floods and drought, which could slow down the nation's quest to achieve MDG two," he said.

The government policy on Universal Secondary Education has been put on the spot after details from a new survey revealed that a total of 41,506 students benefiting from the scheme dropped out of school in the last two years.

According to the report, some students could have been discontinued due to early marriages and pregnancies and anticipated poor performance in national exams.

In spite of numerous interventions by governments to ensure quality basic education for all Ghanaian children, the majority of children of school-going age in some parts of the Northern Region are still not in school.

Against this backdrop, the Right To Play, a child-centered international non-governmental organisation (NGO) operating in the three northern regions, has taken steps to ensure that all children of school-going age in their operational areas are enrolled in school.

The Right To Play, currently, operates in about 50 communities in four districts in the Upper East, Upper West and Northern Regions. The NGO is using all forms of play activities including drama, talent hunt and football competitions to effect changes in the behaviour and development of its target groups.

“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.

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.

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.

Noreen was 13 when she came home from school to be told that she was getting married. "I was scared, and sad I wouldn't be going to school anymore." A studious child, she wanted to become a teacher to bring 'glory' to her family.

Each classroom consists of 18 to 20 kids and is named after a child killed in the war. Children paint various forms of the rebels' star-and-crescent flag. The girls learn to stitch small pillows as gifts to families who lost relatives in the fighting. Scrawled on a blackboard in Arabic is "Free Libya, out with Gadhafi."But mainly, Saffar said, the school is a way for the children to play, meet their friends and act their age."Our goal was to allow the children to express their emotions about what they have just gone through," said Saffar. "They are allowed to run free in the playground, sing, play, draw — whatever helps them to forget."

Teachers at Ras Mouftah said the children's behavior reflects what they have been through: They are rougher with each other, and new words have crept into their vocabulary — Kalashnikov, mortar, rape."Instead of cartoons they are now watching the news. They can even distinguish the types of rockets that fly overhead," said Fatma Tuweilab, a volunteer at the school.

Kokolo is 20, just a few years older than her audience of 11th grade students at the Manzomthombo Senior Secondary School. The law student is part of a peer education effort that has young people teaching other young people about AIDS and prevention. "It works best when they get down to the real reasons why these kids are engaging in these behaviors and trying to warn them about the risks," said Melani-Ann Cook, a project manager for the program. "What we've found is that when our peer educators go (to the schools) ... they really look up to them." The success of the program and others like it is vitally important to the future of South Africa, which has the largest population of HIV-positive people in the world.

Peer education is only one of a wide array of programs under way to combat the problem. Some stress safe sex, use of condoms and care in selecting partners. Others stress abstinence. Some try to curb drug and alcohol use. Still others take aim at changing attitudes, gender roles, after school activities and erasing the stigma that attached to AIDS.

PeaceBuilders is an organization that provides training for teachers, parents and others involved in the lives and wellbeing of young children and teens. The training goes beyond the nurturing and disciplinary aspects usually associated with child care, and also strives for a peaceful environment more conducive to learning.

One of the steps teachers will implement as part of the PeaceBuilders program will be a campaign to give up "put-downs." Other time will include the PeaceBuilders pledge, "praise people" activities, and seeking wise people for input, making them the subjects in a PeaceBuilders Hall of Fame.

Teachers were also offered tips as "First Aid for Anger," strategies that work well in a school setting as well as the home, to help build a more positive life."It's a program that has many applications in life, regardless of age," Bustos said.

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More than 3,500 schools in England and Wales will be closed and some 2,600 partially closed on Thursday when two teaching unions stage strike action.

Action is being taken by members of the National Union of Teachers and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers. They say the changes will mean they will have to work longer, pay more and get less when they retire. Mr Gove told the Commons the strike would cause "massive inconvenience to hard-working families" and would hit working women particularly hard.

He said his department had established that 3,206 schools in England would be closed and 2,206 would be partially closed on Thursday.

School children have asked government to explain its commitment to end rampant child labour in the country. The children, in both primary and secondary schools, said despite several efforts and the laws in place, child labour has persisted, thereby posing dangers to their growth and health. "We are always abused. Is it right for children to work in construction companies? What solution do you have for those who employ children in bars and other places and what is government doing to such entrepreneurs?" Hamidu Kamoga, a secondary school student from Comprehensive College, Kitetikka in Wakiso District said.

The young people made the demands during celebrations to mark the commemoration of the World Day Against Child Labour 2011 at Kyambogo University. The celebrations attracted workers organisations, activists and children in and out of school under the theme; 'Warning! Children in hazardous work; end child labour.'

A International Labour Organisation (ILO) report released this month warns that a staggeringly high number of children are still caught in hazardous work with some 115 million of the world's 215m child labourers, under 18 years.

PESHAWAR, Jun 26, 2011 (IPS) - Violence in the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan has kept students away from school, in some areas for at least two years. Now, officials are trying to make up for lost time by holding classes even under tents or trees.

"We are overwhelmed to be back in school," said third grade student Jaweria over the phone from Orakzai. The Taliban bombed her school in August last year, she said, leaving students idle.

Orakzai Agency is one of seven "agencies" or tribal units that constitute Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). FATA is the war-torn region between Afghanistan and the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) in northwest Pakistan, which has become the base of the Taliban and Al- Qaeda.