RETURN TO MAIN PAGE // Archive for the ‘Education’ Category
- Previous Posts Older Entries
- Next Posts
SMART Aid opens school doors to the poor in Ghana
As in many African countries, children in Ghana often missed out on schooling because their parents could not afford the school fees or needed them to help work in the fields or the home. In 2004, Ghana started a free compulsory Universal Basic Education Program, which abolished school fees and introduced a National School Feeding Program. Much of this was done with the help of donor funding. Between 1999 and 2006, donor support for basic education in Ghana more than doubled. Ghana is now on track to achieve 100 per cent basic education enrolment by 2015. The removal of school fees opened school doors to the poorest Ghanaian children; school lunches have helped improve attendance and retention rates. By the end of 2008, 595,000 children were receiving lunches through the program, many of them eating locally produced food purchased largely by the United Nations World Food Program. Thanks to this combination of measures, Ghana’s net primary school enrolment rates for boys increased from 60 per cent in 2004-2005 to 84 per cent in 2007-2008. Enrolment of girls increased from 58 per cent in 2004-2005 to 82 per cent in 2007-2008.
-Nora Coghlan
Sign For Those Who Can’t
Hello, I’m Christina Holder, a ONE member from Augusta, Georgia, currently working as a Uriel and Caroline Bauer Human Rights Law Fellow in Lusaka, Zambia, where I promote human rights-based approaches to development. My education has enabled me to understand and transform some of the root causes of social injustice. I believe every individual deserves the opportunities education creates.
That’s why I sent my personal story to The Big Read, a movement to secure $2 billion for a Global Fund for Education. I would be honored if your name, and the names of tens of thousands of ONE members, would accompany my story when ONE and the Global Campaign for Education deliver it to President Obama in June.
With the book and our signatures, ONE will include this inscription:
Please ensure all children have access to quality basic education by making a U.S. contribution of $2 billion to a Global Fund for Education.
To add your name to the book, please click this link:
http://www.one.org/us/bigreadpetition/o.pl
I’ve spent eight months in Zambia, and have realized that quality education is the key to lifting individuals, and the nation, out of poverty. After learning how to read themselves, women I work with from Lusaka’s Garden Compound pooled their resources to open a “community school” so their children could learn to read and write, too. At Mother Teresa Hospice and Community School, where I volunteer each Friday afternoon, some of the adult residents volunteer to teach children reading and math.
Without the opportunity to attend school, these children risk becoming child laborers in local industries such as stone-crushing — pounding big rocks into gravel for sale to builders. But slowly, regular Zambians are laying the foundation for every child to enjoy the right to quality education, a prerequisite for ending poverty.
By adding your name to The Big Read and encouraging our government to support a Global Fund for Education, we can help Zambia and other countries finance high-quality education for even the most impoverished students.
Please sign The Big Read now, for all those who can’t:
http://www.one.org/us/bigreadpetition/o.pl
Thanks so much!
Christina Holder, ONE Member, Augusta, Georgia
Giving Children a Better Start toward School Success
A mother and daughter, Sarita, who attends early childhood development classes in Nepal where teachers are trained by Save the Children. Sarita’s parents never went to school. They are determined to help Sarita have better opportunities.
Did you know that more children drop out of school in first or second grade than in any other year in most low-income countries?
If we are to achieve Millennium Development Goal #2 to make sure all children get an education, we need to do a better job of preparing children to go to school and stay in school.
Save the Children’s 10th annual State of the World’s Mothers report, released today, focuses on the link between early childhood development and future success in school. The report finds that millions of children are not prepared to succeed in school.
We need to do more than just teach ABCs and 1-2-3s. Eighty-five percent of brain development occurs before age 3. It’s clear we need to start earlier, and be smarter, to ensure a quality education for all children.
Mothers and families today are juggling child-rearing with work and threats brought on by poverty, AIDS, displacement and more. They’re doing some wonderful things for their children every day, but they often need extra help to help their children overcome the challenges they face.
It’s not complicated. There are simple, low-cost activities to keep children safe, healthy and learning. And, these activities are virtually the same, whether families live in the mountain villages of Nepal or the cattle ranches of Uganda. For example, mothers and care givers can read to their children or if no one can read, families can tell stories and rhyme with their children; and they can name things babies see and hear.
Do these programs work? Absolutely. For example, all illustrated in this video, in Nepal, more than 95 percent of children who had early learning opportunities went on to primary school, compared to 75 percent of non-participating children. And, in the Philippines, children who participated in early childhood development programs had a 5 to 10 percent school drop out rate, compared to the national average of 50 percent.
So, why are early childhood development activities not a part of every young child’s life? (more…)
Advocacy is spelled GCE
On Monday, the Global Campaign for Education (GCE) launched its annual Global Action Week, seven days of advocacy to raise awareness around education and encourage governments to follow through on their commitments to put 75 million children in school by 2015.
Here in Washington, GCE kicked off the week with a roundtable discussion on the state of global education and the potential for a new U.S. investment. The guest of honor was Queen Rania of Jordan, a longtime advocate for education in her home country and around the world. Queen Rania began the conversation with a timely topic: economic growth. Education, she pointed out, is central to fueling national economies and raising incomes at the family level. And as a critical input into health, gender empowerment and democracy, education is one of the highest-yield investments we can make into families and communities, especially in the world’s poorest countries. With the global financial crisis in full swing and threatening to hit poorest countries the hardest, the time is riper than ever for a bold new initiative to get every child in school.
Queen Rania was backed up by three powerful education advocates here in the U.S.: Congressional champion Representative Nita Lowey and two experts who are now serving in the Administration - Gene Sperling (who is Council to the Secretary of the Treasury) and Gayle Smith (Senior Director for Relief, Stabilization and Development and Senior Advisor to the President on the National Security Council).
Rep. Lowey spoke first, saying that the “stars are aligned” for achieving the education for all. She noted that U.S. funding for basic education has increased seven-fold since 2001 (thanks largely to her leadership on the House Appropriations Committee), an impressive scale-up but still a far cry from the U.S.’s fair share of the $11 billion price tag for meeting the Education for All goals. Rep. Lowey pointed out that strong congressional leadership is now paired with clear support from the Administration, a reference to President Obama’s commitment to contribute $2 billion to a Global Education Fund. As a result, she said, the constituency for global education has never been stronger. Gayle Smith also spoke on President Obama’s commitment to education, saying that the President remains committed to his campaign promise and that she was hopeful that “in the not-too-distant future,” he will make an announcement on the establishment of a robust, sustainable Global Fund for Education.
This discussion couldn’t have been more timely- details on President’s Obama’s budget request will be coming out in the next couple weeks. ONE and other advocates are hoping that they contain a strong boost for global education spending to indicate the Administration’s intent to fulfill its commitment to a Global Fund for Education. An investment in education by the U.S. in FY10 will ensure that any initiative in the “not-too-distant future” will have the resources it needs to be successful.
Gene Sperling (former head of the Center for Universal Education) ended the panel by outlining a few trade-offs that global policy makers cannot afford to make when it comes to education- access vs. quality, donor funding through bilateral vs. multilateral channels, and a focus on primary education (5 years) vs. eight years of basic education. He also said it was time for global leaders to step up their efforts to supporting education in countries in conflict and transition, noting that just as a dollar invested in girls’ education is one of the best-spent dollars in the world, so is a dollar invested in education for children of conflict.
To drive this point home, Sperling quoted a passage from What is the What by Dave Eggers, one of my favorite books. The scene takes place in a school in a refugee camp in the midst of the Sudanese civil war. A group of boys are writing lessons in the dirt. Their teacher looks over their work and attempts to convey to them the magnitude of what they’re doing, saying:
Many of you no longer have mothers. You have lost your fathers. Here, if you are smart enough to accept it, you will be educated. Education will be your mother. Education will be your father. While your older brothers fight this war with guns, when the bullets stop, you will fight the next war with your pens.
Stay tuned here on the ONE blog for other things going on around the Global Action Week and how you can get involved.
-Nora Coghlan
Zimbabwean Children Flee to South Africa
I read this story in Sunday’s New York Times on children fleeing Zimbabwe “for lives just as desolate” in South Africa, and wanted to share it here on the ONE Blog.
Below are some excerpts but you can read the full piece on their site.
With their nation in a prolonged sequence of crises, more unaccompanied children and women than ever are joining the rush of desperate Zimbabweans illegally crossing the frontier at the Limpopo River, according to the police, local officials and aid workers.
What they are escaping is a broken country where half the people are going hungry, most schools and hospitals are closed or dysfunctional and a cholera epidemic has taken a toll in the thousands. Yet they are arriving in a place where they are unwelcome and are resented as rivals for jobs. Last year, Zimbabweans were part of the quarry in a spate of mob attacks against foreigners….
South Africa’s national police force is exasperated by the crimes… most victims do not file complaints. After all, they are here illegally, unless remaining in the Showgrounds. “Last week, I had 1,500 ready for deportation,” he said.
The captain stood up, walking over to a computer screen. “We keep photos of the refugees killed near the border.”…
Mention of the children seemed to feed his exasperation. “Street kids, more all the time,” he said. “They come in as if they are playing in a game.”
He asked, “What do we do about these kids?”
-Virginia Simmons
School doors still closed in Zimbabwe
Over three weeks have passed since Zimbabwe’s schools were scheduled to reopen after the Christmas break, raising fears that 2009 will be another lost year for education in Zimbabwe. While the government is saying the extra time is needed for teachers to mark last year’s exams, many teachers are refusing to return to work until the government agrees to pay them in foreign currency, as the Zimbabwean currency has become completely worthless. Teachers are demanding US$2,200 a month before they resume work, a demand that was rejected by the government after being put forward earlier this week by a coalition of NGOs and teachers unions.
From the Zimbabwe Standard:
Prospects that the situation would improve next term have been dampened by the prolonged delays in the formation of a new government, analysts said. “The outlook is gloomy,” said ZIMTA(Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association) acting chief executive officer, Sifiso Ndlovu, who confirmed the latest demands by teachers.
“If the political environment does not change in the few coming days, schools are unlikely to reopen next term.” Teacher organisations estimate that up to 30 000 teachers resigned from government to seek employment in neighbouring countries while others turned to the informal sector as the authorities continued to ignore pleas for better pay.
Meanwhile, private schools have been threatened with arrest by the government if they open their doors as scheduled on Tuesday.
The delay follows a tumultuous 2008 school year that was cut short in October, when schools had only been opened for a total of 23 uninterrupted days. This is compared to relatively high attendance rates only a year ago- a recent UNICEF report found that school attendance in Zimbabwe had dropped from 85% in 2007 to 20% by the third term of 2008. The drop was largely a result of the teacher shortages, which began last March after teachers started striking against poor pay and political intimidation around the elections. Attendance rates are also low because children are needed to help parents look for food or work amidst the ongoing economic turmoil.
After years of surviving despite a crumbling economy and autocratic rule, the most recent political upheaval may have struck a final blow to Zimbabwe’s education system, which was once the envy of its neighbors. Although high level talks are scheduled to resume again on Monday, analysts are doubtful that Mugabe will agree to the opposition’s demand that the government release all detained political prisoners.
-Nora Coghlan
Homework for Obama: Education for All
As part of ONE’s briefing to the presidential transition team, we recommended that President-Elect Obama follow through on his commitment to prioritize global education by scaling up U.S. funding for basic education to reach $3 billion annually. This recommendation is based on the President-Elect’s own commitments during the campaign: Obama pledged to capitalize a $2 billion “Global Education Fund” and to leverage U.S. commitments through the Fast Track Initiative, a financing mechanism that coordinates increased resources for countries whose education plans have been technically vetted and endorsed. Obama reiterated this commitment at the Clinton Global Initiative in September, and also said he looked forward to signing the Education for All Act, bipartisan legislation which would provide $10 billion in funding for education over five years.
Following through on these commitments could go a long way towards erasing the global education gap. Currently, 75 million children (more than half of whom are girls) are not enrolled in primary school. Nearly half of these children live in Africa and one-third live in fragile states. These out-of-school children represent a serious lost opportunity in the fight against extreme poverty and disease. With its widespread impacts on health, education, democratic development and economic growth, education is one of the most critical tools available to help poor countries forge a pathway out of poverty. The case for expanding access to education is even stronger amidst the current economic climate- investments in education are long-term and will reap benefits for communities and nations for generations to come.
In FY08, the U.S. appropriated $694 million for global education (primarily through the Development Assistance account and the Economic Support Fund), a large portion of which was directed to Pakistan and also programs such as the African Education Initiative, which provides learning materials like (more…)
Eight years after Dakar: Reviving the global compact on education
Another big item on the agenda at this week’s High Level Group meeting in Oslo is financing for basic education. Education for all by 2015 is only possible if developing countries and donor governments dedicate the financial resources and political will required to make it happen. It was this spirit of mutual commitments that led to a deal between donors and developing countries at the 2000 World Education Forum in Dakar: If developing countries committed the political will and domestic resources to achieve universal primary education by 2015, donors would provide the technical know-how and extra funding to support them.
The Dakar agreement gave rise to the first ever global compact on education, the Education for All-Fast Track Initiative (FTI), The goal of FTI is to “fast track” countries seriously committed to achieving universal primary education by providing coordinated and increased donor support. Under the FTI framework, developing countries produce national education plans and mobilize domestic funding to finance them. Once their plans have been technically vetted and endorsed, donors step in to provide coordinated and increased financial and technical assistance to help implement them.
Where developing countries and donors have delivered on their promises, remarkable progress has been made. UNESCO points to Ethiopia as an example- international aid helped Ethiopia increase its education spending from 3.6% of GNP in 1999 to 6% in 2006. Over the same period, the number of Ethiopian children out-of-school was cut nearly in half, dropping from 7 million to 3.7 million. Statistics also suggest that the FTI model is working on a broader scale- in its annual report released this past Monday, FTI announced that African FTI countries alone had seen 15 million more children go to school for the first time between 2000 and 2006, a 52 percent increase. This is compared to a 23 percent increase for non-FTI African countries.
To date, 36 countries have answered the call from Dakar by developing FTI-endorsed education plans and mobilizing over 70% of the financing to implement them. Donors, however, have not kept up their end of the bargain, and as a result many countries are struggling to fully implement their education plans. Aid to basic education has stagnated at $4 billion per year, less than half of what is needed to achieve universal primary education and only one-quarter of the $16 billion required annually to realize all the Education for All goals. Estimates are that FTI countries will face a resource gap of $1 billion in 2009. This gap will grow as more countries are endorsed- by 2010, if all thirteen expected countries receive endorsement the gap could grow $2.2 billion.
Participants here in Oslo are hopeful that the discussions this week will inject new momentum into financing education for all. There have been some signs in recent months that some donors are committed to doing this: at the launch of the Class of 2015 partnership in September, $4.5 billion in new commitments were announced by different donors. Here in the U.S., President-elect Obama has committed not only to capitalizing a $2 billion Global Education Fund, but also to endorsing the Education for All Bill (championed in the Senate by Secretary of State nominee Hillary Clinton) which would put $10 billion into basic education over 5 years.
The need to revive the global education compact is more critical than ever in the current financial climate. As poor countries begin to feel the effects of the global economic crisis, the temptation to cut spending on education will be high and some of the recent progress made in getting children in school could be threatened. If the world stands a real chance at education for all by 2015, donors need to renew faith in the global education compact by keeping up their end of the deal and standing by their commitments to basic education.
-Nora Coglan
Live From Oslo
Greetings from snowy Oslo, Norway, where government ministers, campaigners and education experts are currently gathered for the High Level Group meeting on Education for All. The conference is the eighth annual since the historic World Education Forum in 2000, which set forth the Dakar Framework for Action, a roadmap to achieve quality education for all by 2015.
Participants here in Oslo are acutely aware that halfway towards the target date set for achieving the goals set out in Dakar and the MDG targets on education, the world remains seriously off track: according to new statistics published a couple weeks ago in UNESCO’s annual Global Monitoring Report (GMR), there are still 75 million primary-school aged children out-of-school around the world, 35 million of whom are living in sub-Saharan Africa. 55% of these children are girls, and over one-third live in fragile states. If current trends continue, 29 million children will still be out of primary school in 2015.
Another common thread in many of the discussions here is (more…)
Live from Oslo
Education and development leaders around the world will begin meeting shortly in Oslo, Norway to recommend strategies towards achieving quality Education for All by 2015. This event is organized by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and will feature UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura with the Prime Minister of Norway, Jens Stoltenberg, H.M Queen Rania of Jordan, H.R.H. Crown Prince Haakon of Norway and the President of Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade.
The meeting will begin at approximately 9:00 AM EST, and you can watch a live webcast of the event here. Nora Coghlan is in Norway now and will update us on the proceedings later today.
-Chris Scott
- Previous Posts Older Entries
- Next Posts
Featured Series
About the Blog
The ONE Blog is a daily log of the anti-poverty movement. The site is operated by ONE staff, with frequent contributions from volunteers, members and partner organizations.
The ONE Blog updates readers daily with the latest in global development news and analysis and what ONE members and our partners are doing around the world to influence world leaders in the fight against global poverty.
The content of each post and each comment represents the views of that author and does not necessarily reflect the views of ONE or ONE Action. ONE does not support or oppose any candidate for elected office, and any post expressing support or opposition for a candidate is not endorsed by ONE.
SHARE:
TAGS: Education, Ghana, Policy News, SMART Aid