Education for All > Background Documents > Mid-Decade Meeting 1996 > Press Release Children, Adult Learners and Teachers Address the Mid-Decade Meeting of the Education for All Forum Amman, 17 June 1996 - Children, adult learners and teachers, addressing the Mid-Decade Meeting of the International Consultative Forum on Education for All, today gave personal testimonies of the role that basic education has played in their lives. A panel, convened as part of the four day meeting which started here on Sunday, addressed 250 participants, including some 20 Ministers of Education, several heads of United Nations agencies, experts and representatives of non-governmental organizations from around the world. The meeting is convened by UNESCO, UNICEF, UNDP and the World Bank. The panel brought together six persons involved in Education for All at the grassroots level. They included a primary school pupil, a rural teacher, a school drop-out and a neo-literate. "We suffer from a lack of educational materials and supporting facilities, such as laboritories", said Rawan Mohammed, a sixth grade girl attending a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) in a Jordanian village 10 kilometres north of Amman. "You, distinguished delegates, are called upon to pay more attention to the rural areas". Ihtiram Al-Jabour, a 15 year old attending grade 9 in a secondary school for girls in Balqa District, complained that such customs and traditions, such as forcing early marriage on girls, "aggravates" the drop-out rate among female students in rural areas. "Our school is also very far away from where I live", she added. Magdalene Motsi, a 46 year old Kenyan rural woman, spoke about her struggle to attend literacy classes. "My family did not believe I should go to school; instead they wanted me to get married at an early age". After having had six children, she enrolled in a literacy programme, where, after three years, she learn't to "read, write and manipulate numbers". She then studied English and joined a regular school, from which she graduated in 1992. Ms Motsi is now an activist for the cause of womens' literacy in Kenya. "Education makes a great difference; it is a pity that it is not appreciated by everyone", she said. Mohammed Ba, a newly literate 17 year old Senegalese worker in the central market of Dakar, brought to the conference a piece of paper which he wrote by himself, telling of his life and hopes. "I got to know a youth worker of ENDA Jeunesse Action (a non-governmental organization advocating the cause of adult education in Senegal), who convinced me to join the non-formal literacy classes at night. Now I can read and write, and I can speak French", he proudly reported. The hardships suffered by teachers in remote rural areas were highlighted by Luzma Castano, a Colombian 43 year old school teacher of many years. The "new school" movement in Colombia, an innovative education programme, "has helped me to become an effective teacher; I am now able to actively promote education for poor rural children in my country". Fifteen year old Filipino, Brandy Natividad, who has lived and worked on the streets of Manila since he was a child, said "I used to live with my grandparents in carton boxes on the side-walk; then, one of my co-workers on the street helped me to go back to primary school from which I have just graduated successfully. I remember I used to do my homework under a street lamp". The day-long activities also included sessions on how to improve learning achievment, ways of mobilizing funds and resources, building capacities to provide basic education and how to meet the basic learning needs of all. Dr Frank Dall, Regional Education Adviser for UNICEF's Middle East and North Africa Regional Office (MENARO), who attended a session on funding, pointed out that "If education for all is to be achieved, many more countries and donors have to deliver on their promise to increase funds for basic education". Participants agreed that doing more for basic education, often with the same or less funding, requires "new partnerships and new initiatives", especially from the private sector. In a discussion on learning needs, Nigeria's Federal Minister of Education, Mr M.T.Liman stressed that to boost learning achievement, "each child should have the fundamental right to learn in his or her mother tongue during the first six years of school." Participants attending other sessions stressed that teachers should become "an essential part" of the process of change and development. They should also promote democratic practices among their pupils.