| |
| The
EFA Working Group calls for more resources for
education
July 21, 2005 -
As the world pledges more development assistance
in 2005, the 6th EFA Working Group, meeting
in UNESCO from 19 to 21 July, called for greater
resources for education for all. "It was
an extremely successful meeting," says
Peter Smith, UNESCO Assistant Director-General
for Education, "and we are on track to
have the most significant global meeting on
education in recent history (the EFA High-Level
Group)in Beijing next November. The post-Gleneagles
environment demands a strong response from the
world and we will help to provide it."
In debates, education for rural
people - with their specific needs and contexts
- and literacy for adults emerged as top concerns
in the struggle to meet the education for all
goals. A Joint Action Plan, discussed in one
session, should lead to better international
coordination once the EFA High-level Group has
met to endorse it. That meeting is also expected
to develop political momentum for these priorities.
·
UNESCO's
Director-General welcoming remarks
· Keynote
address by the Chair of the Development Assistance
Committee (DAC)
. Flash
Info
· Presentations
· Side
meetings |
| |
Working
Group on EFA to meet on 19 July
July 13, 2005 - The 6th Meeting of the
Working Group on EFA will take place at UNESCO
from 19 - 21 July. This meeting will focus on
literacy, education for rural people, resource
mobilization and aid effectiveness, and a joint
action plan to achieve EFA by 2015. Participants
include 11 country representatives, 11 bilateral
donors, 7 multilateral agencies, 22 civil society
representatives, 6 regional organizations as well
as UNESCO Regional Bureaux and Institutes. A full
week of activity around different aspects of EFA
starts on Friday, 15 July, with a meeting of the
UN Girls' Education Initiative (UNGEI). Other
side meetings scheduled until 22 July include
the Fast-Track Initiative, the Coordination Group
of the Collective Consultation of NGOs on EFA
and UNESCO's new Literacy programme, LIFE.
>> For
regular updates consult the EFA website |
| |
New
toolkit on hygiene, sanitation and water in schools
July 13, 2005 - The World Bank, UNICEF
and the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) have
developed a toolkit to assist policy makers, public
health specialists, technical engineers, educational
specialists, social and development experts and
other professionals to set up hygiene, sanitation
and water programmes in schools. It provides an
overview of tools and steps for successful participatory
planning and implementation of such programmes.
>> Available
online and on CD-Rom. Contact: Whelpdesk@worldbank.org |
| |
G-8
gives a $50 billion aid boost for Africa
July 11, 2005 -The
G-8 Summit agreed a $50 billion aid boost by 2010
The G8 leaders also reiterated that the debts
of eighteen of the poorest countries in Africa
would be forgiven, as agreed by the G-8 Finance
Ministers in June. In their communiqué, the leaders
also announced that "they would work to support
the Education for All agenda in Africa including
continuing our support for the Fast Track Initiative
(FTI) and our efforts to help FTI-endorsed countries
to develop sustainable capacity and identify the
resources necessary to pursue their sustainable
educational strategies."
>> The
Gleneagles Communiqué |
| |
On
the eve of the G-8 Summit, British pupils give
Tony Blair cut-out 'friends'
July 6, 20005 - On International White
Band Day, 1 July, Tony Blair met a delegation
of London school pupils who handed him messages
and cut-out 'Friends' from children from around
the world. At least 5 million children in over
110 countries have showed their support for the
Global Campaign for Education's Send My Friend
to School campaign by making 'friends' and presenting
them to prime ministers, presidents and parliamentarians.
The 'friends' carry the campaign's call to leaders
to 'educate now to end poverty', as well as personal
messages from the children who made them. The
total number of 'friends' made now exceeds 3,500,000.
More
|
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Unprecedented
mobilization for G-8
July 1, 2005 - July is the high point in
an unprecedented mobilization by civil society
organizations in favour of education to end poverty.
On 1 July, some of the world’s most famous landmarks
will be adorned with huge white bands, as part
of a curtain-raiser to a week of global action
during which campaigners in 72 countries will
call for action to end poverty. On 2 July, celebrities
will organize LIVE 8 - a series of concerts (in
Barrie (Canada), Berlin, Edinburgh, Johannesburg,
London, Moscow, Paris, Philadelphia, Rome, Tokyo)
calling on the G-8 leaders meeting in Scotland
(6-8 July) to provide more aid and fair trade
and cancel debt. The Asian South Pacific Bureau
of Adult Education (ASPBAE) and the Global Campaign
for Education (link) have published "Must do Better":
a ‘School Report’ of 14 countries in Asia/Pacific
showing poor commitment to basic education. This
mobilization follows up on the Send my Friend
to School campaign organized from 24 to 30 April,
when 3.5 million children made cut-out 'friends'
representing out-of-school children. One million
of these 'friends' will travel to Scotland to
ask G-8 leaders to more to provide education for
all.
>> White
Band Day
>>
Live8 Concerts
>> "Must do
Better"
>>
EFA
Week 2005 |
| |
UNESCO's
Director-General writes to Kofi Annan and G8 leaders
to support Education for All
June 30, 2005 - UNESCO Director-General
Koïchiro Matsuura has written today to the U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the G8 leaders
in advance of the forthcoming G8 Summit, to be
held at Gleneagles, Scotland, United Kingdom on
6-8 July 2005. In his letter to the leaders of
the major industrialized countries, Mr Matsuura
reminded them of the central importance of education's
contribution to achieving the Millennium Development
Goals (MDG's). He urged the G8 leaders to mobilize
increased financial aids for developing countries
having a sound policy framework and the potential
to deliver on their EFA commitments. In his letter
to UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, the Director-General
highlighted how the year 2005, through the G8
Summit and the UN Millennium+5 Summit in New York,
provides "an outstanding opportunity to advance
the global agenda for poverty alleviation and
to mobilize international support for achieving
the MDGs". More
|
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Debt
swap for education in Brazil
June 28, 2005 - Following the Argentine
experience, whose 60 million Euros debt with Spain
was converted into investments in Education, the
Brazilian Government has defended the educational
swap as an alternative to enhance the financing
of education in the region. The cause has gained
resonance both nationally and internationally.
More
|
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What
is the European Union doing for education in developing
countries?
June 17, 2005 - Education International
and its partners of the Global Campaign for Education
will organise a hearing at the European Parliament
on 22nd June to investigate the European Union's
plans to achieve the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) related to education. The European Union
is a major promoter and financial contributor
to the achievement of the MDGs. However, the Global
Campaign for Education stresses the need for the
EU to allocate more specific resources to education
and gender parity. More |
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Dakar
+5 Forum opens today
June 13, 2005 - An international 3-day
EFA Forum opens today in Dakar. Organized by UNESCO
Dakar, the Forum will review progress towards
Education for All, highlight initiatives that
have proven their worth and identify barriers
to the EFA process. A regional report prepared
by the Pôle de Dakar team at UNESCO’s regional
office in Dakar - Education for All: Paving
the Way for Action - will be launched during
the meeting.
>> Draft
Agenda
>> Progress
todate
>> Download
Report and Summary |
| |
G8
Finance Ministers Agree to Cancel Debt for 18
Nations
June 13, 2005 - The Group of Eight (G8)
finance ministers have agreed to a proposal canceling
100 percent of debt obligations owed to the World
Bank, African Development Bank, and International
Monetary Fund (IMF) by eighteen countries, says
U.K. Treasury Secretary John Snow. In a June 11
statement following the G8 finance ministers meeting
in London to prepare for July's G8 summit in Gleneagles,
Scotland, Snow said, "Relieving poor countries
from their debt burdens so they can focus on meeting
their development goals is an important element
of President Bush's comprehensive development
strategy for Africa." More
>> Caution
over G8 plan for debt relief (Financial Times,
U.K.)
>> Museveni
Backs Blair On Africa Aid (The Monitor, Uganda)
|
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World
Day Against Child Labour calls attention to child
mining
June 12, 2005 - According to the most recent
figures compiled by the International Labour Organization
(ILO), there are more than 246 million child labourers
between the ages of 5 and 17 in the world today.
Over 100 million of these have no access to education
of any kind. For most, getting time to play is
a luxury they simply cannot afford. This year
World Day Against Child Labour (WDACL) calls our
attention to a form of work that is dangerous
to children in every way. More
>> Article
on child mining
>> Digging for Survival Brochure - English
/ French
/ Spanish
|
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New
World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz takes office
June 8, 2005 - World Bank President Paul
Wolfowitz said on taking office on 1 June that
his immediate goal on taking over from outgoing
President James Wolfensohn is to help Africa become
“a continent of hope.” Wolfowitz, who began his
duties as the tenth president of the World Bank
in its 61-year history, said there are promising
signs that some African countries are growing
strongly enough to reduce poverty, but that there
are still enormous challenges preventing much
of the continent delivering real gains in poverty
reduction. More
|
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USAID
Revamps Education Strategy
June 6, 2005 - USAID has reported that
the federal agency that helps underwrite schooling
in developing countries released a new education
strategy that broadens the agency's traditional
focus on increasing access to paying more attention
to the quality of schooling. The strategy provides
a framework for the U.S. Agency for International
Development to become more involved with informal
education, secondary education, workforce development,
and higher education."We want to discipline ourselves
to say, 'It's not just the number of classes and
kids,' but rather, 'Are they really learning?'
" John Grayzel, the director of the office of
education in the USAID's bureau for economic growth,
agriculture, and trade, said in an interview.
" More
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Treat
rural schools as special case, South African report
urges
May 30, 2005 - Rural schooling is in crisis
and rural education should be resourced and organised
differently from that in urban schools. "The state's
commitment to social justice in all matters and
especially to universal access to education ...
remains unfulfilled for large numbers of children,
youths and adults living in rural areas," says
a South African ministerial committee report on
rural education, due for release next week. The
report observes that reliable rural data is urgently
needed, as existing government databases on education
do not provide separate statistics on rural schools.
However, millions of children are affected. More
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Inclusive
education in India: a lot of talk but not enough
action?
May 26, 2005 - India is committed to fulfilling
the goal of education for all and 'inclusive education'
is now a feature of various government documents
and plans. However, between 35 and 80 million
of India's 200 million school age children do
not attend school. Research based in the UK's
University of Cambridge analyses how 'inclusive
education' is understood in India and what influences
decisions to include or exclude children. More
|
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EFA
Week: at least half a million cut-out 'friends'
have been made
May 24, 2005 - Latest figures in from countries
have boosted the number of cut-out 'friends' made
to at least half a million 'friends' across the
globe. With reports of an amazing 44,000 'friends'
made in Greece and 30,000 in Nepal, the global
total has risen to over half a million - with
the Global Campaign for Education is hoping to
confirm much bigger numbers in the coming weeks.
In the UK, an estimated 350,000 'friends' have
already been made toward the 1 million total to
be presented to the G8 Summit, in July. More
>>> Send
an online 'friend' |
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Indigenous
Education is part of Education International's
Education For All challenge
May 21, 2005 - For Education International
(EI), there can be no sustainable development
for Indigenous Peoples without quality Indigenous
education. As part of its commitment to promote
Education For All, EI is raising awareness about
critical education issues for Indigenous Peoples.
300 million Indigenous Peoples live in over 70
countries and represent 4 per cent of the world's
population. For most Indigenous Peoples, education
has been used as one of the tools in the destruction
of their culture. It has been part of the process
of assimilation. More
|
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Education
in Africa: what makes a good SWAP?
May 20, 2005 - Governments and funding
agencies are increasingly recognising the need
for more secondary and post-basic education as
a result of the expansion of primary education.
Developing a comprehensive nationally-owned sector-wide
strategy would be a good start. Sector wide approaches
(SWAPs) to education are being promoted in response
to achieving Education for All by 2015. But what
are the key issues in the development and implementation
of a SWAP in education?
More |
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Monitoring
EFA progress in the Philippines
May 19, 2005 - Two EFA bodies have been
launched in the Philippines: the National EFA
Network and the National Education Watch. The
EFA Network is a community-based network of organizations
working for EFA, while the National Education
Watch is a monitoring mechanism for keeping track
of progress in EFA in the Philippines. Both were
launched during a national conference on 26 April.
More
|
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$28
million for Cambodia's basic education
May 17, 2005 - The World Bank has approved
$28 million to expand access to Cambodia's educational
services by addressing constraints on supply,
demand, quality and efficiency, with special focus
on poor and underserved communes. The project
components are to support the Education Facilities
Development Program in providing lower secondary
schools, to focus on strategic interventions around
decentralized quality improvement in order to
encourage right-age enrollment, and to address
the implementation of additional selected interventions.
More
|
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African
Vocational Education Conference Starts in Kasane
May 11, 2005 - Over 200 delegates turned
up for the fifth African Regional International
Vocational Education and Training Association
(IVETA) conference, which started in Kasane on
Sunday. The conference, which ends on Sunday,
is attended by delegates from Africa and beyond.
More
|
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EFA
Week's resounding success
May 9, 2005 - After a tireless week of
campaigning, the Global Action Week for education
came to an end, leaving the corridors of power
resounding with the call to Send my Friend to
School. Children and young people in over 100
countries have shown their passion in demanding
the basic right of every child to receive a quality
education. Politicians have responded to their
calls by making firm commitments and pledges on
education in countries across the globe. More
|
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New
role for public-private partnerships in basic
education
May 4, 2005 - Speaking last week at the
second "Round Table on Development-Driven Public-Private
Partnerships in Basic Education: Practitioners'
Solutions," organized by the World Economic Forum,
UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura invited
the participants to consider ways in which substantive
action through policy advice, capacity-building
and country level projects could be achieved.
Mr Matsuura expressed his confidence that the
forthcoming UN High-level Dialogue on Financing
for Development as well as the Millennium Review
Summit in September and the EFA High-level Group
in Beijing would be good opportunities to draw
the attention of donors to the increasing relevance
of public-private partnerships in education."
More
|
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"Friends"
meet politicians during EFA Week
May 2, 2005 - According to Global Campaign
for Education estimates, 3000 politicians have
gone Back to School, while over 100,000 "friends"
have been made, and hundreds of thousands of children
and young people joined the Send my Friend to
School campaign. More events are planned over
the next few days. Young people have been able
to deliver their 'friends' and discuss their demands
for more and better education in high places,
including the Presidents and Prime Ministers of
seven countries (Niger, Democratic Republic of
Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Peru, Senegal, Ivory Coast)
and by thousands of parliamentarians in over 100
countries. More
|
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Millions
of children say: "Send my Friend to School"
April 22, 2005 - Young people and education
activists in more than 100 countries will join
together this week to protest world leaders’ failure
to meet a major UN target on girls’ education
this year – a failure they say will lead to greater
poverty and unnecessary child deaths. Five years
ago, governments of the world promised to get
equal numbers of girls as boys into school by
2005. The target – the first of all the UN’s Millennium
Development Goals to fall due - will be missed,
and experts believe that a second Millennium target
for giving every child a quality primary education
is also at risk.
>>
Global Campaign for Education Press Release
|
| |
Aid
to education: new 'school report card' out
April 20, 2005 - A new "school report card",
just released by the Global Campaign for Education
(GCE), ranks countries on their aid to education.
This second report "reveals that 100 million children
are still out of school because G7 and other rich
countries are simply failing to provide the funding
needed for a quality education," says the GCE.
The report grades countries on the quantity and
quality of education aid they provide to poor
countries. Norway scores at the top of the class
with an A, followed by Netherlands, and "B" ranked
Sweden, Ireland and the UK. Most donor countries
are failing to deliver: five of the G7 rank in
the bottom half of the class, with a combined
grade of 'D', and the US comes bottom with an
'F'.
>>>Read the report: English
/ French
/ Spanish
|
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Aid
to education: new 'school report card' out
April 20, 2005 - A new "school report card",
just released by the Global Campaign for Education
(GCE), ranks countries on their aid to education.
This second report "reveals that 100 million children
are still out of school because G7 and other rich
countries are simply failing to provide the funding
needed for a quality education," says the GCE.
The report grades countries on the quantity and
quality of education aid they provide to poor
countries. Norway scores at the top of the class
with an A, followed by Netherlands, and "B" ranked
Sweden, Ireland and the UK. Most donor countries
are failing to deliver: five of the G7 rank in
the bottom half of the class, with a combined
grade of 'D', and the US comes bottom with an
'F'.
>>>Read the report: English
/ French
/ Spanish
|
| |
Reporting
on Education for All in the Arab Region
April 18, 2005 - Journalists and media
professions from the Arab region are attending
a 5-day training workshop that opened yesterday
in Doha on writing and reporting on Education
for All. The aim: to give participants a better
understanding of EFA; to improve their skills
to analyze education budgets, policies and systems
and to investigate the advances towards the EFA
goals; to provide access to a wider range of statistics
and information; and to sensitize participants
to such educational targets as girls' and women's
education and the education of the disadvantaged
and those with special needs. The training is
organized by UNESCO and Al Jazeera.
>>>Working
schedule |
| |
Nigerian
students' performance has fallen
April 7, 2005 - The standard of education
in Nigeria has not fallen, rather it is the performance
of students in examination that has continued
to fall. This was the thrust of a presentation
by Senior Deputy Registrar and Head, Research
Division, WAEC, Dr. Sammuel Olu Adeyegbe at a
one-day special seminar. Adeyegbe said that massive
changes have taken place within the educational
system over the years, which have impinged on
several critical variables in the teaching and
learning system. More
|
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EFA
Working Group's Minutes are available
April 7, 2005 - The Meeting of the Thematic
Working Group on EFA for East and South-East Asia
that met on 9 March discussed a number of EFA
Flagship Initiaives. The Minutes of this gathering
are now available.
>>> Meeting
Minutes
>>>
List of participants and photos |
| |
Commonwealth
of Independent States' Education Ministers discuss
EFA
April 4, 2005 - Some 200 participants will
come together at the Tenth Commonwealth of Independent
States' Ministers Conference, in Minsk, Belarus,
from 5 to 6 April. Among them will be Education
Ministers from Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgystan, Moldova, Russian Federation, Tajikistan,
Uzbekistan and Ukraine. In a series of ten workshops,
participants will debate on Education for All
and Education for Sustainable Development.
>>> Provisional
List of Participants >>> Draft
Programme |
| |
European
Regional Meeting on Literacy opens in Lyon
April 1, 2005 - About 150 policy-makers
and representatives of research institutes, universities,
and providers of literacy and literacy experts
from 50 countries will attend the European Regional
Meeting on Literacy from 2 to 5 April, in Lyon,
France. It's purpose is to improve policy and
practice in the field of literacy and citizenship
in Europe. Workshops will be held on topics such
as: literacy in the family, in the workplace,
in the community and public spaces; literacy for
migrants, offenders, Romas, women and young adults;
and capacity building and toolkit development.
The meeting is organized by the UNESCO Institute
of Education, the French National Commission for
UNESCO, the Agence Nationale de Lutte Contre L´Illettrisme
(ANLCI), and the European Association for the
Education of Adults (EAEA) with support from the
European Union.
>>>
Meeting Summary >>>
Programme >>>List
of Participants |
| |
How
schools influence gender identity
March 3,1 2005 - Research in Botswana and
Ghana indicates that daily life in schools is
affected strongly by gender. A joint project by
researchers at the University of Sussex in the
UK, the University of Botswana and the University
of Cape Coast in Ghana found that institutional
practices and traditions can lead to a highly
gendered school environment rarely challenged
by students or teachers. More |
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Ugandan
children flock to school, but quality suffers
March 29, 2005 - In 1997 Uganda resolved
to achieve universal primary education (UPE).
Within five years, the number of children in primary
schools almost trebled. However, pupil:teacher,
pupil:textbook and pupil:classroom ratios have
all worsened. A report from Uganda’s Economic
Policy Research Centre looks at how Uganda pays
for primary education. Whilst the authors welcome
government investment and hail success in getting
girls into school, they point to inconsistencies
and inefficiencies in the way funds are spent.
More
|
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New
Girl Child Campaign in South Africa
March 21, 2005 - Mobile operator Cell C,
a private company, has launched its third annual
Take a Girl Child to Work Day campaign, and aims
this year to achieve participation figures of
around 200 000 girl learners countrywide. The
aim of the project is to provide female learners
in grades 10, 11 and 12 with the type of workplace
experiences that broaden their career thinking
and highlight the important role women have to
play in South African society. More
|
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Vers
un avenir meilleur pour tous
11 mars 2005 - En janvier 2005, le Département
du Royaume-Uni pour le développement international
a lancé sa nouvelle stratégie d’éducation en faveur
des filles « Vers un avenir meilleur pour tous
». La stratégie vise à réaliser l’objectif du
Millénaire pour le développement, fixé à 2015,
de l’égalité des genres dans l’éducation. Elle
est soutenue par un engagement de 1,4 milliard
de livres pour l’éducation sur les trois prochaines
années. EQUALS, la lettre d’information du projet
Beyond Access, rend compte (pages 8-9). Pour
en savoir plus |
| |
Failure
on girls' education target shames the world
March 8, 2005 - On International Women's
Day, the Global Campaign for Education has released
a new report slamming world leaders for their
failure to achieve the first and most critical
of all the Education for All and Millennium Development
Goals - getting equal numbers of girls and boys
into school by 2005. A majority of developing
countries are set to miss the target, and new
research shows that an extra 1 million child deaths
will occur this year alone because of failure
to close the education gap facing girls. More
|
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American
universities set to support EFA
March 3, 2005 - UNESCO and the United States
organized a one-day conference on 28 February
to discuss the role America's universities can
play in Education For All. Among the participants
were First Lady Laura Bush, the US Education Secretary
Margaret Spellings and UNESCO Director-General
Koïchiro Matsuura. "I believe that the vibrant
civil society of the United States - the only
superpower, a country that has built its progress
on educational foundations - can do more, much
more, to help less fortunate countries achieve
their educational goals", said Matsuura in opening
the conference. "American colleges and universities
have a unique opportunity to help UNESCO meet
its goals of advancing literacy, training teachers
and using education and science to fight HIV/AIDS,"
said Laura Bush. More
|
| |
Calling
higher education to a higher calling
February 28, 2005 - UNESCO and the University
of Georgetown (U.S.) is hosting a Conference today
at Georgetown University to discuss the role of
America’s colleges and universities in achieving
Education for All by 2015. This is an opportunity
for working scholars from many colleges and universities
in the United States to learn about possible opportunities
to engage with EFA and to dialogue with U.S. government
officials, UNESCO experts, foundations and other
organizations.
>>> Conference
overview
>>>
Conference website |
| |
Traumatised
Kids to Get School
February 22, 2005 - Uganda and Belgium
are building a special boarding primary school
to cater for traumatised children in war-torn
northern Uganda. "The Government and Belgium are
constructing a model boarding primary school,
which will accommodate 700 children. It will be
completed in September," she said Ugandan Education
Minister, Geraldine Namirembe Bitamazire. More
|
| |
ADEA
assists Madagascar in developing its EFA communication
strategy
February 18, 2004 - From 7 to 18 March,
Madagascar will host in Antananarivo a training
workshop organized by the Association for the
Development of Education in Africa (ADEA). Some
forty journalists and communication officers are
expected to attend the workshop that will focus
on developing a communication strategy to accompany
education reforms being carried out by Madagascar's
Ministry of Education. More
|
| |
Education
"not a ladder out of poverty", South African report
says
February 14, 2005 - "For many, education
cannot compensate for much deeper economic and
social inequalities - it is not a ladder out of
poverty." This is how the authors of the report
of the Human Sciences Research Council released
last week sums up its findings on education in
South African rural communities. The researchers
say education in very poor conditions is not a
panacea. "Even those with good matric passes are
unlikely to find employment if they remain in
the villages", they say. More
|
| |
Petition
calls for democratic oversight of Bretton Wood
Institutions
February 10, 2005 - Parliamentarians and
campaigners have started an International Parliamentarians'
Petition calling for democratic oversight of the
World Bank and the International Monetary Fund
(IMF). The petition is a practical way to assert
support for the principle of parliamentary sovereignty
and to call for parliaments to be fully involved
in the development and scrutiny of IMF and World
Bank policies. Over 800 legislators from around
the world have already signed. More
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Mandela
and Machel support "Send my friend to school"
campaign
February 9, 2004 - Young people active
in the Global Campaign for Action in the UK took
centre stage with Nelson Mandela in a massive
rally ahead of the G7 Finance Ministers' meeting.
The kids told the crowd of 22,000 people that
they are demanding action from world leaders this
year to "Send our Friends to School" - and both
Mr Mandela and his wife, Mrs Machel, have pledged
their support. More
|
| |
Boosting
Education for All in Southern Africa
February 7, 2005 - National EFA Coordinators,
NGO representatives and education experts from
Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique,
Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe
will meet today for a 3-day discussion on Education
for All. The gathering "Joining Hands and Taking
Action for Education for All” is co-hosted by
World Education, the Open Society Initiative for
Southern Africa (OSISA) and UNESCO.
>>> Concept
paper
>>> Tentative
agenda |
| |
Vietnamese
journalists briefed on Education for All
February 7, 2005 - A two-day workshop in
Do Son, Hai Phong, (Viet Nam, 19 - 20 January)
briefed twenty-five journalists from newspapers
and radio and television stations about Education
for all worldwide and at home. Participants discussed
ideas for enhancing the news value of educational
stories and developing new story angles. The workshop
was based on the Media Training Kit: Education
Makes the News, developed jointly by UNESCO, the
Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development
(AIBD) and the Commonwealth of Learning. More
|
| |
Funding
for education of Liberian ex-combatants
February 4, 2005 - UNDP Policy Advisor
Charles Achodo has disclosed that his agency has
received more funding to settle the present caseload
of Liberian ex-combatants who were thrown out
of school for tuitions. Mr Achodo told journalists
that the amount would meet the school needs of
the remaining 3,793 ex-combatants out of the 11,000
ex-combatants that are in various schools in the
country. More
|
| |
Education
ranked high at Davos
February 1, 2005 - Education is among the
most important issues facing the world today,
according to the business and political leaders
who voted on top priorities for the World Economic
Forum's agenda on Wednesday. The leaders chose
poverty, equitable globalisation and climate change
as the top three issues, but voted education into
next place because, they said, it is key to beating
poverty and sustainable development, reports the
Global Campaign for Education. The Global Governance
Initiative's annual report launched at Davos slammed
rich countries for providing only a fraction of
the aid needed to deliver universal education,
and slated the private sector for its apathetic
response to the global education crisis. The report
raised serious concern that the 2005 goal for
gender parity in education will be missed, and
called on the G8 to act decisively on education
this year. More
>>>The
full report |
| |
UK
announces $10 billion-a-year plan for UPE
January 27, 2005 - The UK's development
minister has pledged to invest 1.4 billion pounds
over the next 3 years to improve education opportunities
in poor countries, particularly for girls. The
Global Campaign for Education welcomed the announcement,
saying it represents an important down payment
on the UK government plan outlined by Gordon Brown
in Nairobi last week to get every child into school
by mobilising US$10bn a year for education through
the International Finance Facility. More
>>> U.K.
Department of International Development |
| |
Education
at
the World Social Forum
January 26, 2005
- UNESCO is participating for the fourth time
in the Porto Alegre Forum, which opens today.
A novel feature this year is the Learning Societies
Conference III, a 'learning space’ for exchange,
involving a number of individuals and groups from
Latin America and the Caribbean who have turned
toward a ‘search’ for new meaning in their lives,
reclaiming control over their own learning process.
Five workshops are being organized on: cultural
regeneration, learning processes in indigenous
communities, diversity of learning styles, unlearning
and walk-outs. More
|
| |
Measuring
Africa’s progress towards gender equality
January 25, 2005 - Devising strategies
to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of
providing universal access to education for girls
is complicated by the unreliability of data. The
complex gender dynamics involved in education
cannot be readily judged through simple measures
based on inputs and outputs. A paper from the
Beyond Access Project explores new ways of measuring
progress towards gender equality within Education
for All. More
|
| |
Baltic
Sea EFA Working Group meets in St Petersburg
January 20, 2005 - The Baltic Sea Subregional
EFA Working Group met in Saint Petersburg from
15 to 18 January to discuss a number of issues
linked to Education for All in the subregion.
The more than fifty participants from Estonia,
Latvia, Lithuania, Russia as well as Denmark,
Finland and Sweden, discussed information-sharing
and capacity-building, adult literacy, and articulation
between the vocational and academic fields. The
meeting was supported by UNESCO and the UNESCO
International Centre for Technical and Vocational
Education and Training.
>>>Programme
>>> List
of Participants |
| |
Report
calls for more aid to achieve the MDGs
January 18, 2004 - Rich countries should
increase official development assistance to support
the Millennium Development Goals and international
donors should scale-up aid in at least a dozen
MDG "fast-track" countries. These are among the
ten recommendations presented yesterday to the
UN Secretary-General in the report Investing
in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the
Millennium Development Goals.
>>> Press
release
>>>Ten
key recommendations |
| |
Kenya:
Time now for universal secondary schooling?
January 17, 2004 - A recent statement by
the Kenyan government that many students who graduated
from primary school last year will not find places
in the country's secondary schools has generated
widespread concern. Over 600,000 pupils sat for
the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education last
year - an increase of almost 12 percent. More
than half of those who left primary school cannot
be accommodated at Kenya's 4,000 public secondary
schools. More
|
| |
New
report looks at secondary education in Africa
January 17, 2005 - Back to the Blackboard,
a report by the South African Institute of International
Affairs, highlights the challenges in African
education and encourages governments to start
planning and expanding their secondary education
sector. It is the first in the NEPAD Policy Focus
series which identifies key priorities for Africa.
>> Full
report
>> Executive
summary
|
| |
1,000
teachers killed in Aceh
January 13, 2004 - The south-Asian tsunami
killed 1,000 teachers and destroyed 420 schools
in the Aceh province of Indonesia, the country's
government has confirmed. Ministers have promised
to re-start education as soon as possible, using
tents and mosques as classrooms. At Guegajah elementary
school in Aceh Besar - two miles west of Aceh's
capital, Banda Aceh - only half the 130 regular
students attended the reopening although most
had survived the effects of the tsunami. "There
are great reasons not to go to school," said UNICEF
spokesman Gordon Weiss. "It's well-founded terror.
The kids are in deep shock." More
|
| |
Join
the Beijing+10 online discussion
January 10, 2004 - In the context of the
evaluation of progress since the Fourth World
Conference on Women (1995), UNICEF and UNESCO
are co-sponsoring an online discussion on educating
girls and women. The online discussion opens today
and will run for 4 weeks with a different topic
each week: week 1: universal primary education,
week 2: educational quality; week 3: political
and financial commitments; and week 4: Education
and empowerment. UNESCO is moderating the discussions
on the UN WomenWatch website.
>> Sign
up now
>> More
about the UN Girls' Education Initiative |
| |
The
second national EFA Forum meets in Beijing
January
6, 2005 - Some forty-one national education
institutions came together from 12 to 15 December
2004, in Beijing, to review progress towards the
Education for All goals and to discuss the development
of provincial plans of action. The meeting was
organized by the Chinese education authorities,
UNICEF and UNESCO. Among the recommendations made
were the need to reach out to migrant children
and pre-schoolers and to promote education for
sustainable development in schools. Other recommendations
include mainstreaming gender and establishing
forums to work on each of the six goals. |
| |
Mobilizing
the private sector for EFA
December 30, 2004 - Private sector engagement
in basic education is increasing. It varies from
philanthropy, corporate commitment to the commercial
provision of goods and services. It is less about
mobilising private financial capital and more
about providing innovative approaches that contribute
to improving education. These were among the issues
discussed the first roundtable on public-private
partnerships in education, in Brasilia (7-8 November),
back-to-back with the High-level Group meeting.
More
|
| |
Ending
poverty means ending child labour
December 29, 2004 - The key message of
the roundtable on Education for All and the Elimination
of Child Labour, held in Brasilia on 8 November,
is that poverty cannot be eradicated without eliminating
child labour, according to the roundtable summary
now available. Free and compulsory education of
high quality is the most effective sustainable
strategy to end child labour. More
|
| |
Education
for All not negotiable, says Professor Omolewa
December 23, 2004 - Education for All by
the year 2015 is not negotiable, President of
UNESCO's General Conference has said. "What Nigeria
is doing today is to look at itself and try to
see how education can reform the challenges of
modern Nigerian society to assist in the elimination
of poverty, hunger, bigotry, chauvinism, arrogance,
deceit, corruption and other vice," he said. More
|
| |
New
education fund for Roma children
December 23, 2004 - Donors and governments
have pledged more than $41 million toward a decade-long
programme to assist Roma children in breaking
the cycle of social exclusion and discrimination
that members of the ethnic minority have suffered
for generations. "This is the first time such
an array of partners has convened to provide concrete
support to improve the living conditions of Europe's
largest and most excluded minority," said James
D. Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank. More
|
| |
Does
participation mean more than NGOs?
December 20, 2004 - New research from the
University of Oxford’s Queen Elizabeth House finds
that local people, communities or organisations
often have only minimal input to Poverty Reduction
Strategy Papers. The research says civil society
participants mostly consist of a mix of NGOs which
are not necessarily representative either of society
as a whole or of the poor in particular. More
|
| |
How
appropriate is software for developing ICT literacy
in Africa?
December 15, 2004 - Teacher training institutions
in even the poorest African countries are slowly
being equipped with computers. Increasingly, teachers
are being exposed to new information and communication
technologies (ICTs). The majority of school teachers
are likely to work in environments without computers
for the foreseeable future but in schools where
ICTs are available, teachers will want to know
how to use them. More
|
| |
Nigeria
to lead way in girls' education
December 13, 2004 - One of the world’s
largest girls’ education projects has been launched
in Nigeria, supported by a $50 million grant from
the UK Government. About 7.3 million Nigerian
children of primary school age remain outside
the school system, of whom 62 per cent are girls.
The Nigerian Federal Ministry of Education will
implement the project with support from UNICEF
and the UK Department for International Development
(DFID). More
|
| |
PISA
study shows widening gap between best and poorest
performers
December 10, 2004 - Finland once again
came out top in the OECD's latest PISA study of
learning skills among 15-year-olds, with high
performances in mathematics and science matching
those of top-ranking Asian school systems in Hong
Kong-China, Japan and Korea. But some low-performing
countries showed only small improvements or actually
did less well, widening the gap between the best
and poorest performers. More than 250,000 students
in 41 countries took part in PISA 2003 which involves
pencil and paper tests lasting two hours, taken
in the students' schools. More
|
| |
Education
to end child labour
December 8, 2004 - Poverty cannot be eradicated
without eliminating child labour. It will not
be eradicated without achieving education for
all children. These were the main messages from
the roundtable, held in Brasilia on 8 November,
as one of the side events to the meeting of the
High-level Group on EFA. Free, compulsory education
of high quality, is the most effective, preventive,
curative and sustainable strategy to end child
labour, according to the participants. More
|
| |
Meeting
adopts new measures on the use of contractual
teachers
December 6, 2004 - Ministers of Education,
of Finance, of Labour and of Public Affairs, teachers
unions and parent-teacher associations from twelve
countries adopted a series of measures on the
use of contractual teachers in primary schools,
at a meeting in Bamako (21-23 November). The Conference
was hosted by the Government of Mali and organized
by the Association for the Development of Education
in Africa (ADEA), the World Bank, and Education
International.
>>>
Text of the Communiqué (in French)
>>>
More about the meeting |
| |
Consultation
launches minimum standards for education in emergencies
December 3, 2004 - The Second Global Inter-Agency
Consultation on Education in Emergencies and Early
Recovery, opened yesterday in South Africa with
the launch of the first ever Minimum Standards
for Education in Emergencies, Chronic Crises and
Early Reconstruction. This handbook, developed
following consultations with over 2,000 people
in over 50 countries, will provide a universal
framework for ensuring the right to education
for people affected by crisis. "It will help us
all to improve the quality of the education we
offer the children and young people we serve,"
said christopher Talbot, Chair of the Working
Group that developed the handbook. The 3-day consultation
is organized by the International Network for
Education in Emergencies (INEE), a network of
UN agencies, NGOs, government partners, practitioners
and researchers. The issues being discussed during
the 3-day meeting include developments in the
field of education in emergencies, gaps in responses
of key actors and in available research and priorities
for the future work of the network.
>>>
About the minimum standards for education in
emergencies
>>> The
minimum standards handbook
>>>
More about the consultation
>>> The
Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies
(INEE) |
| |
Are
African teachers a high-risk group for HIV?
December 2, 2004 - There is a widespread
belief that African teachers are a high-risk group
for HIV infection. It is thought they are more
likely to engage in risky sexual behaviour due
to their relatively high social status, income,
mobility and separation from spouses. But does
the evidence support these ideas? Research by
independent consultant Paul Bennell suggests that
teachers are actually a relatively low-risk group
in most sub-Saharan African countries. More
|
| |
Poor
state of Nigerian schools
November 30, 2004 - The Nigerian Federal
Government has expressed regret that the physical
environment in many of its schools not only presents
a sorry sight but also constitutes a serious health
hazard to the students. The Federal Minister of
Environment, Col. Bala Mande raised the alarm
in Owerri in a keynote address delivered on his
behalf by the Assistant Director, Environment,
Health and Sanitation in his ministry, Mr. Abdulrasaq
Ashiru, during a national conference on school
sanitation and hygiene for schools. "With dilapidated
buildings, unkempt premises overgrown with weeds,
most schools are sited in areas that are noisy
and harzardous due to heavy road and human traffic,"
the Minister lamented. More |
| |
Addressing
the gap between urban and rural illiteracy
November 25, 2004 - Representatives from
more than 100 non-governmental and civil society
organizations from developed and developing countries,
senior officials from the Italian Development
Cooperation programme and experts from FAO, UNESCO
and other international organizations have agreed
on strengthening their cooperation in order to
address the basic education needs of the world's
biggest neglected majority: rural people. A partnership
project will raise public awareness in Europe
on the importance of education for rural people
in poor countries and the urgent need to target
rural areas where over 70 percent of the world's
poor are caught in the vicious circle of being
unable to access the services and opportunities
that might take them out of poverty. The project,
discussed at a three-day meeting (15-17 November)
is co- financed by the European Commission, several
European NGOs, FAO and UNESCO. More
|
| |
Adult
Learners' Week celebrates South Africa's decade
of democracy
November 23, 2004 - South Africa celebrated
the country's ten years of democracy during this
year's International Adult Learners' Week from
6 to 11 September. The week highlighted the role
that literacy and adult education play in helping
people participate more fully in democratic processes.
The campaign brought together adult educators
and learners from Africa and the rest of the world.
Activities included conferences and visits to
learning sites. The University of the Western
Cape took an active part, organizing informal
discussions on lifelong learning and an exhibition
devoted to the decade of democracy. A novel activity
was a visit to Robben Island, the best known prison
island in the world, primarily because of its
brutality during the apartheid years. Some of
South Africa's greatest leaders, including Nelson
Mandela, were emprisoned there, and organized
debates and learning activities among themselves.
Adult Learners' Week is an international advocacy
campaign, launched by the UNESCO Institute for
Education. More
>>> More
about International Learners' Week
|
| |
Report
of fifth meeting of the Working Group released
November 19, 2004 - The report of the Fifth
Meeting of the EFA Working Group (Paris, 20-21
July 2004) is now available. This meeting followed
up on some of the issues discussed at the EFA
High-Level Group in Delhi in 2003, namely questions
of timely and reliable data and statistics, progress
on external funding possibilities such as the
Fast-Track Initiative (FTI), civil society engagement
since Dakar and partnership with the private sector.
It also commented on the draft report of the Millennium
Development Goals Task Force on Education. Hard
copies are available on request to: sdi@unesco.org
>>>The
Final Report
>>>More
about this meeting |
| |
Teachers
call for better training and working conditions
November 16, 2004 - In a Declaration adopted
on 7 November in Brasilia, the Teachers' Parliament,
held back-to-back with the fourth meeting of the
High-level Group on EFA, called on governments
to improve the quality of education by enhancing
teachers' recruitment, working conditions and
professional development. "Teacher effectiveness
is the single biggest factor influencing educational
gains and achievements, an influence bigger than
race, poverty, or parents' education", the Declaration
stated.
>>>Teachers'
Parliament Declaration
>>>Agenda
|
| |
Education
for All planning spotlighted in new survey
November 16, 2004 - A new UNESCO survey
shows that many countries have now completed or
reviewed Education for All (EFA) plans and that
most countries are actually at the implementation
stage. The encouraging news is that in the majority
of cases the EFA plans cover all six goals. The
countries most advanced in EFA planning are those
benefitting from the Fast-Track funding Initiative
(FTI), although, the survey points out, FTI "seldom
covers EFA Goals other than primary schooling".
A number of countries will require technical support
to implement their plans, the survey concludes.
>>>The
Survey |
| |
How
can universities engage in EFA?
November 3, 2004 - What can universities
do to accelerate the achievement of the EFA goals?
How can they engage in the EFA process? How can
universities improve pedagogy, policy and perspectives
for EFA? A two-day meeting opening today in UNESCO
will explore these questions and open a dialogue
between university rectors and the Education for
All community. It will identify areas where universities
can contribute to the EFA movement and determine
initial actions to be undertaken.
In his address to the meeting, UNESCO Director-General
Koïchiro Matsuura spoke of "the pervasive influence
of higher education on the rest of the education
system" and stated that UNESCO's focus on Education
for All implied no marginalization or neglect
of higher education. He invited participants to
reflect on how tertiary education can interact
more productively with other EFA partners and
how it can in turn reap benefits from this engagement.
>>> Director-General's
address
>>> Programme
|
| |
|
Quality
education and HIV/AIDS
October 29, 2004 - This new UNESCO study
shows how education systems can and must change
in relation to HIV/AIDS. It proposes ten dimensions
of quality education and considers how HIV/AIDS
manifests itself in relation to quality dimensions.
The study demonstrates how education can respond
and has responded to the pandemic from a quality
perspective and promotes some practical and
strategic actions
>>>The
full study
|
| |
Youth
literacy on the increase in Uganda
October 28, 2004 - In the eight years since
the government dropped school fees and made Universal
Primary Education a national policy, Uganda, according
to the World Bank, which helped pay the bills
for the push, has seen youth literacy increase
from 75 percent to 81 percent in 2003. The extreme
poor and girls, especially those from poor rural
families, are far more likely to be found in classrooms
since the policy went into effect too, the World
Bank reports. Enrollment in school has soared.
It jumped 70 percent in just the first year after
UPE was put into effect, from 3.1 million in 1996
to 5.1 million in 1997.
More |
| |
New
director for EFA Global Monitoring Report
October 26, 2004 - Nicholas Burnett (United
Kingdom), an economist with extensive experience
in the fields of education and human development,
is the new director of the EFA Global Monitoring
Report. After working for the British Government
Economic Service, he held several positions in
the World Bank from 1983 to 2000, including in
the Education Group and as sector manager for
human development in Africa. Holder of an undergraduate
degree from Oxford, of the Henry Fellowship at
Harvard and of post-graduate degrees from the
John Hopkins University School of Advanced International
Studies, he has also taken mid-career courses
at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and
at Harvard Business School. Mr Burnett ran his
own consulting company for the last several years,
specialized in human development and strategic
management. He has written many publications and
articles about education and economics, most recently
User Fees in Primary Education (with Raja Bentaouet-Kattan).
He succeeds Christopher Colclough, who will become
the inaugural Director of the Centre for Commonwealth
Education and Professor of the Economics of Education
at the University of Cambridge in January 2005.
|
| |
Seoul
+ 5 focuses on learning for work, citizenship
and sustainability
October 25, 2004 - Recent progress in technical
and vocational education and training (TVET) and
the need to align this branch of education with
the methods and objectives of sustainable development
will be the focus of debates at an international
technical experts’ meeting, opening today in Bonn
Germany. The four-day meeting is organized by
the UNESCO International Centre for Technical
and Vocational Education and Training (UNEVOC)
in cooperation with the German Federal Ministry
for Education and Research. More than 100 experts
from around the world will attend the meeting
entitled “Learning for Work, Citizenship and Sustainability”.
A worldwide survey undertaken by UNESCO to assess
the implementation of the Organization’s standard-setting
instrument, the Revised Recommendation concerning
Technical and Vocational Education (2001) in the
Member States, will be presented to the meeting.
>>> Draft
Programme
>>>
Draft Programme of Group Sessions
>>> Media
Advisory |
| |
Human
capital and children's schooling in Mozambique
October 25, 2004 - Investing in girls’
and women’s education in rural areas should be
a priority, according to this study commissioned
by the government of Mozambique. "Raising the
literacy of adult household members can dramatically
raise girls’ enrollment," say the authors. According
to their research, the probability of a rural
child enrolling in school can be increased by
up to 50 per cent if adults in the household,
especially women, are literate. "This finding
implies a potentially important role for adult
education or literacy campaigns in rural areas."
The study also recommends that to enrol more girls,
schools need to have more trained teachers, especially
female teachers; and reducing or eliminating costs
could have an impact too.
More |
| |
Spotlight
on Education for All in East and Southeast Asia
October 20, 2004 - The Sixth National EFA
Coordinators' Meeting for East and Southeast Asia
opened yesterday in Bangkok. The purpose of the
four-day meeting is to share information on progress
being made towards EFA at the country level and
to support national EFA Coordinators and Taskforces.
EFA Coordinators from fourteen countries are participating:
Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Lao PDR, Korea
(Republic of), Korea (DPR), Malaysia, Mongolia,
Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, Timor Leste and
Viet Nam. They are being joined by Education Ministry
personnel and members of the Thematic Working
Group on EFA, which includes non-governmental
organizations, donors and UN agencies. The meeting
is organized by UNESCO Bangkok.
>>>Terms
of reference |
| |
Gender
equality scores in Latin America
October 18, 2004 - This issue of EQUALS
looks at Latin America, a region in which many
countries have successfully achieved gender parity
in educational access in time for next year’s
Millennium Goal deadline. Eighteen of the 28 Latin
American countries with available data have a
Gender Parity Index of 0.99 or higher which means
equal numbers of girls and boys in the age range
are in school. This is a considerable achievement
but it does not mean that work on gender and education
in Latin America is complete. The September 2004
issue of EQUALS looks into these complex issues.
More
|
| |
More
freedom for schools to decide, finds new study
October 14, 2004 - Decision-making in schools
is becoming more decentralised as the education
systems of OECD countries move away from centralised
command systems based on government edicts and
adapt to the flexibility required for the modern
knowledge economy, new OECD research shows. Decisions
on how teaching is organised are now mainly taken
by schools in all OECD countries, rather than
by local, regional or national authorities, according
to the 2004 edition of Education at a Glance,
the OECD’s annual compendium of education statistics.
On average, about half of all decisions relating
to lower secondary education are now taken by
schools, notably higher than the level that prevailed
only five years ago, according to the study.
More
>>>Full
report |
| |
A
Teachers' Parliament to convene at High level
Group Meeting
October 13, 2004 - Education International
(EI), together with UNESCO and Brazil's National
Confederation of Educational Workers (CNTE), will
organize a Teachers' Parliament in Brasilia, back-to-back
with the next High Level Group (HLG) meeting on
Education For All (8-10 November). Over fifty
teachers from all over the world will convene
in Brasilia on 6 and 7 November to discuss "Quality
Teachers for Quality Education". The purpose of
the event is to bring the vision of the profession
to the HLG and to advocate for quality teachers
to be recruited and retained. The meeting will
bring together some 40 participants: Ministers
of Education from industrialized countries, Ministers
of Co-operation, heads of UN agencies and members
of civil society. Education International's founding
President Mary Hatwood Futrell will represent
EI at the meeting.
>>>EI
electronic newsletter |
| |
|
Montenegro's
EFA Forum meets for the first time
October 11, 2004 - The first meeting
of Montenegro's National EFA Forum took place
in Podgorica, from 18 to 21 September. This
Forum, which counts twenty-four members, functions
under the chairmanship of Filip Vujanovic, President
of the Republic of Montenegro, who chaired the
session on the opening day. The meeting was
also attended by Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic
and Ranko Krivokapic, Speaker of the Parliament,
as well as the Vice-Speaker of the Parliament
and the Minister for Education. The meeting
launched the South East Europe EFA Coordination
Working Group which includes representatives
from Moldova, the Former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia and Slovenia and is chaired by Montenegro.
Benefitting from the experiences of these countries,
the Working Group will as its first task develop
Montenegro's Education for All Plan of Action.
|
| |
Education:
lessons for providing adequate schooling in Africa
October 7, 2004 - Various African governments
received a stinging rebuke last week for failing
to live up to promises to improve children's education
in their countries. This took place at a conference
held on 29 September in Bergen City, southern
Norway, which brought together seventy education
specialists from Africa, Europe and Asia. Governments,
civil society and donor agencies were represented
at the meeting, entitled 'Quality in Education
for All'. The conference was organised by the
Centre for International Education at Oslo University
College, with the help of the Norwegian ministry
of foreign affairs and the World Bank. More |
| |
New
study focuses on how to educate former girl soldiers
in Africa
October 7, 2004 - Armed conflicts in Mozambique,
Sierra Leone and Northern Uganda have displaced,
killed and maimed millions. In each of these conflicts
thousands of boys and girls as young as seven
were forcibly recruited into the fighting forces.
The experience has affected many of them emotionally
and physically, and deprived them of years of
education. New research tackles the complex question
of how best to reintegrate former girl soldiers
back into society and education.. For those who
have missed several years of schooling, it is
shameful to be in class with much younger children.
Similarly, around 30 per cent of girl and young
women returnees interviewed (aged 12-29) are now
mothers and are unable to go to school themselves
or send their own children. More
|
| |
Lack
of facilities hampers quality education in Africa
October 4, 2004 - Lack of facilities in
the primary education system continues to be a
challenging factor to most African countries in
achieving quality education for all children of
school-going age. At a three-day training workshop
organized last week in Nairobi by the National
Education Statistical Information Systems (NESIS),
an affiliate of UNESCO, for African journalists,
inadequate teachers and classrooms, according
to statistics, are a major problem confronting
primary education in Africa. The workshop, on
the theme: "Statistics for Journalists", brought
together 14 journalists from Ghana, Kenya, Gambia,
Nigeria, Eritrea, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
More
|
| |
Zambian
children pay the price for IMF policies, report
reveals
October 1, 2004 - While thousands of trained
Zambian teachers sit unemployed and classes overflow
with students, Zambia will shell out a staggering
$156 million more on debt repayments than it will
spend on education this year. These new figures
are released today, October 1, in a ground-breaking
report by the Global Campaign for Education (GCE).
The new report reveals how Zambian children are
paying the price for IMF policies. Ludicrously,
while schools are in desperate need of another
9,000 teachers, 8-9,000 qualified teachers sit
unemployed. Why? A budget ceiling on government
spending imposed by the IMF means that the government
is not able to employ the teachers and health
workers it desperately needs. More
>> Full
Report |
| |
New
Education-for-All Act introduced in the United
States
September 30, 2004 - Senator Hillary Rodham
Clinton and Congresswoman Nita Lowey announced
yesterday the introduction of legislation that
would focus U.S. attention on the need to provide
all children around the world with a quality basic
education. The Education for All Act of 2004 would
do this by concentrating on policy, leadership
and resources, three areas in which U.S. action
has long been lacking. Under this legislation,
the United States would provide up to $2.5 billion
by 2009. "If we are serious about preventing violence
and promoting development and opportunity for
all children, we need to commit the financial
resources necessary to achieve universal education
by 2015 in all poor countries," Senator Clinton
said. More
|
| |
| |
UNESCO
and ILO launch initiative on learning and skills
September 29, 2004 - A workshop to review
national learning and skills policies was held
in Chiangmai, Thailand from 7 to 9 September.
Vocational education and training officials from
ministries of education and labour from Bhutan,
Cambodia, Lao PDR, Mongolia and Viet Nam were
familiarized with the initiative. The workshop
detailed a structure for carrying out national
case studies. Officials from the participating
countries were assigned to complete these studies.
The workshop was organized by the Asia-Pacific
Programme for Educational Innovation for Development
(APEID) based at UNESCO Bangkok and the Sub-regional
Bangkok office of ILO. More
|
| |
Education
makes the news in Africa
September 27, 2004 - Last week fourteen
journalists from eight African countries explored
UNESCO's new Education for All media training
kit Education Makes News!. The journalists
participated in a workshop at Rhodes University
in South Africa. The kit, which comes in resource-packed
CD-Rom and print versions, was produced by UNESCO
and is aimed at improving the understanding and
skills of journalists reporting on education and
encouraging wider media coverage of EFA issues
and goals. More
|
| |
Burundi
publishes Education for All action plan
September 22, 2004 (UNESCO) - Three out
of five youth and adults in Burundi are illiterate.
A new Education for All action plan presents a
diagnosis of the situation in the war torn country.
It also outlines a detailed plan for achieving
the six Education for All goals by 2015.
Related Links
>> Burundi
EFA national action plan (in French only)
>> Going
to school, not to war in Burundi (article
in UNESCO's Education Today newsletter) |
| |
Girls'
uphill battle for education in India
September 21, 2004 - A survey conducted
in India by Vacha, a Mumbai-based women’s and
girls’ resource centre, among poor adolescent
girls showed that girls are discriminated against
in matters of investment in education, access
to rest and recreation, food intake and freedom
of choice in dress, friends, movement. The survey
found that: girls perform more than three major
heavy household chores daily and report they have
little time for home study or play; more girls
than boys are enrolled at state-run schools: parents
prefer to send boys to private, or English-speaking
schools; in the more prestigious state-run English
speaking schools, there are 64 per cent more boys
than girls, while In Urdu-speaking schools, there
are 27 per cent more girls than boys; girls report
that they generally perform better than boys in
exams. Their very lack of mobility and playtime
might be making it possible to take their exam-related
homework seriously, the survey suggests.
More |
| |
ECLAC
and UNESCO to raise more funds for education in
Latin America
September 15, 2004 - Representatives of
Latin America/Caribbean countries gave the Economic
Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean
(ECLAC) and UNESCO a mandate to formulate proposals
on the financing and management of education to
achieve the education for all goals. The resolution
was passed by representatives from Brazil, Chile,
Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, the United
States, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, and
Peru at the 30th Plenary Meeting of the Regional
United Nations Commission (July 2004), and received
the approval of the forty-one Member States and
seven Associated Members of ECLAC. More |
| |
ICE
adopts Message on quality education for young
people
September 14, 2004 - Delegates from more
than 135 countries attending the 47th Session
of the International Conference on Education (Geneva,
8-11 September) have identified a range of priority
actions aimed at improving the quality of education
for all young people and appealed for the mobilization
of all partners in order to achieve this goal.
“Quality education for all young people: challenges,
trends and priorities” was the theme of this session
of the conference, organized periodically by UNESCO’s
International Bureau of Education in Geneva. A
“message” adopted by the participants at the close
of the conference reaffirmed the “crucial importance
of education for (…) national development policies”.
More
>>> Conference
website |
| |
Civil
society organizations comment on MDG goals
September
13, 2004 - Participants in the Global Campaign
for Education/One World online discussion forum,
Right2Education, recently concluded a lively online
debate on the education and gender Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs), funded by the UN Millennium
Taskforce and moderated by ActionAid. The e-discussion
was designed to allow civil society to comment
on the expert reports recently produced by the
Millennium Taskforce on how to achieve the goals.
The controversial reports suggest that too much
emphasis has been placed on universal primary
education (UPE)and girls’ education, and recommend
introducing a wider range of targets. However,
civil society contributors felt it could be counterproductive
to shift governments’ attention away from UPE
and education gender parity before either of these
fundamental steps has been attained.
>> Join
the Right2Education forum
|
| |
Villalobos
appointed UN Special Rapporteur on right to education
September 2, 2004 (United Nations) - Vernor
Muñoz Villalobos of Costa Rica has been appointed
UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education.
Mr. Muñoz Villalobos is currently serving in the
Costa Rican Ombudsman's Office. He also teaches
at the Latina University of Costa Rica as Professor
of Civil Rights and has vast experience in mainstreaming
human rights in strategic planning, especially
in the field of education.
Related Links
>> United
Nations press release
>> UNESCO's
Right to Education website |
| |
HIV/AIDS
and the demand for primary school places
August 26, 2004 - Demand for schooling
is related to the number of eligible children
and also whether they decide to attend classes.
Policy-makers need to predict demand for education,
but the HIV/AIDS epidemic makes this harder. Most
children born HIV-positive do not survive to primary
school age. The epidemic reduces the number of
school-age children by increasing child mortality
and decreasing the fertility of HIV-positive women.
In addition, children from households affected
by HIV/AIDS may have to care for the ill or substitute
for adult labour lost through sickness or death.
Such households become increasingly poor and may
not be able to afford school fees. Researchers
from the UK University of Liverpool investigate
the potential impact of the epidemic on the demand
for primary education in Uganda and Tanzania.
More
A FRESH start in Viet Nam
August 20, 2004 - Cooperation among different
sectors to improve school nutrition and health
is the main theme of a three-day national seminar
opened in Hanoi on 19 August, which brings together
representatives of many ministries, agencies and
international organisations. The workshop is part
of the worldwide programme of Focusing Resources
on Effective School Health (FRESH), an initiative
launched by UNESCO, UNICEF, WHO and the World
Bank at the World Education Forum (Dakar, April
2000). On the first day of the seminar, reports
dealt with problems regarding nutrition and healthcare
for school children, especially those in rural
areas. Children in Viet Nam's rural areas, where
up to 70 percent of the country's population live,
are between 5 to 15 cm shorter than those in urban
areas and weigh less.
>>>More
about the meeting
>>>More
about FRESH
>>> Use
the FRESH toolkit |
| |
Malawi:
Girls still disadvantaged despite free schooling
August 12, 2004 - Despite a decade of free
primary education in Malawi, the number of girls
dropping out of school continues to outstrip that
of boys, UNICEF said in a new report. "The main
problem is that the free primary education policy
does not translate into action on the ground.
Making tuition free for pupils was not sufficient
to take girls to school. There are other non-tuition
costs, such as school materials, which parents
have to pay," UNICEF's Head of Basic Education
in Malawi Bernard Gatawa told IRIN. More
>>>Read
dossier on school fees in Education Today
|
| |
Better
lives for women: are the MDGs leading us to it?
August 9, 2004 - Increasing
girls’ access to education and improving women's
health are two important targets set by the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs). But the simple inclusion
of gender in the MDGs should not lead to the assumption
that inequalities will be adequately addressed.
Changes in institutional practices, greater monetary
investments and creating more opportunities for
women - are all needed to make these goals a reality.
An article from the Institute of Development Studies
assesses the attention given to gender in the
MDGs. More
|
| |
|
Rwanda
seeks Nigeria's help on education
August 6, 2004 - The Rwandan Government
has asked Nigeria to assist in the development
of that country's education system. The visiting
Rwandan Minister of Education Science, Technology
and Research, Prof. Romain Murenzi, lamented
the low level of educational development in
his country, with less than 10,000 university
graduates, including holders of masters and
doctorate degrees. Murenzi who is in the country
at the instance of President Olusegun Obasanjo
spoke when he visited the National Teachers'
Institute (NTI), to seek collaboration in the
development or distance education for Rwanda.
More
|
| |
Boosting
education for rural people in Latin America
August 5, 2004 - About 100 policy-makers
and development planners from Ministries of Agriculture
and Education, as well as civil society organizations
have been debating since Monday, 2 August in Santiago,
Chile, on the theme of education for rural people.
They hope to approve a regional Framework for
Action to help governments reduce hunger and illiteracy,
and boost universal primary education in rural
areas. Organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO) and UNESCO in the context of the Education
for All Flagship Initiative, the workshop also
involves the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation
in Agriculture, the World Bank and the Italian
Development Cooperation.
>>> UNESCO
Press Release (Spanish)
>>> FAO
Press Release (English)
>>>
Special dossier on educating rural people in Education
Today |
| |
Involving
universities in EFA
August 2, 2004 - How is the mandate of
universities compatible with the expectations
of EFA? How can universities improve pedagogy,
policy and perspectives for EFA? A UNESCO-organized
meeting in UNESCO Paris from 3 to 4 November 2004
will explore these questions. The meeting will
open a dialogue between university rectors and
the education for all community on advancing the
contribution of universities to EFA. It will identify
areas of comparative advantage for universities
to contribute to the EFA movement and determine
initial actions to be undertaken. It will also
explore ways to forge linkages among universities
and between universities and the EFA stakeholders.
More |
| |
The
Working Group on EFA calls for more integration
of global initiatives
July
27, 2004 - More
convergence and integration between current global
initiatives was the main message from the meeting
of the 5th Working Group on EFA that closed in
UNESCO on 21 July. These initiatives include Education
for All, the Millennium Development Goals (MDG),
the Fast-Track Initiative and the UN Girls’
Education Initiative. In the words of UNESCO Director-General
Koïchiro Matsuura, “the Working Group
is becoming a hub for other multi-stakeholder
EFA-related meetings and activities". The
two-day meeting considered ways of improving the
timeliness and quality of statistics, enhancing
external funding for EFA and particularly the
Fast-Track Initiative, strengthening civil society
engagement and promoting partnerships with the
private sector on EFA. It also examined the Interim
Report on the MDG on achieving Universal Primary
Education. It brought together some 100 participants,
representing governments, national EFA coordinators,
bilateral and multilateral agencies, civil society
groups and the private sector. More |
| |
Food
for Education discussed at UNESCO
July 20, 2004 -
“We will not make progress on any of the
Millennium Development Goals without adequate
food and nutrition, ” said Mr James T. Morris,
Executive Director of the World Food Programme
(WFP). He was speaking at a UNESCO/WFP Policy
Discussion on Food for Education in the Context
of Education for All, held in UNESCO yesterday.
More |
| |
The
Working Group on EFA opens next week
July
16, 2004 - The 5th Meeting of the Working
Group on Education for All will take place at
UNESCO on 20 and 21 July. Among the topics the
group will discuss are educational data, the Fast-Track
funding Initiative, and civil society and private
sector involvement in EFA. The meeting will also
debate on the Interim Report on Achieving the
Millennium Development Goal of Universal Primary
Education (MDGs). It will bring together some
100 participants representing national EFA coordinators,
bilateral and multilateral agencies, civil society
groups and the private sector. It is expected
to issue concrete recommendations on the roles
of these groups in accelerating progress towards
the EFA and MDG goals.
Copies
of the keynote presentations will be posted on
this website daily and sent out via our E-mail
Education News despatch. A brief summary of the
conclusions will be available on 22 July.
>>>
Provisional
Agenda
>>> Provisional
List of Participants |
| |
|
Senegalese
children lobby for education
July
15, 2004 - The Big Lobby took place
in Senegal on 5 July when over 100 children
lobbied their National Assembly. The event,
scheduled for EFA Week, had to be postponed
due to a cabinet reshuffle. It is estimated
that some 700,000 children are not in school
in Senegal. During EFA Week (19 to 25 April)
Senegalese children created 'missing out maps'
highlighting the children who are not in school.
In one community (Sangalkam) the map showed
that 46 children were excluded from education.
In another (Guédiawaye), at the initiative
of the Young Working Children's Movement and
ENDA, more than 150 students and young workers
spoke to political leaders, who pledged to defend
the right to education and to sensitize their
colleagues to the need to educate all children.
In all, 1 million children around the world
lobbied their governments during EFA Week to
give every child a chance to go to school.
>>>
Read
the compilation of letters sent by children
and young workers to the President of Senegal
(French)
>>> The Letter from
the Young Working Children's Movement to the
Prime Minister (French)
|
| |
Director-General
briefs UNESCO Permanent Delegations on EFA progress
July 13, 2004 - (UNESCO Flash
Info) - The UNESCO Director-General, Mr Koïchiro
Matsuura, yesterday updated the Organization’s
Permanent Delegations on progress of the Strategic
Review of UNESCO’s role in the Education
for All (EFA) drive. The Strategic Review was
requested by the Executive Board at its 169th
session in April. The Director-General will present
his report on the Strategic Review to the 170th
session of the Executive Board next autumn.
Mr Matsuura noted the extensive and intensive
internal process of consultation and active participation
during the past two months. He said that one immediate
outcome of the Review is “the clear re-affirmation
of the centrality and priority of EFA in the work
of UNESCO." >>> Flash
Info |
| |
Huge
wastage in Mozambican education
June 23, 2004 - Mozambican Education Minister
Alcido Nguenha said in Maputo on Monday that wastage
in schools, characterised by high failure and
drop out rates, is the main enemy of the education
system in the country, according to a recent report.
Addressing the opening session of a national planning
meeting of his ministry, Nguenha said that improvement
of schools and of the system's performance depends
on the control of key variables, particularly
the failure and drop out rates. He pointed out
that, although the evolution in terms of quantity
is positive, the most important challenges are
in terms of quality. More
|
| |
Canada
gives Zambia $3 million
June 21, 2004 - Canada has given Zambia
$3 million for the period of three years towards
the support of the education sector plan. Education
Minister, Andrew Mulenga, said the support would
help increase the enrolment and improved learning
achievement at all levels in the education system.
Mr Mulenga was speaking during the signing ceremony
of the Memorandum of Understanding, between Zambia,
Canada and European Commission held in Lusaka
yesterday. More
|
| |
Canada
gives Zambia $3 million
June 21, 2004 - Canada has given Zambia
$3 million for the period of three years towards
the support of the education sector plan. Education
Minister, Andrew Mulenga, said the support would
help increase the enrolment and improved learning
achievement at all levels in the education system.
Mr Mulenga was speaking during the signing ceremony
of the Memorandum of Understanding, between Zambia,
Canada and European Commission held in Lusaka
yesterday. More
|
| |
Conference
focuses on EFA in Moldova
June 18, 2004 - At the conference on “Developments
in the Education Sector in the Republic of Moldova
- Future Steps” in Chisinau, Moldova, (14-15 June)
participants reviewed the results of the Thematic
Review of Education Policy carried out by the
OECD. They also discussed the Council of Europe
support, and vocational training and its relevance
to labour market needs in the country. The forum
was organized by the Moldova Ministry of Education
with UN Moldova, the Task Force on Education and
Youth of the Stability Pact for South Eastern
Europe, the OECD and the European Training Foundation.
Special emphasis was put on identifying concrete
steps to be taken by Moldova to accelerate the
development of education and implement the Education
for All Action Plan, recently approved by the
Moldovan Government. More
|
| |
UNICEF
unveils survey to get all children in school
June 16, 2004 – UNICEF today officially
launched yesterday a child-powered, global project
to account for children not in school in order
to accelerate the enrolment of all girls as well
as all boys. For the project, called the Child-to-Child
Survey, teams of school children interview out-of-school
children to find out the particular reasons why
they are not enrolled. An estimated 121 million
children are out of school worldwide. The majority
of these children are girls. More
|
| |
AIDS
is robbing Zambia's teaching profession
June 14, 2004 - HIV/AIDS is robbing the
teaching profession of its cream, Zambia National
Union of Teachers (ZNUT) general secretary Roy
Mwaba has said. Mwaba yesterday said 800 teachers
were dying annually from HIV/AIDS and poverty
related ailments such as depression. "The issue
of HIV/AIDS in regard to the teaching profession
cannot be over emphasised as the pandemic is robbing
the profession of its cream, teachers who are
below the age of 35 years in most cases," he said.
Mwaba said the teachers were young men and women
with proper academic and professional qualifications
who were the reservoir of future education administrators.
More
|
| |
NetAid
to G8: Leave No Child in the World Behind
June 10, 2004 - On the eve of the G8 Summit,
NetAid, a non-profit organization raising awareness
about extreme poverty, headed down to Savannah,
Georgia to tell the Group of Eight that Education
for All must be made a reality. Joining NetAid
from New York was UNICEF's Deputy Executive Director
Karin Sham Poo, and in Savannah, Eveline Herfkens,
UN Secretary-General's Executive Coordinator for
the Millennium Development Goals Campaign, Rep.
James McGovern (D-MA), and others joined to call
on G8 leaders to increase funding to put more
than 100 million of the world's poorest children
in school.
More |
| |
UNESCO's
Director-General writes to Kofi Annan and G8 leaders
to support Education for All
June 8, 2004 - UNESCO Director-General
Koïchiro Matsuura has written to the U.N. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan and the G8 leaders on the occasion
of the G8 Summit, opening today in Sea Island,
Georgia. In his letter to the leaders of the major
industrialized countries, Mr Matsuura called on
them to continue their support to Education for
All and to mobilize additional financial resources
and commitment to assist countries most in need.
"At the G8 Summit held in Kananaskis in 2002 the
critical importance of education was recognized,"
he wrote. "Since then, I am pleased to observe
that some progress has been made ... A great deal
remains to be done, however, to secure Education
for All. I am confident that the G8 countries
can make a difference in this regard." Mr Matsuura
called for "urgent action to redress the decline
of total Official Development Assistance (ODA)
which is still below the level of the early 1990s."
In his letter to Kofi Annan, the Director-General
asked the Secretary-General to seize the opportunity
of his presence at the G8 Summit to draw the attention
of the world's leaders to "the urgent need to
fulfil their commitments and to ensure that the
EFA goals remain high on their agenda in Sea Island
and beyond."
>> G8
Summit website |
| |
Arab
Ministers adopt the 'Cairo Declaration'
June 8, 2004 - Education Ministers at the
Arab Regional Conference on Education for All:
Arab Vision for the Future (1-3 June, Cairo) adopted
the 'Cairo Declaration', stressing their commitment
to quality education and the creation of centres
of excellence. Among the topics the ministers
highlighted include the role of teacher training,
curriculum development, evaluation, early childhood
development, ICTs, inclusive education and community
participation in reaching the EFA goals.
>> Draft
Final Report (English)
>> Text
of Cairo Declaration in Arabic |
| |
Arab
Education Ministers discuss quality education
June
2, 2004 - A three-day Regional Conference
on Education for All: Arab Vision for the Future
opened in Cairo yesterday. The gathering is organized
in the context of the follow-up to the E-9 Ministerial
Review Meeting in Cairo last December, when Education
Ministers pledged to pay special attention to
the issue of quality education. The conference
is sharing best practices in quality learning
from the region and the world. A particular objective
is to identify centres of excellence in the region.
The conference is sponsored by the Egyptian Minister
for Education, assisted by UNESCO and UNICEF.
More
|
| |
A
promise for quality education
June
1, 2004 - Ten countries in the South East
Asian region signed the 'Bangkok Declaration'
on education last week. This declaration was formalized
at a Ministerial Forum on 26 May 26, endorsing
a commitment to improve the access to and quality
of education through child-friendly learning environments.
The forum was organized by the South East Asian
Ministers of Education Organisation (SEAMEO),
UNESCO and UNICEF. The agreement was reached to
promote a comprehensive definition within ministries
of education of educational quality, which will
not only promote effective teaching and learning,
but also include inclusive education, gender responsive
education, and healthy and protective learning
environments. More
|
| |
Moldova
approves National EFA Action Plan
May 28, 2004 - Based on Moldova's EFA National
Strategy approved in April 2003, a results-based
Action Plan was developed and approved by government
on 4 May 2004. "We consider the implementation
of this plan essential to ensuring a stable operation
of the education system and enhancing its role
in the economic and human development of the country."
Its approval is an eloquent proof of Moldova's
firm commitment to meeting the Dakar objectives
and the Millennium Development Goals," said Moldova's
Prime Minister Valile Tarlev and UN Resident Coordinator
Bruno Pouezat in a recent letter to UNESCO Director-General
Koïchiro Matsuura. 'On 14 and 15 June next, Moldova
will organize in Chisinau an international conference
on the implementation of the education reform
with a special focus on education for all. The
meeting will discuss the results of the thematic
review of education policy carried out by the
OECD and mobilize resources for some of the components
of the EFA Action Plan. |
| |
How
likely is universal primary completion by 2015?
May 25, 2004 - The second Millennium Development
Goal (MDG) calls on the international community
to ensure that by 2015 all boys and girls will
be able to complete primary school. A book from
the World Bank assesses the likelihood of achieving
universal primary school completion (UPSC) - the
most important of the Education for All (EFA)
goals - by 2015. The book presents a wealth of
statistics on educational indicators lays out
the policy reforms and incremental domestic and
international financing required to achieve UPSC.
Much remains to be done. During the 1990s the
average rate of UPSC in the developing world only
rose from 72 to 77%, far short of the progress
required to ensure UPSC by 2015. The global average
masks major regional differences. In sub-Saharan
Africa barely half of all school-age children
are reported to complete primary school. The Middle
East and North Africa showed a disturbing pattern
of stagnation over the 1990s. More
|
| |
From
EFA Action Week to the G8 Summit
May 21 2004 - One million people from 110
countries participated in this year's EFA Action
Week to ensure every child's right to go to school.
Leaders of the world's richest nations will be
meeting at the G8 Summit in Savannah, Georgia,
and they must not let these voices go unheard.
On June 8, NetAid along with the Global Campaign
for Education, CARE and the Basic Education Coalition
will be in Savannah to present letters from children
around the world who demand Education for All.
This will be a clear call to the eight most powerful
nations to listen to these children's voices,
and make Education for All a priority. More
|
| |
Teacher
training: the report card
May 13, 2004 - What globally relevant priorities
for teacher education and for the goal of Education
for All have emerged from the Multi-Site Teacher
Education Research Project's (MUSTER) national
case studies? MUSTER draws on research findings
from Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi and Trinidad and Tobago.
According to its recent report, in Ghana, Lesotho,
Malawi and South Africa - as in many other parts
of the developing world - training systems are
expensive and not producing enough new teachers
to meet projected demand. Too often they fail
to reform teaching practices, offer training of
limited relevance to the real conditions new teachers
face in expanded primary school systems and fail
to demonstrate effectiveness. More
|
| |
Protecting
African schoolgirls from sexual abuse
May 12, 2004 - Why is sexual violence so
prevalent in Africa’s schools? Why is predatory
aggressive masculinity condoned? What are the
links between abuse in schools, lack of information
and poverty? How should schools tackle abuse and
intimidation of female students? A report from
a collaborative research project between the University
of Sussex School of Education and African educationalists,
documents the abuse of girls in a number of junior
secondary schools in Ghana, Malawi and Zimbabwe.
The research builds on an earlier study carried
out into the abuse of girls in junior secondary
schools in Zimbabwe and demonstrates how schooling
is condoning male aggression, feminine submission
and transactional sex. More
|
| |
US
announces first 16 countries to receive millennium
challenge funding
May 10, 2004 - The Millennium Challenge
Corporation announced the first sixteen countries
to receive funding. The Millennium Challenge is
designed to reward countries that are fighting
corruption and poverty in their countries by investing
in the health and education of their people. Eight
of the sixteen countries selected are in Africa.
"This is a historic day for the Millennium Challenge
Corporation," said Secretary of State, Colin L.
Powell, Chair of the Board of the Millennium Challenge
Corporation. The President's vision has come to
pass, and today's decision by the Board of Directors
is a major step.
>> Press
release
>> Millennium
Challenge Corporation website
>> The
Center for Global Development explains and analyzes
MCA |
| |
Technology
Counts 2004, reports on use of computers in
schools worldwide
May 6, 2004 - The U.S. is among the world's
leaders in providing access to school computers,
but it lags behind other countries in frequency
of school computer use and Internet availability
at school, according to EDUCATION WEEK's annual
report on school technology. "TECHNOLOGY COUNTS
2004" reports that the United States' student-to-computer
ratio of 5:1 is tied for first in the world, along
with Australia and Latvia. However, some technology-oriented
countries have more than twice the percentage
of school computers connected to the Internet
than the United States does. "These numbers show
that our schools need to move beyond the goal
of simply putting computers in classrooms," said
Virginia B. Edwards, the editor and publisher
of EDUCATION WEEK. "And the world outside the
United States is rich with lessons about how technology
can be used in schools." This year's report presents
an overview of technology in schools around the
world, examining developments in Africa, Asia,
Australia, Europe, North America, and South America.
>>
Executive Summary
>> The
Report |
| |
"We
are now on track," says World Bank President
May 5, 2004 - Development ministers from
France, the UK, Canada, the Netherlands and Norway
expressed strong commitment to expanding the Fast-Track
Initiative at a press briefing following the Spring
Meetings of the World Bank. Achieving Education
for All will depend on the success of the Fast-Track
Initiative, said France’s new development minister,
Xavier Darcos. "And now is the moment of truth,
said World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn.
"We've made all of the excuses. Can we come up
with the dough? And can we put it out there in
an effective way in terms of this program? We
are starting to put out money in a way that people
in the field can recognize that they will get
the funds that they need. But the fund gap is
still very, very significant...." More
|
| |
Education
combats HIV/AIDS, says a new report
May 3, 2004 - Universal primary education
could save at least 7 million young people from
contracting HIV over a decade. However, without
dramatic increases in aid to education, Africa
will not be able to get every child into school
for another 150 years, according to a new report
by the Global Campaign for Education. This report
sets out why universal primary education is crucial
to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS, and outlines
what both rich and poor countries need to do now
to enable millions of children to learn ... to
survive.
>> Read
the report |
| |
Angola
reinforces its EFA commitment
April 28, 2004 - The Angolan Ministry of
Education organized a national consultation on
Education for All in Luanda from 21 to 24 April.
The gathering drew more than 350 participants,
among them government officials, parliamentarians,
consultants and visiting professionals, civil
society, churches and NGOs. Supported by UNESCO
Windhoek, the consultation was preceded by an
extensive media campaign and a sensitization workshop
for educational planners, statisticians and teacher
educators. The Minister of Education, his Vice
Minister and Vice Ministers of the Ministries
responsible for women and children, and social
reintegration took part. The consultation adopted
a final statement comprising 26 recommendations
to reach the Education for All goals.
>>>
Text of the final statement
>>> Opening
Statement by the UNESCO Representative
>>> Closing
Address by the Minister of Education |
| |
World
not doing enough to meet international goals,
says report
April 26, 2004 - A comprehensive report
released on 20 April concluded that the world
community is simply not doing nearly what it could
and should to tackle poverty, war, ignorance and
disease. A team of over 40 experts from around
the world, overseen by a distinguished steering
committee, has concluded that governments, international
organizations, business and civil society are
engaging in only about one-third of the effort
necessary to realize the United Nations Millennium
Declaration Goals.
>>> Press
Release
>>> Executive
Summary
>>>
Annual Report 2004
|
| |
|
Children
are spending more time in school than ever before,
says new study
April
22, 2004 - Children everywhere are spending
more time in school than ever before, but there
remain substantial differences between countries
and regions, according to UNESCO’s Global Education
Digest 2004. According to the Digest, a child
in Finland, New Zealand or Norway can expect
to receive over 17 years of education, almost
twice as much as in Bangladesh or Myanmar and
four times as much in Niger or Burkina Faso.
This new edition of the Digest, published by
UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics and available
online from today, presents the latest global
education indicators, one example of which is
school life expectancy (SLE), or the number
of school years that a child, on average, is
likely to spend in the education system. More
>>> The
Global Education Digest
|
| |
U.S.
Senator Clinton Unveils Plan For Global Universal
Education
April 21, 2004 - U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham
Clinton yesterday announced a planned legislative
effort designed to provide universal education
to children around the world, saying the United
States and other developed countries need to boost
efforts to achieve the U.N. Millennium Development
goal of having all children in school by 2015.
The report, "What Works in Girls' Education: Evidence
and Policies from the Developing World," was directed
by Senior Fellow Gene Sperling, former National
Economic Advisor in the Clinton Administration,
and Barbara Herz, who brings more than 20 years
of expertise at the U.S. Agency for International
Development, U.S. Treasury and the World Bank.
More
>>>
Executive
Summary
>>> Report |
| |
EFA
Week kicks off
April 19, 2004 - Today in many corners
of the world, press conferences, workshops and
marches of all sorts launch EFA Week 2004 in over
100 countries. The principal activity - the national
lobby - takes place tomorrow, 20 April, when children
will be lobbying their governments to do more
so that all children get an education. Some 5,000
children in the Philippines will lobby the national
parliament, 500 Cambodian street children will
visit the National Senate, and a boy and a girl
from each of Peru's twenty-four regions will lobby
at the Congreso de la República. In Britain, children
will symbolically stand in for the 659 members
of the House of Commons, while hundreds of lawmakers
will visit schools. Read more about the
Big Lobby and about the 100 million children
who are denied their right to education.
>>>
A QUICK GLANCE AT WHAT'S
HAPPENING AROUND THE WORLD
>>>MORE NEWS
FROM THE
GLOBAL CAMPAIGN FOR EDUCATION
>>>EFA
WEEK IN THE PRESS |
| |
Development
aid is on the increase
April 19, 2004 - Aid volume has risen by
a total of 11 percent over the last two years,
after a decade of decline. But much more will
be needed to achieve the UN Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) for 2015, including reducing the
percentage of people in poverty by half, cutting
child and maternal mortality, and enrolling all
girls and boys in school. This was reported at
the annual meeting of the OECD's Development Assistance
Committee, which brought together Aid Ministers
and Agency Heads, the UNDP, the World Bank and
the IMF, under the Chairmanship of Mr Richard
Manning, Chair of the DAC. Existing donor pledges
imply a further rise in ODA of some 25 percent
by 2006, but there is no room for complacency.
More
|
| |
Young
people to meet in Dakar to exchange ideas
April 15, 2004 - A Pan-African Youth Leadership
Summit will take place in Dakar, Senegal, 27-30
June 2004 as part of the Africa 2015 campaign
to call attention to the Millennium Development
Goals. Africa 2015 recognizes young people as
the future of the continent and the continent’s
best chance to find lasting solutions to some
of its most pressing problems. Young people and
the organizations that speak on their behalf are
a key audience and a central partner in the campaign.
With the theme “Providing a Global Platform for
Africa’s Next Generation of Leaders in Achieving
the Millennium Development Goals,” the summit
will bring together young leaders and representatives
of youth organizations to exchange ideas and experiences,
network and share proposals on how to achieve
the Millennium goals. More
|
| |
U.S.
and U.K. Educators Seek Answers to Common Woes
April 15, 2004 - Educators and policymakers
from the United States and the United Kingdom
gathered in London recently to tackle common issues
in urban education, ranging from how to narrow
the achievement gap to how to recruit and retain
teachers. While no one walked away with any solutions,
the hope is that continued conversations between
the two countries-including a follow-up meeting
in Philadelphia in September-could yield some
insights. "The history of education in great cities
in this country is of isolated excellence, of
underperformance compared to national averages,"
said David Miliband, the minister of state for
school standards in England, during the March
17-19 conference. Yet over the past five or six
years, he noted, "city education has improved
faster than the improvements that have been achieved
across the nation." More |
| |
Annual
Meeting of the Working Group for the United Nations
Literacy Decade
April 6, 2004 - A two-day meeting of the
Working Group of the United Nations Literacy Decade
(UNDL) starts today at UNESCO's headquarters in
Paris. The meeting will take stock of progress
and emerging challenges and consolidate plans
in order to respond to the specific actions/needs.
Members of the Working Group include experts in
literacy and related areas including rural development
and life skills development. More |
| |
84-year-old
pupil excels in first exam
April 6, 2004 - The 84-year-old Kenyan
who hit the headlines when he enrolled in Standard
One this year scored straight As in the first
end-of-term examinations. Kimani Ng'ang'a Maruge
found himself among the top five students in his
class at Kapkenduiyo primary school in Eldoret.
And as a reward, the school headmistress Mrs Jane
Obinchu installed him as the senior headboy during
the closing ceremony yesterday. Maruge sat three
written papers, English, Kiswahili and Mathematics,
and one oral examination in reading. He excelled
in English with 100 per cent while in Kiswahili,
he scored 81 per cent. Classteacher Paul Chemgorem,
described Maruge as a very active and obedient
learner. More |
| |
Swaziland:
Campaign to help AIDS-hit education system
April 1, 2004 - Swaziland is establishing
a local branch of the UN-supported Global Campaign
for Education in an effort to improve the kingdom's
schools and curriculum. "Our goal is to provide
free and quality education to all Swazis - to
all children, of course - but also to Swazi women,
to correct an historical imbalance," Evart Dlamini,
acting administrator for the campaign told IRIN.
The Global Campaign for Education has the backing
of the UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation,
and is comprised of teachers' unions and education-oriented
NGOs in participating countries. "We are planning
public marches to highlight the need for better
education and the inclusion of all children in
schools," said Dlamini. The campaign will be taken
to parliament next month, with a special session
dedicated to the subject of universal free education.
School children will testify before lawmakers
about the havoc caused by disruptions in their
scholastic careers due to lack of funds for school
fees and the deaths of parents or caregivers who
had been supporting them. More
|
| |
Rich
Countries 'Failing Poor On Education'
March 30, 2004 - Rich country governments
have failed to provide the financing they promised
under the "Education for All Fast Track Initiative"
(FTI) to help fund universal primary education
in poor countries, reports the Financial Times
(03/29, citing a World Bank report. The scheme,
intended to help countries meet the Millennium
Development Goal of providing primary education
for all children by 2015, is suffering from a
lack of financing, according to a report by World
Bank staff. The report was prepared for the development
committee of finance and development ministries,
which advises the boards of the World Bank and
IMF. More |
| |
United
Nations agencies are meeting today
March 29, 2004 - United Nations agencies
are meeting today at UNESCO's headquarters in
Paris to discuss how best to promote life skills
within the Education for All drive. The three-day
inter-agency meeting will include sessions on
general definitions of life skills in EFA and
potential collaborative activities to promote
life skills education and the assessment of learning
outcomes and EFA monitoring. More
|
| |
|
Guinea
on the road to EFA
March 24,
2004 - Since 1985, Guinea has recorded significant
progress towards EFA. Enrolment, particularly
of girls, shot up from 28 per cent in 1990 to
72 per cent for the school year 2001/2002, according
to the Agence guinéeenne de presse, a Guinean
press agency. The number of classrooms increased
from roughly 8,000 in 1992/93 to 24,000 in 2002/2003
and the proportion of pupils attending private
schools climbed from 9 per cent in 1996/97 to
21 per cent in 2001/02. It is estimated that
some 50 per cent of pupils attend private schools
in Conakry. The 150 Centre NAFA , centres that
provide a 3-year basic education course for
over-age children (9-16 years), are now reaching
out to over 7,500 learners, of which over 7,000
are girls. More
(in French only)
|
| |
An
economic and social imperative
March 19, 2004 - OECD Secretary-General
Donald J. Johnston calls for education throughout
life in today's International Herald Tribune.
"International competition for jobs, the demands
of new technology and the broader needs of the
knowledge economy all make education a priority.
But it is far from certain whether today's education
systems can respond to these needs," he says.
"Education systems are highly complex. To be effective,
they must respond quickly and appropriately to
the changing economic and social environment.
Paradoxically, information on new methods and
approaches that can help education providers adjust
programs and improve learning results is hard
to find and even harder to implement. Something
akin to electric-shock treatment is often needed
before reforms are even considered. Just such
a shock was provided in many countries by the
Program for International Student Assessment,
or PISA, initiated in the late 1990s by the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development. Results
from PISA's 2003 survey, which will be available
at the end of this year, may well give countries
another jolt. "
More |
| |
A
new southern Africa initiative to combat HIV/AIDS
March 19,2004 - UNDP Administrator Mark
Malloch Brown met with government, business and
community leaders last week in Botswana, Malawi
and Zambia to present the Southern
African Capacity Initiative (SACI) to
help overcome the lost productive lives from HIV/AIDS.
While southern Africa represents only about 2
per cent of the world's population, it is home
of more than 30 per cent to the 40 million people
worldwide living with HIV/AIDS. Microsoft and
its CEO Bill Gates are partners in the initiative,
noted Mr. Malloch Brown, helping develop ways
to use the power of information and communications
technology to enable governments to upgrade services,
including distance learning and telemedicine.
The initiative will also draw on the skills of
national and international UN Volunteers. At the
Ben Thema Primary School in Gaborone, Mr. Malloch
Brown saw a UNDP-supported project that has used
Brazil's experience in HIV/AIDS education to create
"Talk Back," an interactive television programme
the brings life-saving information to teachers
and students. More
|
| |
The
missing 65 million: getting girls into school
March 17, 2004 - Is there any prospect
of achieving one of the key Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) - getting equal numbers of girls
and boys into school by 2005? Could educating
girls be the key to ending world poverty? What
must be done to achieve universal primary education
(UPE) by 2015? A report from the Global Campaign
for Education examines success stories in girls’
education in nine African and Asian countries.
Although Malawi, Ethiopia and Bangladesh have
doubled or tripled girls’ enrolments, it warns,
however, that no fewer than 88 states need to
take urgent action to meet the 2005 MDG. Girls’
enrolments could grow at the rate required to
reach the 2015 target if basic education is made
free, subsidies are targetted at poor girls and
resource-starved schools and if rich countries
keep their aid promises. More
|
| |
Moldova
holds conference on EFA
March 15, 2004 - A Republican Conference
on Education for All (EFA) and Ecological Life
Skills Based Education (ELSE) took place on 19
February in the framework of the UN Theme Group
on Education. This two-day conference organized
by the National Commission for UNESCO in close
co-operation with UNICEF and the Ministry of Education
aimed to enhance the knowledge of national education
specialists in EFA and life skills education.
The emphasis was put on how to teach ecological
life skills to students. The Education for All
process in Moldova started in 2001 and in December
of that year, the Government convened the National
Conference on Education for All in order to sensitise
public opinion to EFA issues, to discuss current
educational problems and to set up a National
EFA Forum. More
|
| |
UK.
Prime Minister launches Commission for Africa
March 11, 2004 - The U.K. Prime Minister
has launched a new initiative - the Commission
for Africa - to take a fresh look at the challenges
Africa faces in the context of the global forces
in play in the 21st century. The Commission aims
to generate increased support for the G8 Africa
Action Plan and the New Partnership for African
Development (NEPAD). The Commission will set out
the facts on Africa and its assessment of policy
on Africa (both within Africa and internationally):
where it has worked; where it has failed; where
more could be done; and where more support is
needed from the international community. On current
predictions, despite progress in certain areas,
Africa will not meet any of the Millennium Development
Goals. The Commissioners will be politicians and
opinion formers, drawn from developed countries
and Africa. The Commissioner's responsibilities,
which are likely to include Education, will be
decided at the first meeting of the Commission
in April. More
|
| |
Donors
must deliver, says five Education Ministers
March 9, 2004 - Five education ministers
(Gambia, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Republic of
Guinea) call for more funds for education, particularly
of girls, in International Herald Tribune. As
school bells ring across the world on Monday,
which is International Women’s Day, more than
100 million primary school-aged children will
not be sitting in class - and about 60 million
of those missing out will be girls. On average,
in the poorest countries in Africa one girl in
two is not in school. The crisis extends to another
150 million children who will never complete their
primary education. Neither Western nor developing-country
governments need to be convinced of the need for
education for all. The case is compellingly clear:
No country has reached sustained economic growth
without achieving near universal primary education.
Particularly for girls, education is related to
lower infant mortality rates and higher life expectancies.
Educated women marry later, have fewer children
and raise healthier, more nourished families.
More
|
| |
|
An
'Asian miracle'
March 5, 2004
- Countries in Asia and the Pacific have
made significant progress towards achieving
the Millennium Development Goals, reducing the
proportion of people living in poverty from
34 per cent to 24 per cent during the 1990s
in what "could be called an Asian miracle" says
a comprehensive UN report released last week.
Entitled "Promoting
the Millennium Development Goals in Asia and
the Pacific: Meeting the Challenges of Poverty
Reduction ," the report, however, pointed
out that 768 million people in the region still
live in extreme poverty, subsisting on less
than a dollar a day. Many of the countries could
fall short of the 2015 targets if they don't
make greater efforts. The average primary school
enrolment in the region has remained static
at about 93 per cent, the report finds, and
while a number of countries could achieve Goal
2 - universal primary education - others may
fall short. More
|
| |
Harry
Belafonte calls for end to school fees
March 2, 2004 - The children of Kenya got
a gift last year when their government made the
farsighted move of abolishing tuition fees for
primary school. But education should not be considered
a gift. It is a basic human right, one that we
take for granted. Yet throughout the developing
world even the most basic education is unaffordable
to poor families because they are expected to
pay. When families can afford to send only one
child to school, they usually send sons instead
of daughters. When Kenya passed its free primary
education policy a year ago, families who hadn't
been able to afford the old levies of $133 began
sending their children to school. More than 1.3
million children entered school almost overnight,
pushing national enrollment from 5.9 million to
7.2 million. So great was the thirst for opportunity
that teenage boys and girls lined up for their
chance to enter grade school. More
|
| |
'Report
Card' gauges U.S. state preschool efforts
February 26, 2004 - A new "report card"
on U.S. state-financed preschool programmes concludes
that states still have a long way to go to provide
young children with high-quality educational experiences
before they start kindergarten. While the report
issued last week by the National Institute for
Early Education Research, in New Brunswick, N.J.,
doesn't give states a grade or a score, it does
compare them with other states on a number of
measures. They include the percentage of 3- and
4-year-olds the states are serving, how well the
states are meeting specific quality benchmarks,
and how much they are spending per child. More
|
| |
India,
U.S. and ILO join forces to fight child labour
February 23, 2004 - The Government of India,
in cooperation with the US Department of Labor
and the International Labour Organization (ILO)
have launched a US$ 40 million programme aimed
at eliminating child labour that targets directly
some 80,000 children in ten hazardous industries.
This is the largest child labour programme ever
undertaken by the ILO at the country level. It
seeks the prevention and elimination of hazardous
child labour by enhancing the human, social and
physical capacity of target communities. "Child
labour is not inevitable", said Mr. Juan Somavia,
ILO Director-General. "We know there is no simple
solution. However strategies have to reflect national
specificities and be backed by political will.
We must remain fixed on the goal of 'work for
parents, education for children, opportunities
for young people'." The
ILO's International Programme on the Elimination
of Child Labour (IPEC) will be the executing
agency. More |
| |
Pakistan's
Education Minister supports EFA Week
February 19, 2004 - Pakistan's Education
Minister, Ms. Zobaida Jalal, has declared her
support for the 2004 Global EFA Week and instructed
her civil servants to ask the Prime Minister and
the President to each meet with children on 20th
April (for the natinal lobby) to hear their views
on education as it was important, she said, that
the voices of children be heard on education.
The Minister announced this in a recent meeting
with representatives of the Global
Campaign for Education and the Commonwealth
Education Fund Pakistan. |
| |
Illiteracy
- Nigeria's fundamental challenge
February 13, 2004 - Illiteracy has remained
the most fundamental challenge to the country
and has constituted the foundation of all the
socio-political and economic malaise the Ondo
State afflicting the nation. The remark was made
by Governor Olusegun Agagu at the orientation
programme for the National Open University of
Nigeri (NOUN) in Akure. He said that education
is a veritable tool for social development and
engineering without which the crave for various
goals would remain elusive. "Overcoming this challenge
through the means of dissemination of qualitative
education has been a pre-occupation of successive
government, leading to the expression of our commitment
to the goals of education for all by 2015." Agagu
argued that "we must take conscious efforts toward
expanding and improving access to basic education
because education is the most important instrument
of change in any society." More
|
| |
Schools
open in Angola
February 11, 2004 - The start of 2004 academic
year's classes in primary and secondary schools
on Monday in Luanda was marked by a reduced presence
of students and teachers. Five-year-old Silvandra
Yanessa Francisco is one of children who join
this school year. Accompanied by her mother, the
new pupil expressed anxiety in discovering the
new world. In the official opening of 2004 academic
year, Angola's deputy Education minister for Teaching
Reform, Pinda Simao, revealed that about three
million Angolan citizens have access to the education
system this year alone, a figure never reached
before. The Government attributed this fact to
the conquering of peace, attained two years ago.
More |
| |
New
research on teaching English
February 5, 2004 - Bilingual approaches
are more effective than English-only methods in
teaching children who speak other languages to
read in English, concludes a review of 30 years
of studies on programs for English-language learners.
Robert E. Slavin, a Johns Hopkins University researcher
and the chairman of the Success for All Foundation,
said he intends to change how he advises schools
to teach reading to English-language learners
as a result of the review. Bilingual education
has a particularly positive effect, say Mr. Slavin
and Alan Cheung, a research scientist at the Baltimore-based
Success for All Foundation, when students are
taught to read both in their native languages
and in English at the same period in their lives,
though at different times in a single day. Their
study calls that approach a "paired-bilingual
program." It differs from many bilingual education
programs that postpone teaching children to read
in English until they've learned to read in their
native languages.
More |
| |
The
missing 65 million: getting girls into school
February 3, 2004 - A new report from the
Global Campaign for Education (www.campaignforeducation.org)
examines success stories in girls’ education in
nine African and Asian countries. Although Malawi,
Ethiopia and Bangladesh have doubled or tripled
girls’ enrolments, it warns, however, that no
fewer than 88 states need to take urgent action
to meet the 2005 Millennium Development Goals.
Girls’ enrolments could grow at the rate required
to reach the 2015 target if basic education is
made free, subsidies are targetted at poor girls
and resource-starved schools and if rich countries
keep their aid promises. More
|
| |
Can
Djibouti reach the 2005 deadline of gender parity?
January 30, 2004 - The Djibouti government
aims to get all its boys and girls in school by
the end of this decade. That target, most observers
agree, is likely to prove much easier in the capital,
Djibouti City, and provincial towns than in the
hamlets that dot the arid countryside, where the
challenges to universal primary education are
strongest. Primary education for all is one of
the millennium development goals (MDGs) that governments
have committed themselves to achieving, as well
as the promotion of gender equality and empowerment
of women. The MDGs are to be achieved by 2015.
However, the target date for eliminating disparities
between boys and girls in primary and secondary
education, thereby to promote gender equality,
is 2005. Can Djibouti meet the 2005 deadline?
"We'll get close to it," says Keith McKenzie,
who heads UNICEF's Djibouti office. "I think there
has been a tremendous push by the government [
] over the last couple of years," he added, pointing
to an "intensive campaign" led by the government,
with support from donors and UN agencies such
as UNICEF and the World Food Programme (WFP),
to get more girls into school. More
|
| |
African
education ministers to discuss open and distance
learning
January 29, 2004 - About 36 ministers of
education from various countries in Africa will
meet in Cape Town on Sunday for a conference on
open learning and distance education. President
Thabo Mbeki is expected to open the conference
at Cape Town's International Convention Centre.
Held under the theme Transforming Education for
a New Africa: Realising the Potential of Open
Learning and Distance Education, issues to be
discussed include collaboration in distance education
and transforming education in Africa. About 270
delegates from across the continent are expected
to attend. More
|
| |
More
aid for Sub-Saharan Africa
January 27, 2004 - Countries and organizations
comprising the Strategic Partnership with Africa
renewed their commitment to increase aid to Africa
and improve its impact on reducing poverty in
the continent. The Partnership's annual plenary
meeting was hosted by the African Development
Bank in Tunis, Tunisia, January 20-21. For the
first time, African governments, several represented
by their finance ministers, joined the meeting
as full participants. The Partnership, which since
1987 has mobilized support for reforming African
economies, is the principal forum for aid mobilization
and coordination for Sub-Saharan Africa. More
|
| |
Delivering
HIV/AIDS preventive education in Asian schools
January 26, 2004 - How is HIV-related education
delivered in schools in the Asia-Pacific region?
Where and at what age does the curriculum address
HIV/AIDS? Research in 11 countries shows an emphasis
on biological rather than social factors and neglect
of the subject in primary schools. Schools seem
like good places in which to give young people
the knowledge and skills to protect themselves
against HIV. But which methods work best? Researchers
from the University of New South Wales in Australia
and the UK’s Institute of Education looked at
HIV/AIDS education policy and practice in Brunei,
Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia,
Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Thailand
and Vietnam. More
|
| |
New
survey highlights Somalia's hardships
January 21, 2004 - One in four men and
13 per cent of women in Somalia are literate,
and only 17 per cent of children are enrolled
in primary school. Access to health care is difficult:
mother and child health centres are available
to only one in four families and only 17 per cent
of Somalis say they can afford them. These facts
are revealed in a new report, Socio-Economic Survey
of Somalia the first in over two decades. The
report, prepared by the World Bank and UNDP using
a nationwide household survey, shows the difficulties
people face without a central government or basic
public services. The survey estimates that 43
per cent of Somalis live in extreme poverty, surviving
on less than a dollar a day, and finds that nearly
half the workforce is unemployed. "The survey
is particularly important because it gives us
a picture of what Somalia looks like today," said
UNDP Country Director El-Balla Hagona. "It will
also be important in providing indicators for
more informed developmental interventions and
initiatives, as well as preparing the Millennium
Development Goals Report on Somalia." More
|
| |
Arab
nations to review progress in education
January 19, 2004 – A regional conference
on Education for All National Action Plans will
start tomorrow in Beirut, Lebanon. During the
four-day meeting Education Ministers and representatives
from the Arab States will evaluate the present
state of EFA planning and discuss strategies and
challenges facing the region. About a fifth of
Arab school-age children (more than 7 million)
were not enrolled in 2000. And only 60 per cent
of adults in the region are able to read and write.
- Press
release
- Information
note
- Provisional
agenda |
| |
Nigeria
determined to reach the EFA and MDGs goals
January 16, 2004 - Nigeria has re-affirmed
its determination to attain the Education for
All (EFA) and the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs). According to the Minister of State for
Education, Hajia Bintu Ibrahim Musa, "a clear
demonstration of this determination is the allocation
of the largest budgetary provision for this year
to the Education Sector by the Federal Government".
The Minister spoke in Kaduna on 12 January at
a workshop on the use of radio for teacher development,
jointly organised by the British Broadcasting
Corporation (BBC), the British Council and the
National Teachers' Institute (NTI), Kaduna. Musa
said, "we are (also) among other things, accelerating
the effective use of distance education and strengthening
the capacity of our Open and Distance Learning
institutions to rapidly expand and promote access
and equity as well as for quality improvement
at all levels of education. "An important element
of this re-positioning of Distance Learning is
the harnessing and efficient use of the potentials
of media such as radio, television and modern
information and communication technologies." More |
| |
Central
African Education Ministers discuss Co-operation
January 15, 2004 - UNESCO, in collaboration
with the Central African Economic and Monetary
Community (CEMAC), has organised a two day workshop
for Education Ministers of the CEMAC zone. The
meeting which began in the Yaounde Hilton Hotel
yesterday is organised under the theme "education
and sub regional cooperation." The workshop has
several targets. It aims at mobilising the ministers
to pursue and reinforce the educational objectives
laid down at the eighth conference of African
Ministers for Education (MINEDAF). It also intends
to pursue the objectives with respect to the goals
of NEPAD, the Millennium Development Objectives
and MINEDAF's strategies to provide education
for all on the continent. The ministers are examining
an integrated sub-regional programme on the training
of teachers, integration of HIV/AIDS preventive
education in school curriculum, integrated civic
education and the introduction of the new communication
technology in secondary and high schools within
the sub region. More |
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ICTs
bring schools and communities together in Ghana
January 13, 2004 - Could information communication
technologies (ICTs) improve learning in rural
Africa? When exposed to new technology, how do
children, adults and teachers use it to represent
their lives and opportunities? Research from the
University of Sussex’s Centre of International
Education shows what happened when residents of
a Ghanaian village were given their first chance
to collect and show digital images of their lives.
Could ICTs revive faith in education? The report
highlights the enthusiasm with which villagers
embraced opportunities provided by the project,
developed positive images of their way of life,
valued local knowledge and took pride in links
to a prestigious global community. More
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No
school for a million Mozambican children
January 9, 2004 - Over a million Mozambican
children of school age will be unable to attend
primary school in 2004 for sheer lack of space
in the classrooms. According to Virgilio Juvane,
the National Director of Planning in the Education
Ministry, it is mainly the shortage of schools
and of teachers that leads to this situation.
The million children in question are aged between
six and 13 and should, in principle, be studying
in first and second level primary education (grades
one to seven). Juvane said that the problem can
only be overcome gradually by expanding the school
network and training more teachers. Complicating
matters is the "accumulated deficit of children
who did not enter school in previous years, either
for lack of space or because their parents did
not enrol them in time". he said. More
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Using
schools to prevent conflict
January 7, 2004 - A report from the UK’s
Department for International Development (DFID)
examines the link between education and conflict
and analyses the practice of key international
agencies. The authors argue that that there has
been a tendency to view education as a force for
good without acknowledging that it can also create
the conditions for strife. Of the estimated 113
million children not in school worldwide, 82 per
cent are living in crisis and post-crisis countries.
At Dakar in 2000, international educators belatedly
recognised the issue of conflict as an obstacle
to the achievement of the goal of ‘Education for
All’ and noted how education can play a key role
in preventing conflict and building peace. Segregated
schools are common in many countries divided by
conflict. This segregation limits the opportunities
for young people from different groups to interact
and reinforces separate identities. More
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E-9
Education Ministers reaffirm their commitment
to Education For All
January 5, 2004 - Education ministers from
the world’s nine high population countries - Bangladesh,
Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico,
Nigeria and Pakistan - have reaffirmed their commitment
to meet the basic learning needs of all their
peoples and to work more closely together to achieve
the six goals set at the World Education Forum
held in Dakar (Senegal) in 2000.
The ministers were taking part in the 5th E-9
Ministerial Review Meeting, which was held in
Cairo (December 19-21) at the invitation of the
Egyptian Government. The E-9 Initiative was created
in 1993 in New Delhi as part of the follow-up
to the Education For All Conference in Jomtien
(Thailand). It aims to strengthen collaboration
between the world’s nine high population countries
in their quest to provide quality education for
all . The E-9 countries are home to over 50 percent
of the world’s population and account for 70 percent
of illiterate adults and more than 40 percent
of the world’s out-of-school children. More |
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Achieving
Education for All in rural areas
December 26, 2003 - More than half of the
world’s population and more than 70 per cent of
the world’s poor are to be found in rural areas.
Despite the fact that education is a basic right,
access to education in rural areas is still much
lower than in urban areas. In order to spread
news on its activities and to sensitize the civil
society to the need to address this issue, the
Sustainable Development Department of the Food
and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has just launched
a website on the education of rural people. Visit
the site
In 2002, the FAO and UNESCO launched an inter-agency
flagship initative on the same subject. This flagship
now counts 73 members including international
agencies and NGOs. It aims to build awareness
of the importance of education for rural people,
overcome the urban/rural education gap, increase
access to basic education by rural people, improve
quality of basic education in rural areas, and
foster national capacity to address learning needs
of rural people. Visit
this site |
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Uganda
to spend $56M to educate street children
December 26, 2003 - The Ugandan government
is to spend $56 million to educate street children
in the country. The Ugandan Minister of Gender,
Labour and Social Development, Ms Zoe Bakoko Bakoru,
said this Friday at Old Kampala. The minister
was awarding certificates to 1,000 street children
who were trained in vocational and literacy skills
by Friends of Children Organisation, a non-governmental
organisation. "The policy for orphans and desperate
children is now ready," Bakoru said. "The ministry
has accessed over $56 million for educating street
children [and] desperate orphans starting next
year," she added. The minister said the money
will be channelled through the social development
sector strategic investment plan. It will be used
to train orphans and other vulnerable groups with
developmental skills to enable them change their
lives. More |
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Join
the discussion forum on the role of youth in
EFA
December 22,
2003 -
LearningChannel.org of OneWorld
South Asia is running a discussion forum
on Education and Youth on the occasion of the
Youth Employment Summit. The discussion theme
is Youth Dimension in the Education for All
movement. The forum will exchange information
on the progress being made on this front and
discuss problems and drawbacks. As the involvement
of civil society in the EFA process is increasing,
youth organizations are increasingly playing
a role in the EFA movement. The discussion forum
will debate over the current role of youth organizations
in EFA and prospects for the future. Click
here to join the forum
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Nigeria
should seize the moment, says Prof. Omolewa
December 18, 2003 - In an interview with
the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) last week in
Grand Baie, Mauritius, Prof. Omolewa, a Nigerian
who was recently elected President of UNESCO's
General Conference, said UNESCO had decided to
increase funding to Africa for education programmes.
He explained that Nigeria was in the forefront
in the struggle for Education for All by 2015
and should take advantage of the next two years
to redesign and repackage its programmes for the
acceleration of education. "The two years during
which Nigeria will enjoy the presidency of the
UNESCO General Conference will make a difference.
"The position will not come to Africa in the next
15 years, not to West Africa in 60 years and unlikely
to come to Nigeria in the next 100 years. "We
have to take advantage of this. We have to plan.
Nigeria should have packages in education, culture,
science, communication and gender for UNESCO to
work with", he advised. Ministers of education
and parliamentarians in Africa, he said would
now be brought together under UNESCO's cover to
be more active in the implementation of programmes
concerning education, culture, communication and
science and technology. More
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Do
your part to educate girls in Zimbabwe: send friends
an e-card
December 16, 2003 - For many, the start
of a New Year is a time to make personal resolutions
for the future. For 2004, make a resolution for
the world: commit to doing your part to help fight
global poverty in 2004. You have a role to play.
Send five friends an e-card, and BidClix, a NetAid
partner, will donate US$1 on your behalf to a
NetAid
World Schoolhouse project in Zimbabwe.
This project is ensuring that girls, many of them
AIDS-affected, can fulfill their right to an education—the
key to ending poverty. The NetAid community has
sent over 11,505 e-cards, raising US$2,301. Choose
your e-card
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Thailand
shares successful HIV/AIDS strategies with neighbours
 December
15, 2003 - As part of South-South cooperation
in HIV/AIDS prevention and care, Thailand recently
hosted social workers, public health policy officials
and doctors from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Timor-Leste
at a 10-day course, organized in cooperation with
UNDP. Meeting at Chiang Mai University in the
north, participants studied how the AIDS virus
is transmitted, consulted with Thai doctors and
visited an orphanage for children who have lost
their parents to the disease. They also met with
people living with HIV/AIDS who have created small
businesses to support themselves and talked with
Buddhist monks about the role of religious leaders
in HIV/AIDS prevention and care. "Thailand's experience
in curbing HIV/AIDS has much to offer neighbouring
countries," said UNDP Deputy Resident Representative
Hakan Bjorkman. He noted that Thailand's strong
political leadership, campaign for 100 per cent
condom use by sex workers, and community approach
to prevention and care have earned international
praise. More
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"Stop
the military expenses responsible for decreasing
development aid,” says Wolfensohn
December 12, 2003 - In an interview with
La Repubblica (Italy) World Bank President James
Wolfensohn said that international terrorism exists
where poverty, misery, and lack of prospects abound.
Peace and economic stability go together-it has
been demonstrated, he says. The current spending
on the military is about $800 billion a year against
$56 billion spent on development. “It’s a fool’s
choice,” Wolfensohn said. It must be the opposite
and we have to explain it to the people. In the
Palestinian territories more than half the population
is less than 21 years and 60 percent of them are
jobless. In 2015, there will be 300 million unemployed
people in the Middle East and they will knock
on Europe’s doors, Wolfensohn said. More
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UNICEF
calls for more action to get girls into school
December 11, 2003 - International development
efforts are drastically short-changing girls,
leaving hundreds of millions of girls and women
uneducated and unable to contribute to positive
change for themselves, their children, or their
communities, a major UNICEF report released today
contends. The agency said that without accelerated
action to get more girls into school over the
next two years, global goals to reduce poverty
and improve the human condition would simply not
be reached. Conversely, it said that bringing
down the barriers that keep girls out of school
would benefit both girls and boys - and their
countries. "International development efforts
have been glaringly inadequate at getting girls
into school in too many countries,” said UNICEF
Executive Director Carol Bellamy, releasing UNICEF’s
flagship report, The State of the World’s Children.
“We have to ask ourselves why this is, and what
the consequences are. In this report the findings
are clear: gender discrimination is hampering
development efforts, starting with the fundamental
right of every child to go to school.” More
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No
Child Left Behind: A Progress Report
December 11, 2003 - Nearly two years after
its passage, the No Child Left Behind Act has
produced one unambiguous result: an avalanche
of data on the performance of public schools in
the United States. But a survey of the 50 states
and the District of Columbia by Education Week
found less movement on other fronts, such as the
number of states now testing in the required grades.
Moreover, many states are still struggling to
mesh their existing systems for rating schools
with the federal law, which has resulted in confusing
messages about what all the numbers mean. The
disparities have contributed to a backlash against
the law's requirements in some corners that's
likely to mount as the nation heads into an election
year. President Bush has touted the 2001 reauthorization
of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
as one of his foremost accomplishments. More |
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Malian
school teachers begin two-day strike
December
10, 2003 - Public school teachers in Mali
began a two-day strike yesterday to press for
better working conditions and higher salaries,
paralysing the school system from nursery to university
level, official of the teacher's union said. Teachers
in higher institutions of learning, including
Mali's sole university, joined the strike barely
two months after staging a similar strike. That
strike was called off after the government promised
to review their terms of employment. "If our demands
are not met, we reserve the right to extend our
action," Youssouf Ganaba, the secretary-general
of the Malian National Federation of Education,
the largest teachers' union in the country, said.
Thousands of school children in the capital, Bamako,
and other towns in the hinterland, who have gone
to school in the morning, trekked back home after
the teachers failed to turn up to teach their
classes. More
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Ministerial
meeting in South Asia on Education for All
December 4, 2003 - Ministers and deputy
ministers from South Asian countries will meet
today and tomorrow in Islamabad, Pakistan to discuss
sub-regional cooperation in education. Organized
jointly by the Ministry of Education of Pakistan
and UNESCO, the meeting will discuss the conclusions
of the EFA Global Monitoring Report and formulate
required political actions recommended at national
and sub-regional levels. It is also expected to
issue a joint declaration concerning sub-regional
co-operation by the Education Ministers. Pakistan’s
Federal Minister of Education, Hon. Ms. Zobaida
Jalal, is charing the meeting. More |
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UNESCO
and Germany sign Memorandum of Understanding in
support of the Global Monitoring Report on Education
for All
December 4, 2003 - The Director-General
of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, and the Ambassador,
Permanent Delegate of Germany to UNESCO, Chair
of the Executive Board, Mr Hans-Heinrich Wrede,
today signed a Memorandum of Understanding for
the purpose of supporting the annual Global Monitoring
Report on Education for All. The memorandum stipulates
that the Federal Republic of Germany shall make
available to UNESCO, for the years 2003 to 2005,
an amount of up to € 900,000. More |
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Education
for repatriation: providing refugees with vocational
skills
December 4, 2003 - The international community
provides protection and assistance to 350 000
Burundian refugees in 10 camps in western Tanzania.
With 10 000 Burundian refugees entering adulthood
in the camps each year and the prospect for return
uncertain, there is much scope for boredom, apathy
and crime. What form of education is relevant
and stimulating for such refugee populations?
A paper from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) entitled ‘Vocational training for refugees:
a case study from Tanzania’ evaluates ongoing
skills training programmes for Burundian refugees.
It assesses the scope for expanding them into
a wider training programme based on the concept
of education for repatriation - developing and
enhancing skills that will be of use on return
from exile.
More |
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Education
for repatriation: providing refugees with vocational
skills
December 4, 2003 - The international community
provides protection and assistance to 350 000
Burundian refugees in 10 camps in western Tanzania.
With 10 000 Burundian refugees entering adulthood
in the camps each year and the prospect for return
uncertain, there is much scope for boredom, apathy
and crime. What form of education is relevant
and stimulating for such refugee populations?
A paper from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) entitled ‘Vocational training for refugees:
a case study from Tanzania’ evaluates ongoing
skills training programmes for Burundian refugees.
It assesses the scope for expanding them into
a wider training programme based on the concept
of education for repatriation - developing and
enhancing skills that will be of use on return
from exile.
More |
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International
Seminar on street children and HIV/AIDS opens
in Bamako
December 2, 2003 - Street children have
to fight for survival daily. In such circumstances,
it is difficult for them to become aware of the
dangers of catching HIV/AIDS. Who is going to
worry about a hypothetical future illness when
the future is uncertain? This is the challenge
faced by prevention programmes and actions. Tomorrow
opens in Bamako, Mali, a 3-day international seminar
on street children and HIV/AIDS. This seminar
will bring together some 40 participants, street
children experts and HIV/AIDS specialists from
Asia and Africa. It is organized by UNESCO in
the framework of UNESCO/UNAIDS co-operation. The
aim of the seminar is to strengthen partnerships
between Ministries, civil society and NGOs in
order to better inform street children of preventive
HIV/AIDS measures. The seminar follows up on two
sub-regional workshops - in Mali for Sub-saharan
Africa (June 2003) and in Thailand, for the Mekong
sub-region (September 2003). It will identify
successful innovative ways of informing street
schildren about HIV/AIDS prevention and provide
a platform for experience-exchange between African
and Asian experts. Among keynote speakers are:
Mali's First Lady, the Chairperson of UNAIDS Thematic
Group and grassroots organizations such as the
Samu Social, CARITAS, ENDA Mali. HIV/AIDS and
street children workers from Burkina Faso, Cambodia,
Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Niger, Thailand
and Vietnam will also be present.
- Agenda
- List
of Participants
- Background
Document |
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Experts
begin monitoring gender dimension in Millennium
goals
November 28, 2003 - An
international workshop at the World Bank
in Washington, D.C. last week agreed to produce
a tool kit on how to monitor gender equality in
progress towards the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs). Participants
also decided to launch a web site that the UN
Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)
will coordinate, and to promote national advocacy
campaigns. UNDP is to prepare a comprehensive
review of MDG country reports through a gender
lens by 2005. The workshop focused on the importance
of gender in all the eight goals endorsed by world
leaders, in addition to those specifically related
to women -- Goal 3 on gender equality and empowering
women and Goal 5 on maternal health. The 180 plus
participants came from developing countries, UN
agencies, international development banks and
donor governments, including representatives from
Albania, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Honduras, Kosovo,
Nigeria, Nepal, Philippines, Uganda, Viet Nam
and Yemen. More
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European
Union Supports Education in Mozambique
November 27, 2003 - The European Union
has pledged 17 million euros (about 20 million
US dollars) to support the Mozambican government's
Strategic Education Plan, reported the daily paper
"Noticias" on 25 November. To that end, the Mozambican
Education Ministry signed an agreement with the
British government's Department for International
Development (DFID), which supplements a memorandum
of understanding signed with various donors for
the Education Sector Support Fund (FASE). A source
in the education ministry told reporters that
the agreement with the British agency is the first
step for the disbursing of the pledged money.
FASE is an integrated mechanism for the funding
of the Strategic Plan, which aims to increase
opportunities of access to education at all levels
and improve the quality of this service. More
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Franco-British
Council School Partnership Prize 2004
November 25, 2003 - The Franco-British
Council awards an annual prize to a state or private
primary or secondary school in Britain to carry
out a school partnership project. This prize to
promote sustainable development was launched in
1995 and since then has enabled ten schools to
undertake a project with a French school, providing
a greater understanding of a different culture,
as well as the opportunity to share thoughts and
ideas on the environment. This year, up to three
prizes with prize money totalling £5 000 will
be awarded. The project should be planned for
the academic year 2004/2005 and can relate to
any environmental theme. Prize money can be used
to create a real or virtual link between schools,
perhaps including a visit to France or an exchange.
The deadline is Friday, 14 May 2004.
- Press
release
- Guidelines
- Application
Form |
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Rich
countries languish at bottom of class on education
funding
November 21, 2003 - Leaders of the world’s
22 richest countries have been ranked from A to
F in a new school report released this week on
the quantity and quality of aid they provide for
primary education in poor countries. While Norway
and the Netherlands come top of the class, the
US, Greece and New Zealand languish at the bottom.
The Global Campaign for Education report Must
Try Harder is the first analysis of a promise
made by rich country leaders three years ago,
to provide the aid needed for every child to go
to school. It comes ahead of a critical donor
meeting in Oslo, Norway on 20th and 21st November.
The US was not the only G8 country to put in a
poor performance, with the UK scraping a 13th
placed D, Japan getting a D in 15th position,
Germany also gaining a D and Italy earning a dismal
E in 18th place. “Leaders of some of the richest
countries including the US and Italy have flunked
the exam on education aid,” said Oxfam’s senior
policy advisor Oliver Buston. “Six months on from
the G8 summit, donors must seize the chance at
this week’s critical meeting in Oslo and provide
hard currency to meet education funding promises.”
More
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Download
the report 'Must Try Harder' |
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Dutch
government donates $3M to UNICEF for girls' education
November 21, 2003 - The Dutch Government
has donated almost $3.4 million to UNICEF to be
used over the next three years to enhance and
promote girls' education in six regions of Ethiopia
and the rights of all children in the country
to quality learning opportunities. The money will
be used in Oromiya, Amhara, Benishangul-Gumuz,
Gambella and the Southern Nations Nationalities
and Peoples Region (SNNPR) where there are the
widest gender gaps and the lowest girls' enrolment.
More than four million children, 2.7 million girls
and 1.4 million boys, are not getting an education
in these five regions, representing 80.5 per cent
of the out-of-school children in the whole country.
More
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Testing
students with disabilities
November 20, 2003 - Proposed federal rules
about how to test students with the most significant
cognitive disabilities and include those results
in ratings of schools are still not final, eight
months after the U S Department of Education released
a draft version. In the past few weeks, Education
Department officials have met with various interest
groups as they work to write a final version of
the regulations. The long delay reflects the tensions
around how to appropriately test all students
with disabilities and hold schools accountable
for their performance. Those students include
youngsters with the most severe cognitive impairments
and those who are functioning several grades below
grade level. In North Carolina, for instance,
283 schools failed to make "adequate yearly progress"
under the federal law this year because they missed
only one target. Of those, 146 missed a target
for their special education subgroup. More
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Reading
in English in primary schools in Malawi
November 18, 2003 - In Malawi, as in much
of sub-Saharan Africa a knowledge of English is
of crucial educational importance to individuals,
since it is the medium of much of primary and
all of secondary schooling. Pupils have to move
swiftly from a position of learning to read in
English, to one of reading English to learn. There
have been suggestions for some time that levels
of literacy in English in Malawi's primary schools
are low. This means that the education of many
primary school children in Malawi is suffering
since reading in English is the very skill which
pupils are supposed to deploy from Standard 5
onwards to gain knowledge in other fields. This
survey attempts to document how reading in English
is taught in primary schools in Malawi, and how
well the pupils read in English. It is a descriptive
survey based on five schools, and not on a national
sample. Its results may serve as a contribution
to the information base of those who are developing
strategies to provide a better educational foundation
for the country's schoolchildren. More
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Nigeria
to constitute task force on youth education
November 17, 2003 - Nigeria's Ebonyi State
Governor, Dr. Sam Egwu has said that the state
government would constitute a task force to fish
out uneducated Ebonyi youths that are engaging
in hawking and other menial jobs in Nigeria's
cities. He said the motives is to encourage the
youth from the state to come back home and benefit
from the free and compulsory education programme
of the government. The state government's decision
was prompted by the revelations from the chairperson
of Amnesty International, Nigeria section, Mr.
Anyim Sunday Anyim, that Ebonyi youths constitute
a large population of hawkers in many Nigerian
cities.He said due to their low level of education
many of them are unjustifiably hounded into prison
without their fighting for their rights. More
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European
Education Ministers Support Education for All
November 17, 2003 - Council of Europe Education
Ministers came together in Athens (Greece) from
10 to 12 November 2003 to discuss intercultural
education and in particular how education systems
can prepare young people and teachers in Europe
for life in an increasingly multicultural society
whilst respecting democratic values and promoting
social cohesion. In their Final Declaration the
Ministers called for support to the education
for all agenda, quality lifelong learning, education
for sustainable development and education for
democratic citizenship and human rights.
- Full
text of Final Declaration
- More
about the European Education Ministers |
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We
must do better, concludes High-Level Group
November 12, 2003 - Progress towards gender
parity in education needs to be drastically accelerated,
concluded the participants at the Third Meeting
of the High Level Group on Education for All,
which ended on 12 November. In a Communiqué issued
after two days of intense discussion, the heads
of states, ministers, representatives of international
organizations, agencies and specialist NGOs said
they were “encouraged by the evident progress
in gender parity particularly at primary level
where the proportion of girls to boys enrolled
rose from 88 percent in 1990 to 94 percent in
2000.” However, they added, the fact that 57 percent
of the world’s out-of-school children are girls
and that almost two thirds of the 860 million
non-literate people are women indicates that girls
continue “to face sharp discrimination in access
to education at all levels.” The participants
proposed a series of immediate measures to be
taken by governments, agencies, NGOs and civil
society to boost efforts to achieve gender parity
in education by 2005 and gender equality by 2015,
the deadlines set by 164 countries at the World
Education Forum held in Dakar, Senegal (April
2000).
Press
Release
- Text
of the Communiqué (last version) |
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The
High-level Group on Education for All opens
in New Delhi
November 10, 2003 - The High-level Group
on Education for All meets for the third time,
in New Delhi, on Monday, 10 November. The meeting
brings together heads of state, education ministers,
multilateral and bilateral agencies, NGO networks
and individuals. In all some forty participants.
Discussions focus on the theme of gender and
education for all in light of the just-published
EFA
Global Monitoring Report 2003/04 on
the same subject.
In
five working sessions participants will: review
progress towards the six Dakar goals seen through
a gender lens; reach consensus on priority actions
to be taken by the different constituencies
to accelerate progress; develop an international
agenda for eliminating gender disparities in
primary and secondary education; assess the
extent to which the commitments made at Dakar
(2000) are being met and what to do to ensure
that they are met; and, finally, suggest ways
of maintaining global political momentum and
funding for EFA.
The
Dakar Framework for Action called on
UNESCO to convene a High-Level Group annually
to serve as a lever for political commitment
and resource mobilization and to hold the global
community to account.
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Projects
promote parent involvement
November 5, 2003 - America's No Child Left
Behind Act has opened new opportunities for parents
to make sure their children receive a good education,
from free tutoring to transfers to better schools.
The wide-ranging law has also sparked a variety
of initiatives to help parents understand and
take advantage of their options, including some
federally financed efforts that are drawing criticism.
"Even though the law says a lot about parent involvement,
parents are usually on the other end of one-way
communication," said Lauren E. Allen at the Cross
City Campaign for Urban School Reform, based in
Chicago. "Parents don't get enough time to really
think through and react in a knowledgeable way."
More |
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Liberian
schools reopen for first time in five months
November 4, 2003 - Government schools in
and around the Liberian capital Monrovia reopened
on Monday 3 November for the first time in five
months as the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
launched a "Back to school" campaign which will
eventually put 750,000 children into the classroom.
The streets of Monrovia were full of children
in school uniform for the first time since rebels
launched an assault on the city in early June
that forced all schools to close. Most of them
were subsequently occupied by civilians displaced
from their homes by the fighting. But since the
signing of a peace agreement in August to end
14 years of civil war and the subsequent arrival
of West African and then UN peacekeeping forces
in Liberia, the situation in the capital has begun
returning to normal and the classrooms have been
vacated by their temporary occupants. More
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Most
U.S. teachers are qualified
October 30, 2003 - Thirty-three states
report that at least four out of five classes
in the core subjects have teachers who are "highly
qualified." What's more, almost as many states-28-say
the picture is about the same in their high-poverty
schools. States had to submit the figures to the
U.S. Department of Education by September, as
part of their consolidated applications for federal
aid under the No Child Left Behind Act. But with
state officials admitting to guesswork, observers
regard the statistics as a first stab at a data-gathering
task many states were ill-equipped to undertake.
Eleven states did not provide the required numbers
at all. "We are very, very cautious about the
data provided," said Jennifer Azordegan, who has
been tracking the numbers for the Education Commission
of the States, a bipartisan policy group in Denver.
More |
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29,000
new teachers for Angola
October 28, 2003 - Angola made one of its
biggest peacetime strides on 27 October as education
experts set the wheels in motion to train 29,000
new teachers, with the aim of getting one million
children back into the classroom. The massive
$40 million-plus project will help slash the number
of grade one to four children - those under the
age of 11 - who are not in school, from 1.1 million
now to 100,000, the United Nations Children's
Fund (UNICEF) said. "This $40 million and the
engagement of the Ministry of Education mean that
with international assistance, Angola can cut
its number of first-level children out of school
by 90 percent," said UNICEF representative Mario
Ferrari. "We must seize this opportunity. Angola
has already lost two generations of children to
war." More
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Call
for better female education
October 28, 2003 - Former University of
Benin Vice Chancellor, Professor Grace Alele-Williams,
has called for improved female education as a
way of checking the beliefs and cultural values,
laws and practices that affect the girl child
and female adult in the society. She made the
call at the weekend in Lagos, while delivering
a lecture on Women Leadership Position at the
Charterd Institute of Administration (CIA) public
lecture. Alele-Williams noted that it is only
when the population of women in any chosen area
of existence has reached a critical mass that
women can really claim their rightful positions
unlike their male counterparts. Given the major
and cataclysmic change for the worse: wars, discontent,
and poverty of the masses in many African countries,
women must begin to be in a position of strength
to help correct the downward trend in values.
This can only happen with a well laid educational
plan to assist young executives study, discuss
and internalize knowledge and good values," she
stated. More
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Classroom
TV
October 23, 2003 - With the ongoing hullabaloo
about computers and their ability to transform
education, it's easy to forget that one old-fashioned
technology is still vastly underutilized--and
often misused--as a classroom aid. That technology
is television. As demonstrated by Hollywood every
night, TV is a medium particularly well suited
for telling stories. Curriculum companies and
educators have only just begun to harness this
storytelling power to help children learn. They
must learn to embrace the power of this forgotten
technology. More
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Does
investing in education reduce poverty? Evidence
from Ghana, Uganda and South Africa
October 21, 2003 - Three broad facts about
education have emerged from recent research. Firstly,
almost universally education is found to lift
people out of poverty. Secondly, when a comparison
is made between investing in education and other
forms of investment, the returns from investing
in education are on average lower. Thirdly, the
returns to education - in the sense of the increment
in income that accrues to each year of education
- are much higher for those with higher levels
of education. What factors influence these trends?
A research project has confirmed that households
with a higher level of education are less likely
to be poor. It has also confirmed the finding
that returns to education rise with the level
of education. The comparative project has shown
that there are substantial differences across
African economies and that large changes can occur
within those economies. More |
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Education
for All – A new funding approach
October 20, 2003 - At a ceremony this morning
at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, the Director-General
of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, signed the “Nordic
Memorandum of Understanding” between UNESCO and
Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden in
support of Education for All activities. Mr Matsuura
welcomed the memorandum for providing an umbrella
for subsequent individual agreements that will
depart from traditional extra-budgetary funding
approaches towards Education for All. The new
approach is entitled “Capacity-Building for Education
for All – Extra-budgetary Programme for Technical
Services to Countries implementing the Dakar Framework
of Action”. It is intended to be a comprehensive
and collaborative effort in support of capacity-building
for Education for All. More
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Making
Services Work For Poor People
October 17, 2003 - Broad improvements in human
welfare will not occur unless poor people receive
wider access to affordable, better quality services
in health, education, water, sanitation, and electricity.
Without such improvements in services, freedom
from illness and freedom from illiteracy - two
of the most important ways poor people can escape
poverty - will remain elusive to many. The World
Development Report 2004: Making Services Work
for Poor People says that too often, key services
fail poor people - in access, in quantity, in
quality. This imperils a set of development targets
known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
which call for a halving of the global incidence
of poverty, and broad improvements in human development
by 2015. More
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UNICEF
and FIFA Team Up for Girls’ Education
October 16, 2003 - On 10 October, UNICEF
and FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football)
are marking the first-ever “Global Girls' Football
Day,” a celebration of girls and their right to
participate in education and sports. The Day takes
place during the final week of the FIFA Women’s
World Cup 2003, which is dedicated to Go Girls!
Education for Every Child, UNICEF’s campaign to
put more girls in school. “Global Girls Football
Day” underscores UNICEF’s and FIFA’s commitment
to offer new opportunities to girls in the developing
world in the realms of sports and education. Since
2001, UNICEF and FIFA have been working together
to promote children’s rights through football-traditionally
known in the US as soccer. “For millions of girls,
certain basic rights are seen as a privilege or
luxury,” said UNICEF’s Executive Director and
NetAid board member Carol Bellamy. “UNICEF and
FIFA believe that girls should have equal opportunities
to make a better life for themselves through education
and participation in sports.” More
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Back
to School for Free Food
October 15, 2003 - A free daily meal has
been enough incentive to attract a steady increase
of primary school children back into class in
Zambia's Southern province. The pilot school-feeding
programme, launched in July, now reaches 50 schools
in five districts, providing a fortified micronutrient-rich
porridge for 19,000 young children in the country's
most drought-affected areas. "There has been a
minimum increase in school enrolment of 20 percent.
There is a lot more involvement of parents and
the community [in the activities of the schools]
and the children are more attentive in class,"
says World Food Programme (WFP) officer, Sibi
Lawson. More
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The
impact of work on Tanzania’s students
October 13, 2003 - Working children are common
in developing countries. But how long do they
spend on these responsibilities? How does their
work affect their capacity to participate in the
schooling offered to them? It is easy to agree
that the worst forms of child labour, such as
prostitution and mining, should be eliminated.
The point at which forms of work become acceptable
for children is harder to agree and will depend
upon whose perspective is taken, whether that
of developed Western countries, parents or the
child itself. It is assumed, at least from a financial
outlook, that the working child will remain a
feature in Tanzania for a considerable time to
come. The working child’s life, with its loss
of the right to education and burden of economic
responsibility does not have to be condoned but
it must be accepted and every possible step taken
to make it easier for children to access education.
More
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Talking
in class: do children’s contributions count?
October 11, 2003 - The talk in classrooms
between teachers and children is important because
it defines what knowledge will become a part of
‘school-related knowledge’ and whose voices will
be allowed to shape this. When children’s talk
is heard in the context of an ongoing discussion
they realise that their experiences and perceptions
are important and develop the mental skills needed
to think and reason independently and to construct
knowledge. This is particularly important for
children from rural and underprivileged backgrounds.
As their cultures are often poorly represented
in official school textbooks, classroom talk could
play an important role in including their knowledge
and life experiences within their education. An
ethnographic study from the University of Delhi
of an Indian village primary school found that
classroom negotiations are not always so simple.
More |
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Homework
in America not on the rise
October 9, 2003 - Most American students
spend less than an hour a day on homework, according
to a pair of national studies presented last week,
and that workload is no bigger than it was half
a century ago. There is this view in the popular
media that there has been this terrible burden
of homework on children, and that the homework
is increasing," said Tom Loveless, the director
of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the
Brookings Institution. "That is not the case."
Parents have been in the news in recent years
calling on local educators to lighten their children's
homework loads. Some school boards have responded
to the complaints by limiting the amount of homework
teachers in their districts could assign. More
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Virtual
conference on delivering education in difficult
circumstances
October 7, 2003 - As a lead-up to the
15th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers
(www.15ccem.com)
and Parallel Symposium (Edinburgh, end October),
the Commonwealth of Learning (www.col.org)
and the British Council (www.britishcouncil.org)
are organising an e-mail-based virtual conference.
The conference, "Delivering Education in Difficult
Circumstances", will start on Wednesday, 8 October.
It will be moderated by Ms. Sheena Hanley, until
recently the Deputy Secretary-General, Education
International, a world-wide trade union organisation
of education personnel, whose 26 million members
represent all sectors of education (from pre-school
to university. To provide some background on
the topic and to stimulate virtual conference
discussions, a short paper will be available
at www.15ccem.com
(select "Virtual conferences"). To join the
conference, send an e-mail message to majordomo@hub.col.org
and put the following in the body of the message:
subscribe ccemdifficult [your e-mail address]
(e.g: subscribe ccemdifficult xxxx@yyyy.zz)
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School
meals attacked by report
October 7, 2003 - More money is spent on
prison food than school lunches, according to
a report out yesterday that strongly criticises
the government for failing to ensure primary school
pupils are given healthy food that meets its own
nutritional standards. It says the provision of
school meals in England and Wales "makes a mockery"
of many flagship government policies relating
to health, food, farming, the environment, social
justice and sustainable development. While obesity
among children is rising rapidly, school menus
are dominated by low-quality, highly processed
foods laden with fat, sugar and salt, according
to the report from the Soil Association. More
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Teachers'
union pushes Kenya to employ 60,000 teachers
September 6, 2003 - The Kenya National
Union of Teachers (KNUT) will pressurise the Government
to speed up employment of 60,000 teachers to help
in the implementation of free primary education
programme. "We will apply pressure on the Government
because we cannot watch as the standards of education
in public schools decline," said KNUT deputy national
treasurer, Mr Fred Ontere. However, Ontere could
not disclose when and how the union will pressurise
the Government. He said teachers were finding
it difficult to cope with the ever increasing
numbers of children. More
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It
is a scandal that education for all is still unfinished
business, says UNESCO's Assistant Director-General
for Education
October 2, 2003
- "As
we approach the 60th anniversary of UNESCO’s creation
it is a scandal that education for all is still
unfinished business," said John Daniel, UNESCO's
Assistant Director-General for Education at the
opening of Commission II. The Commission debates
UNESCO's education programme and budget for the
next two years. "I suspect, Daniel said, that
UNESCO's founders, who approved the Constitution
in 1946, would be surprised to find that fifty-seven
years later education for all is still at the
heart of UNESCO's work. Yet, sadly this is the
case". Despite some progress, many countries are
still far from achieving education for all. More |
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Education
for All dominates our action, says UNESCO's Director-General
October 1, 2003 - The drive towards Education
for All (EFA) dominates our action, said UNESCO's
Director-General, Koïchiro Matsuura, today at
the opening of the general policy debate at the
Organization's 32nd General Conference. "Through
the meetings of the High-Level Group, whose deliberations
are informed by the widely-praised EFA Global
Monitoring Report, and through a wide range of
catalytic, partnership and coordination activities,
UNESCO is acting as the conductor of the EFA orchestra,"
he commented.
More
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Kenya
to hold education conference at end of year
September 30, 2003 - A national conference
on education will be held at the end of the year.
The objective of the conference will be to build
consensus on policy strategies in education for
improved performance. Education permanent secretary
Karega Mutahi said the conference would bring
together stakeholders, development partners and
well-wishers to discuss the challenges related
to financing, equity, quality assurance and improving
access. More
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Head
“Back to School” - and Support the Global Class
of 2015
 September
29, 2003 - Do you remember how you felt at
the beginning of a new school year? Now, imagine
if, on the first day of class, and every day after,
you had to stay home to do chores or work at a
factory all day. This year, 115 million children
worldwide will face a range of challenges that
will keep them from going to school. Take action
today to help ensure every child can fulfill her
or his right to get to an education-and have a
brighter future. Join NetAid's Back-to-School
campaign. Learn about the status of education
around the world and find out how you can help
enroll the
Global Class of 2015. Then, tell others
to head "Back
to School" too! |
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Scotland
to scrap tests on 5-14 year-olds
September 26, 2003 - Scotland is to scrap
school league tables and national testing for
five to 14-year-olds as part of a radical overhaul
of education unveiled yesterday. The Scottish
education minister, Peter Peacock, said the country's
executive wanted to create a "seamless" curriculum
with the emphasis on teaching rather than testing.
Under the plans, the national survey of five to
14 attainment, which tests every pupil in primary
school and the first two years of secondary school,
will be replaced by a system of scientific sampling,
which will track the performance of a proportion
of pupils. More
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The
Second Regional EFA Meeting for Latin America
opens in Santiago
September 24, 2003 - Some
nineteen National EFA Forums are represented
at the Second Regional Education for All Meeting
in Latin America, when opened yesterday in Santiago,
Chile. The gathering is reviewing the national
EFA plans of action developed by each country
in order to reach the education-for-all goals
set in Dakar in 2000. Also on the agenda is
a review of the workings of the regional and
national forums. Participants are looking notably
at how to reinforce the Forums' monitoring mechanisms.
Rural education, particularly relevant for the
Latin American region, is another focus of the
meeting. On 25 September, the organizations
involved in the regional coordination of EFA
will meet to further discuss the EFA agenda.
Among them are: UNESCO, the World Bank, UNICEF,
the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),
the International Labour Organization (ILO),
the World Health Organization (WHO), the Economic
Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean
(ECLAC), the Latin American Parliament and the
German co-operation agency, GTZ.
Press
release
(Spanish only) - www.unesco.cl/08.htm
Press review (Spanish only)
- La
Segunda (Chile)
-
El
Comercio (Perú)
- Chile's
Government Page
- Chile.com
- La
Jornada (México)
- El
Mostrador (Chile)
- educar
Chile
- Diario
de la Sociedad Civil (Chile)
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Private
schools do more than public schools to create
opportunities for the poor. True or false?
September 23, 2003 - Are private schools
a route to equity or a threat to effectiveness?
This is the first topic of the online
discussion on Education Rights and Realities
launched by the Learningchannel.org
, a global online education initiative of OneWorld
South Asia and the Global
Campaign for Education , a coalition of
civil society organizations campaigning for free
and quality education. The forum focuses on the
right to free, good quality education as it has
been defined by successive international conventions
and commitments and most recently by the World
Education Forum in April 2000. Participants are
invited to exchange views on specific practical
and political obstacles to making this right a
reality, and how such obstacles can be overcome.
To join, just send a blank email to join-right2education@dgroups.org
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European
Union and Sweden donote $US35 million for Namibian
Education
September 23, 2003 - The European Union
(EU) and the Swedish government agreed on 15 September
to donate over N$250 million (roughly US$35 million)
for Namibia's Education Sector Programme. Sweden's
Charge d'Affaires in Namibia, Dr Goran Hedebro,
signed an agreement through which the Scandinavian
country will donate N$98,2 million to education.
In addition, Sweden will give an extra N$9,12
million towards capacity and institutional building
that will also be part of the Education Sector
Programme. National Planning Commission Director
General, Immanuel Ngatjizeko, who signed the agreements
on behalf of Government, said the money will mainly
be used to improve access to education for out-of-school
youths and the construction and maintenance of
classrooms. It will also be used for training
teachers, inspectors and advisory teachers and
the reform of the vocational training system.
More
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Education
for All by 2015 may not be possible in Nigeria
September 22, 2003 - Nigeria's dream to
have sustainable education by the year 2015 may
not be feasible if the Education for All (EFA)
report is anything to go by. Minister of State
for Education, Hajiya Bintu Ibrahim Musa, made
the revelation on 15 September while launching
the 2003/2004 national school enrolment and retention
campaign in Bauchi. According to the minister,
Nigeria is grouped among 28 countries that are
at serious risk of not attaining any of the three
measurable goals of EFA, meaning that "there is
every possibility that by 2015 there will be many
Nigerian children particularly girls, in difficult
circumstances and those belonging to disadvantage
groups." More
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Virtual
conference on gender disparities starts on 22
September
September
19, 2003 - The British Council (www.britishcouncil.org)
and the Commonwealth of Learning (www.col.org)
are organising and hosting two e-mail-based
virtual conferences as a lead-up to the 15th
Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers
(15CCEM) and a Parallel Symposium to take place
in Edinburgh at the end of October 2003 (www.15ccem.com).
The virtual conferences are open to all and
there is no cost. The first conference, starting
Monday, September 22, will be on the topic of
"eliminating gender disparities in education".
The second, taking place later in October, will
focus on "delivering education in difficult
circumstances". The two topics were selected
from six action areas to be discussed at 15CCEM
jointly by Ministers and delegates at the Parallel
Symposium. Contributions made through the virtual
conferences will also be fed into the Parallel
Symposium. Details and background are available
at: www.15ccem.com
(select "Virtual conferences") More
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GATS:
A wolf at the schoolhouse door?
September 18, 2003 - It was agricultural
subsidies, not education, that led to the collapse
of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks at
Cancun. But activists warn that a less well-known
component of WTO negotiations, the General Agreement
on Trade in Services (GATS), is a lurking threat
to public education systems everywhere. Groups
including Education International, the worldwide
federation of teachers’ unions, say that GATS
would force countries to allow more foreign providers
to sell education services, whether through distance
learning or by establishing satellite institutions
overseas. This is already a significant trend
at tertiary level. Globally, international higher
education is a business worth an estimated $27
bn per year. More
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OECD
report warns of growing risk of teacher shortages
in OECD Countries
September
17, 2003 - Teacher shortages may become a
policy challenge for many OECD countries in the
years to come, as student enrolment levels rise
while older teachers retire and not enough younger
people join the profession, according to the 2003
edition of the OECD's Education at a Glance. In
15 out of 19 OECD countries for which data are
available, most primary school teachers are at
least 40 years old, the report says. In Italy
and Germany almost half of secondary teachers
are aged over 50 and in Sweden, Iceland, the Netherlands,
Norway, Finland and New Zealand still more than
one third are.
More |
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Global
Campaign for Education and OneWorld launch online
discussion
September 16, 2003 - The Global Campaign
for Education together with OneWorld.net’s education
portal, learningchannel.org, invite you to join
a new e-mail discussion forum: “Education Rights
and Realities”. The forum will provide a space
for activists and practitioners to exchange information
and views on the real situation of education on
the ground - and ideas on how things can be changed.
The first topic is private education and its pros
and cons. Does the private sector deserve a bigger
role in Education for All? Future topics will
include the role of teachers and teachers’ unions;
and the impact of HIV-AIDS. The forum is moderated
by Hassen Lorgat, of the GCE South Africa coalition.
Hassen is also media officer for the South African
Democratic Teachers’Union. To sign up, send a
blank email to: join-Right2education@dgroups.org
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American
newspaper awarded world young reader prize
September 12, 2003 - The World Association
of Newspapers (WAN) has awarded its World Young
Reader Prize to the Daytona Beach News-Journal
for a project that offered free home delivery
of newspapers to nearly 1,500 lower-income students
and provided curriculum support to encourage life-long
readership. During a ceremony at the 5th World
Young Reader Conference in Helsinki, Finland,
WAN also awarded special commendations to O Dia
of Brazil and to Independent Newspapers in New
Zealand for their projects aimed at developing
young readership. WAN honoured the Daytona Beach
News-Journal in Florida for "Families and the
News", a 9-month programme in which newspapers
were delivered daily to the homes of students
from 24 lower income elementary schools. Newspapers
in Education grant funds paid for the deliveries,
which went to students of 149 teachers who participated
in the programme. More
- More
about the Newspapers in Education programme
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Newspapers
Often Portray Children as Victims
September 10, 2003 - A new global study
of newspaper coverage of children finds that nearly
one-third of the articles about them portray them
as victims. That was by far the largest category
of stories about children in the study, which
was produced in a unique cooperative project between
newspapers and schools world-wide. The researchers
were children themselves. The study was conducted
in late March and early April 2003, when 70 classes
from 24 countries studied newspapers daily for
one week and categorised all the news articles
they found about children. Children were portrayed
as victims in nearly one in three of the stories
examined. The second largest category was ³children
in schools,² which included nearly one in five
stories. Other categories include ³children are
brilliant², with 17 percent of the stories, followed
by ³children in politics² (10 percent), ³children
as wrongdoers² (8 percent), and ³children helping
others² (4 percent). More |
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Hand
in Hand
September 8, 2003 - Researchers have long
known that emotion plays a role in learning. Studies
have shown, for instance, that stress can interfere
with the brain's cognitive functions, and that
students care more about learning when they feel
attached to their schools and valued by their
peers and teachers. But a growing body of research
suggests that a deliberate and comprehensive approach
to teaching children social and emotional skills
can raise their grades and test scores, bolster
their enthusiasm for learning, reduce behavior
problems, and enhance the brain's cognitive functions.
That holistic approach to education has had its
boosters and practitioners for many years, but
emerging science is providing a stronger basis
for their beliefs and helping catalyze a movement.
More
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Uganda
- Schools to blame for high drop-out rate
September 5, 2003 - The Ugandan Ministry
of Education has established that unfriendly school
environment contributes largely to the drop-out
of school children under the Universal Primary
Education (UPE) programme. The Minister of State
for Primary Education, Namirembe Bitamazire, disputed
reports that early marriages were the cause of
drop-outs. "The drop-out is not due to early marriages.
Who is marrying at primary one and two?" she asked.
She added, "Research at the ministry shows that
the highest number of dropouts is due to lack
of interest. There are no constructive programmes
in schools to attract interest." Bitamazire was
recently responding to remarks by the chairperson
of Buhweju county Headteachers Association, Sr.
Christine Dushime, that there were many drop-outs
in the area due to early marriages. More
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SEAMEO-Australia
Press Award
September 4, 2003 - The SEAMEO (South Asian
Ministers of Education Organization) -Australia
Press Award is open for applicants until 1 October.
This award, given for excellent coverage of educational
affairs in the region, was established to recognize
the media’s contribution to education especially
of Southeast Asian journalists in SEAMEO Member
Countries. The award is made possible through
the efforts of SEAMEO and the Australian Government
Department of Education Science and Training;
and the Education Section of the Australian Embassy
in Bangkok. This year's theme is “Issues in Improving
Education”.
For more about the terms and how to apply |
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UNICEF
to distribute stationery to over 90,000 war-affected
schoolchildren
September 3, 2003 - UNICEF has received
stationery worth US $64,000 to be distributed
to schoolchildren and teachers in zones affected
by the October 2002 to March 2003 civil war in
the Central African Republic, an official told
IRIN on Monday. UNICEF Education Programme Officer,
Sophie Ndanguere, said the shipment that reached
the capital, Bangui, on Friday included 90,000
notebooks, 45,000 pens and 1,540 boxes of chalk.
She said UNICEF and the government were preparing
for a distribution of the supplies next week in
the northern provinces of Ouham Pende, Ouham and
Nana Grebizi. These provinces were among the worst
affected by the six-month rebellion that ended
on 15 March with Francois Bozize overthrowing
President Ange-Felix Patasse. The war forced thousands
of people, including school children and teachers,
to abandon their homes. More
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Teachers
training essential for Mozambique's basic education
August 29, 2003 - Mozambican Education
Minister Alcido Nguenha said in Maputo yesterday
that the new basic education curricula, to be
introduced as from next year, takes into account
the improvement of the conditions of training
and continuous upgrdaing of the teachers. Nguenha
admitted that conditions in which teachers are
being trained are "frankly poor", and "this is
what we must work to change in the first place,
including also the accomodation conditions for
the teachers". On the curricula as such, he said
that the issue is not to introduce new subjects,
but to enrich the existing ones with new contents,
allowing "the creativity of every teacher to add
matteres of local interest". More
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Back-To-School
in Cameroon : Timid Registration
August 29, 2003 - Parents are still waiting
for the last minute to register and prepare their
children for the new school year. With less than
two weeks to the start of the 2003 - 2004 school
year slated for September 8, most parents are
still not ready for the take-off. Be it in schools,
bookshops or markets, the hustle and bustling
in the heart of the economic capital and the great
affluence of parents, students or pupils usually
witnessed during this period is absent. In one
of the most solicited Higher Secondary institutions
in Douala, Lycée Joss in Bonanjo, a precarious
calm reigns at the campus as of last Wednesday.
Only a handful of parents seeking admission could
be seen registering their children. More
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Testing
times for teachers: educational assessment in
South Africa
8 August, 2003 - What happens when continuous
assessment (CA) is added to established teaching
practices? Do teachers need to rethink their current
attitudes towards CA? Are teachers overly concerned
with control? How can a change of attitude be
encouraged? Could better assessment raise the
quality of student learning? A paper from the
Universities of Natal and Sussex describes what
South African teachers think of assessment and
analyses the dilemmas facing assessment reform.
Two examples, taken from the experiences of primary
school teachers, suggest that South Africa has
the opportunity to implement CA and promote more
interactive teaching methods. Nevertheless, entrenched
attitudes may make new practices hard to apply.
More
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Free
education at the expense of quality? Public education
spending in Malawi
4 August, 2003 - In 1994 Malawi abolished
primary school fees. How pro-poor was this education
reform? What has been the effect on enrolment
and drop-out rates? What should Malawi do to raise
the quality of education? A World Bank report
assesses the impact free provision of primary
education has had on Malawi's poor. Data on public
spending per student is combined with household
consumption and enrolment data to examine the
impact fee abolition has had on the distribution
of government spending. In particular, to what
extent has government spending become pro-poor.
It finds that Malawi's education reforms have
been pro-poor but that more must be done to ensure
quality and to help poor children - especially
girls - to get more than a few year's schooling.
More |
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Best
days of your life? Tackling health problems in
Tanzania's schools
July 31, 2003 - School-age children bear
13.7 per cent of the burden of disease in sub-Saharan
Africa. This affects their school attendance and
performance. How can schools improve the health
of their pupils? Researchers from the Partnership
for Child Development at Imperial College, London
and UKUMTA (the Tanzania Partnership for Child
Development) assess health problems among school-age
children in Tanzania and make recommendations
for the country's National School Health Programme
(NSHP). Injuries are the biggest cause of illness
in school-age children in sub-Saharan Africa but
the researchers found a number of other important
health problems in this age group, including:
malaria, intestinal worms, urinary and intestinal
schistosomiasis, protein-energy malnutrition,
micronutrient deficiencies and short-term hunger,
teenage pregnancy, abortions and sexual abuse,
diarrhoea and skin infections. Many of these conditions
can be tackled through the FRESH (Focusing Resources
on Effective School Health) framework, involving
relatively simple interventions in schools. More
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Standard
of English in Schools Worries Kano State Government,
Nigeria
July 29,
2003 - Kano state government has expressed
concern over the low standard of both teachers
and students in the understanding of English in
schools. The permanent secretary of the ministry
of education, Alhaji Garba Adamu Sumaila made
the remark while declaring open a workshop organized
for teachers in the state. He lamented the poor
understanding of the subject by both teachers
and students and declared that government will
purchase relevant textbooks for thorough understanding
of the subject. The permanent secretary also stated
that recruitment of new teachers and intensive
training and retraining of teachers by all public
school will be carried out.
More
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Meeting
education development goals: simply a question
of money?
July 28, 2003 - What is the link between
education outcomes and public education expenditure?
Are governments and donors spending enough on
education to achieve the millennium development
goals (MDGs)? How accurate are indicators used
to measure progress towards Education for All
(EFA)? The Dakar World Education Forum in 2000
pledged to ensure that by 2015 all children -
and particularly girls, children in difficult
circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities
- have access to free and compulsory primary education.
Dakar recommended that developing countries increase
the proportion of GNP spent on education from
3.9 per cent to 4.3 per cent. The amount of estimated
additional resources required is between $9 and
$28 billion. A paper from the UK’s Institute
of Development Studies explores the extent to
which increasing the resources available to developing
country education systems will lead to the achievement
of the millennium development goals. Detailed
cross-country analysis indicates that links between
resources and educational indicators are weak
and that achievement of the MDGs will require
more than just increases in expenditure on primary
education. More
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Education
for All flagships and international initiatives
under scrutiny
July
24, 2003 - EFA flagship programmes and initiatives
are increasingly finding their place in the
education for all movement because they advance
education issues of particular concern. However,
further clarification on their role and functions,
how they link to each other and how they fit
into the EFA drive in countries and regions
is needed.
This was one of the main conclusions of the
fourth meeting of the Working Group on Education
for All, a technical advisory body bringing
together 57 representatives of the main EFA
constituencies and some 20 observers. The two-day
meeting ended yesterday at UNESCO's Headquarters
in Paris and showed, according to John Daniel,
UNESCO's Assistant Director-General for Education
"a very encouraging spirit of teamwork
and a high level of activity".
Participants welcomed the diversity of initiatives
but pointed to a certain overlap between them,
a lack of funding and inadequate links with
national planning processes and development
frameworks such as UNDAF and PRSPs. More
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Fourth
Meeting of the Working Group on EFA opens today
July 22, 2003 - Taking the theme of “Promoting
Partnerships for EFA”, the Director-General
of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, today opened
the fourth meeting of the Working Group on EFA
at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris.
This meeting
of the Working Group, a technical advisory body
with representation from all major EFA constituencies,
will concentrate on four key international “flagship”
programmes or initiatives through which EFA partnerships
are expressed:
the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative
(UNGEI), the
Fast-Track Initiative, HIV/AIDS
and Education; and the
United Nations Literacy Decade (2003-2012).
The aim is to seek better ways to ensure the integration
of these international initiatives into national
action and to improve the linkages between them.
Mr Matsuura
said that since becoming Director-General, he
had placed greater stress on EFA within the Organization’s
Programme and Budget. He further stated that:
“Subject to the approval of the General Conference
at its next session in October, UNESCO is looking
forward to some modest real growth in its budget
for the next biennium. This will provide an opportunity
for me to allocate even more funds to EFA and
basic education in general and to decentralize
more funds to field offices”. More
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Fourth
meeting of the Working Group on EFA takes off
next week
July 18,
2003 - All is set for the fourth meeting of
the Working Group on Education for All to take
place 22 and 23 July at UNESCO Headquarters in
Paris. Bringing together 57 representatives of
the main EFA constituencies and 19 observers,
the meeting will primarily review the current
status and future of EFA initiatives and flagship
programmes. Four panels will discuss specific
initiatives: the UN Girls' Education Initiative,
HIV/AIDS and education, the UN Literacy Decade
and the Fast-Track funding initiative. "The
aim is to agree on a common understanding of these
initiatives -- how they interact, their value
added, how they are making a difference at country
level and what should be their future role,"
says Abhimanyu Singh, Lead Manager of UNESCO's
Dakar Follow-up Unit.
The Director-General
of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, will open the
meeting and John Daniel, UNESCO's Assistant Director-General
for Education, will chair it. More
- Documents
related to the Working Group on EFA meeting
- Information
on the EFA flagship programme
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Skills
for Young Media Practitioners in St Vincent
July 18, 2003 - UNESCO Kingston will support
the training of young media practitioners in the
region to increase their knowledge of HIV/AIDS/STD.
The training will enable the practitioners to
combat stigma and discrimination associated with
the epidemic through their journalistic activities.
This project will also document the extent of
improvement in the quality and quantity of HIV/AIDS-related
content delivered since the 1999 workshop organized
by the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Youth Council
(NYC) with assistance from UNESCO/UNAIDS and the
Caribbean Epidemiology Centre (CAREC).
For further information contact Jocelyne Josiah,
Senior Programme Manager (Communication and Information)
j.josiah@unesco.org |
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Training
for educationists from seven African countries
July 16, 2003 - A ten-day regional training
workshop on national policies in primary education
began on 14 July in Yaounde.. The meeting, organized
by the Francophonie Intergovernmental Agency (FIA)
and the government of Cameroon, brings together
education experts from Congo, Democratic Republic
of Congo, Republic of Central Africa, Chad, Cameroon,
Gabon, and Morocco. During the ten days, the 50
educationists will learn how to evaluate an education
system and develop guidelines to improve its output.
They will also be drilled on how to develop primary
school manuals by analysing present ones and adapting
them to local context and curricula. To the Minister
of National Education, Prof. Joseph Owona , "all
that which improves the efficiency of an education
system and the learning and teaching process contributes
to the development of man". The present training
workshop is the seventh in a series launched in
2002 by the FIA to reinforce national policies
on basic education and curricula and train experts
in science of education. More |
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2003
Human Development Index reveals development crisis
July 10, 2003 - The Human Development Report
2003, just released, identifies 59 priority countries
where, unless urgent action is taken, the Millennium
Development Goals will not be met. In 31 "top
priority" countries, income and other human development
indicators remain low and progress towards the
goals has stalled or begun to reverse. In 28 "high
priority" countries, the situation is less dire
-- advances are being made in some areas, but
resources or policy deficiencies are blocking
progress towards several key goals. This development
crisis must be addressed head on by rich and poor
countries alike if the world is to meet the 2015
development goals, the Report argues. "We are
not calling for a blank cheque," said UNDP Administrator
Mark Malloch Brown. "There is a new partnership
at work here, and it says that aid has to be a
two-way street. Poor countries have to implement
pro-poor reforms. Rich countries have to provide
more support." Complete
press kit |
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Experts'
Meeting launches ASEAN SchoolNet Project
July 8, 20003 - A new project "Strengthening
ICT in Schools and SchoolNet Project in the ASEAN
Setting" is being launched today at a meeting
in UNESCO Bangkok. The Experts’ Group Meeting
(7-8 July) will develop the strategy for documenting
experiences/case studies in the use of ICT in
education in Asia-Pacific, especially in the areas
of science, mathematics and language, as well
as the operations and impact of SchoolNets. The
vision behind this project is to get the information-rich
and well equipped ASEAN countries to share their
resources with the information-poor and ill-equipped
countries through an ASEAN SchoolNet using this
full range of ICTs and partnerships to enhance
education and prepare students fully for life
in an ever changing world. National SchoolNets
will also be developed to support the specific
educational needs of each nation. More
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12,000
sign petition to the G8 Countries
July 7, 2003 - The petition to the G8 countries,
launched by NetAid and the Global Campaign for
Education (GCE), was signed by almost 12,000 people.
Its message was clear: G8 countries must live
up to their promise to help put the world’s
poorest children into school. The petition was
a popular feature of the NetAid site, garnering
more than 5,000 signatures. Signatories hail from
across the globe: Canada, Tanzania and the Lebanon,
to name just a few. Volunteers pounded the pavement
during the “Summit for Another World”
-or the alternative G8 summit in France-to collect
approximately 5,000 signatures. Additional signatures
were gathered through the GCE’s and UNESCO's
website.
The petition and signatures will be sent to the
leadership of each G8 country. Accompanying the
petition will be a congratulatory note from GCE
for progress made on HIV/AIDS and other development
issues, as a well as a stern reminder to transform
their promises of supporting education for all
into real action. At the 2002 G8 meeting in Canada,
leaders promised significant funding to help the
poorest children attend school through the Education
for All Fast Track Initiative. One year later,
this funding has yet to materialize. More
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36,000
teachers with AIDS to lose jobs in Uganda
July 3, 2003 - Uganda's well-documented
fight against HIV and AIDS will take a strange
turn if a recommendation, by the Education Service
Commission, to ask teachers living with the disease
to resign is implemented. The Commissioner for
Secondary Education and HIV/AIDS co-ordinator
in the Ministry of Education, Mr Yusuf Nsubuga,
recently said that the recommendation would affect
teachers who have been on sick leave for six or
more months. According to the Minister of Education
and Sports, Dr Kidhu Makubuya about 30 per cent
of the teachers in Uganda are HIV-positive. The
Monitor in Kampala reports |
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New
EFA Plans in Latin America
July 1, 2003 - Bolivia's Education Ministry
has prepared its "Bolivian
Education Strategy", which follows the
objectives of Education for All. This Strategy
is part of a larger poverty reduction drive. To
coincide with the launch, a public forum was opened
on the Internet to encourage discussion and comment
on its contents. Brazil, the Dominican Republic,
Ecuador, Nicaragua and Paraguay now have their
EFA Action Plans, adapted to the education requirements
of each country and to the six Dakar goals. The
texts of these plans, as well as links to web
pages of relevant Education Ministries, are accessible
through the EFA
Regional Forum. |
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New
agreement benefits education in Asia
July 3, 2003 - The Asian Development Bank
(ADB) and the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education
Organization (SEAMEO) have signed a Memorandum
of Understanding to improve education in common
member countries. The agreement takes account
of the different needs of member countries. Emphasis
will be on Education for All, the Millennium Development
Goals and national poverty reduction agendas.
The agreement includes knowledge sharing, assessing
needs of individual countries for technical support,
ICTs, gender, and preventive education. "The
partnership will complement each institution's
knowledge base and build on each other's experience,
"says Paul Chang, an ADB Principal Education
Specialist. The ADB has sixty-one members mostly
in Asia, while SEAMEO member states are Brunei
Darussalem, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao DPR, Malaysia,
Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and
Viet Nam.
More |
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EFA's
slow progress in Benin and Niger
June
24, 2003 - Slow progress in most areas is
how Mr Djibril Debourou (GRETAF Benin) described
Education for All in Benin: teacher shortage and
poorly trained teachers; lack of early childhood
services in rural areas, scarcity of infrastructures
for the country's 1500 literacy centres. Courses
are usually held in huts under a tree or on a
street corner. Debourou was speaking at the NGO
Meeting on Dakar + 3, organized by the GRETAF
(Groupe d'etudes sur l'education en Afrique).
He called for donor support to draw up the national
EFA plan. Benin is behind schedule where EFA is
concerned, he said. Roughly 60 per cent of teachers
in Niger are today volunteers, said Galy Kadir
Abdelkader (GRETAF Niger) Painting a grim picture
of teaching in Niger, Mr Abdelkader spoke of the
volunteer teachers who, having graduated from
higher and secondary education, hold classes without
any form of teacher training. The result is "catastrophic",
he concluded
- Presentation
by Mr Galy Kadir Abdelkader (French only)
- Presentation
by Mr Djibril Debourou (French only) |
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Cambodia
launches its EFA Plan
June 19, 2003 - In an elaborate ceremony
on 10 June, Cambodia launched its National EFA
Plan. The launch was presided over by Prime Minister
Samdech Hun Sen, Tol Lah, Minister of Education,
Youth and Sport, ministry personnel, NGOs, and
international organizations. In all, 250 participants.
In his address, the Prime Minister stressed the
role of non-formal education as a complementary
system to reach out to disadvantaged children
and youth. Cambodia intends to increase its share
of funding to education from 18 to 20 per cent
of the national budget. In addition, the Government
will mobilize external resources through the World
Bank and the Fast Track Initiative.
- UNESCO
Press Release
- Statement
by Sheldon Shaeffer, Director, UNESCO Asia/Pacific
Regional Bureau for Education, Bangkok |
| |
Four
African journalists awarded
June
16, 2003 - Four African journalists receive
the Africa Education Journalism Award. The first
prize for articles in English went to Cornia Pretorius
of South Africa for "The Writing's on the
Board" published in the Johannesburg-based
The Sunday Times. The second prize to Pilirani
Semu-Banda of Malawi for "Education Standards
in Malawi Continue to Plummet", published
in The Nation. For articles in French, the first
prize went to Daouda Mane and Mamadou Lamine Badji
from Senegal for "Fuite des cerveaux et remèdes
du mal" (Brain drain and remedies) published
in Le Soleil. Sabrina Quirin from Mauritius won
the second prize for "Le Centre Ste Famille,
une alternative à la rue" (The Ste
Famille Centre, an alternative to the streets),
in the Port-Louis-based Weekend. < | | |
