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Past Issue - February 2004 News
ACTION WEEK 2004 PAKISTANI NGOs COME TOGETHER FOR ACTION WEEK 9 February 2004 Islamabad - The Education Minister of Pakistan, Ms. Zobaida Jalal, has declared her support for the 2004 GCE Global Action Week and instructed her civil servants to ask the Prime Minister and the President to each meet with children on 20th April to hear their views on education as it was important that the voices of children be heard on education. The Minister announced this in a recent meeting with representatives of the GCE and the Commonwealth Education Fund Pakistan. Meanwhile, more than 40 education NGOs and teachers' unions working at community and national level have decided to to take part in all the Action Week Activities and to coordinate efforts through a national coordination group of 10 people linked to 5 provincial coordination groups, each with a named contact person. These decisions were taken at a recent meeting organised by CEF Pakistan and attended by GCE representatives. The NGOs plan to work on securing a successful Action Week and then hopefully develop a credible effective broad-based coalition through that. The national coordination group next meets on Jan 30. Informed of these developments, Mrs Jalal said that supported the idea of groups forming a national coalition for education so that they could support and complement each other, link local and national issues, and be a stronger voice, rather than compete with or replicate each other. She felt that civil society had a crucial role to play in sharing information with the government about successful approaches to education. FAST TRACK INITIATIVE - LATEST NEWS DONORS AND PRIVATE SECTOR FAILING THE EFA TEST, SAYS WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM http://www.weforum.org/site/homepublic.nsf/Content/Global%2BGovernance%2BInitiative 9 February 2004 Davos - The Global Campaign for Education gets high marks from a global scorecard on the MDGs released by the World Economic Forum this month. The scorecard, compiled by independent experts, praises the GCE for its success in placing Education for All high on national and international political agendas. But it slates the private sector for its minimal contribution to the EFA movement, and says investments by donors and governments are shamefully short of what is needed. Overall, the world's efforts in 2003 to reach the education goals scored only 3 marks out of 10, meaning that the collective efforts of governments, international agencies, civil society and the private sector amounted to less than a third of what's needed. Efforts on the health goals won a 4 and efforts on environment, hunger and peace and security also received a 3. According to the scorecard, "South and West Asia, the Arab States and North Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean have witnessed rapid growth in primary enrolments, but educational quality, particularly in Latin America, is so low that fundamental changes are still needed for the majority of children to have access to meaningful education." Meanwhile, many countries in Africa still have low enrolments and large gender gaps. The report adds: "An additional US$ 5.6 billion (from the current US$ 1.5 billion) in development assistance is needed annually to support education for girls and in war-torn countries. The World Bank-designed Fast Track Initiative has promised to reward countries who prioritize education with substantial financial and technical assistance, but financial donors have fallen short in providing the US$ 300 million necessary to sustain its commitments to only 18 countries." SIX COUNTRIES TO BENEFIT FROM FTI 'CATALYTIC FUND' 9 February 2004 Oslo - At the third meeting of the Fast Track Initiative partners, the Dutch government together with 3 other donors announced a fund of USD 253 million (spread over 3 years) to get EFA off the ground in six so-called 'donor orphan' countries. The Oslo meeting also confirmed that participation in the FTI is open to all low-income countries. But GCE responded: "show us the money". "As our School Report on donor aid shows, donors have failed to find enough funds to cover even the first 10 FTI countries," said GCE chairperson Kailash Satyarthi. "What does it mean for more countries to join, unless donors commit more money?". Seven FTI countries have been left 'orphaned' by donors and don't have enough money to implement their education plans, despite receiving the FTI stamp of approval for those plans. Six of these will receive small amounts of money from the new "Catalytic Fund". The GCE welcomed the Catalytic Fund as a step forward but stressed the urgency of expanding its coffers to offer more generous support to more countries. The campaign challenged other rich countries to match or better the Dutch contribution of some USD $210 million to the fund. On the eve of the Oslo meeting, GCE released a "School Report" showing that rich countries provide only a fifth of the aid needed to achieve the global goal of Universal Primary Education. "Leaders of some of the richest countries including the US, UK, Canada, Japan and Italy have flunked the exam on education aid," GCE Coordinator Anne Jellema said. According to the GCE's school report, the US and Japan top the list of FTI deadbeats. Based on the size of their GNI, they "owe" more than USD $555 million, but have so far committed only $20 million to FTI countries. Fast Track funds have also been agonising slow to arrive in government bank accounts, Education Ministers from FTI countries told the Oslo meeting. In Mozambique, another FTI country whose plans donors have approved but declined to fully fund, news reports say that over a million Mozambican children of school age will be unable to attend primary school in 2004 due to an overwhelming shortage of schools and teachers (see article below). "Mozambique's crisis could have been avoided if donors and government had worked harder and faster to get more money flowing into the right parts of the education system," Satyarthi commented. "This is a good example of why we need a Fast Track that is genuinely fast." Download the GCE "School Report" on Donor Aid to Basic Education (Click for French or German version) Download the Oslo Co-Chairs' Summary and Conclusions MOZAMBIQUE: A MILLION CHILDREN STILL UNABLE TO STUDY http://allafrica.com/stories/200401080482.html 9 February 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). Mozambique is one the countries that have joined the EFA Fast Track Initiative. Source: Pambazuka News. FTI MUST ADDRESS HIGH POPULATION COUNTRIES, E9 MINISTERS DEMAND http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php@URL_ID=17814&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html 9 February 2004 Cairo - The E9 -- education ministers from the world's nine high population countries --met from December 19-21, 2003. Ministers challenged the FTI to address the needs of high-population countries and also signalled a thaw in traditionally frosty E9 attitudes towards civil society. More…. The Cairo meeting expressed "concern" that high-population countries have yet to benefit from the Fast Track Initiative. The current and future funding needs of E9 countries dwarf those of the small countries that received the first wave of (relatively small) FTI commitments. The ministers also urged the international community to revisit the possibility of debt swaps for education. After a decade of rebuffing NGO requests to be fully included in E9 meetings, the Ministers did an about face in Cairo. The Declaration announced plans to invite civil society, international actors and the private sector to join the initiative as "partners". They admitted that such partnerships were needed to "revitalise and realign" the E9. The meeting also admitted that Early Childhood Care and Education, the theme of the meeting, has suffered from weak policies and poor coordination. They pledged to to "mobilise key stakeholders" in order to overcome these problems. E9 members are Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan. The forum was set up in 1993 to address the special challenges facing these large countries, which account for 70 percent of illiterate adults and more than 40 percent of the world's out-of-school children. However, critics say the forum has lost momentum and relevance in recent years, having failed to keep pace with post-Dakar developments. "Even though it is heartening to see that the forum plans to bridge its gap with civil society, E9 has a long way to go to prove its intentions of moving beyond rhetoric and championing concrete actions to realize the Dakar Goals," said Mohammad Muntasim Tanvir of ActionAid Bangladesh. Justice Egware of CSACEFA, the national coalition in Nigeria, challenged the E9 countries to prove they are prepared for partnership in the full sense."Too often, our governments seem to think that partnership means: 'You can have your say, but our view is superior and it stands.' This kind of approach is exactly what holds our countries under the shackles of poverty, illiteracy, underdevelopment, etc." THE 2003/4 EFA GLOBAL MONITORING REPORT - VIEWS FROM CIVIL SOCIETY 9 February 2004 EFA MONITORING MUST COME FULL CIRCLE By: Maria Lourdes Almazan-Khan - Secretary General, Asian South Pacific Bureau of Adult Education (ASPBAE) The EFA Global Monitoring Report 2003/4 (GMR) is a mine of information and meticulous analysis to inform much needed policy action. It successfully highlights enabling measures and conditions to enhance the participation and retention of girls in schools. It demonstrates that while it is a foregone conclusion that for many countries the 2005 targets would not be reached, there are measures which CAN BE put in place to accelerate progress. For the GMR to fulfil its purpose it needs however to go full circle - it is the responsibility of governments, CSOs and the international community to apply this rich analysis in defining policy measures and critical strategies that best fulfil our collective commitment to end the continuing injustice to girls and women in education. In the last EFA Working Group Meeting, we raised our concerns about the EFA agenda becoming increasingly dispersed among different agencies within the UN and the different flagships, without the necessary mechanisms for coordinating between the obviously overlapping mandates - at the country level. The international mechanisms should decisively tackle the issues of resourcing articulated by governments and CSO groups, seek coordinated rather than disparate responses, and work to dispel the notion that gender is the agenda of women alone. Unless the issues of girls and women in education are translated into practical linkages with all aspects of mainstream sustainable development, gender equality and gender parities in education will remain an elusive dream. Local Use of EFA Monitoring: For monitoring to best serve its purpose, it should be owned and acknowledged by the stakeholders expected to achieve the targets and goals in the first place - and for a large part, they are at the country level. The Educational Development Index as proposed is useful in providing a measurement that defines the status and 'distance' from agreed commitments and targets. For monitoring to more directly inform implementation and planning, however, it may be useful to likewise track how far in place are the enabling conditions and measures that promote quality, gender-sensitive education and participation, retention - on the ground. The GMR suggested very concrete measures that would go a long way in accelerating progress towards achieving both gender parities and gender equality: Some policy measures recommended in GMR include:
There are also growing divides within nations between rural and urban areas, and particular groups such as the girls and women of lower castes, dalits, indigenous people and so on whose greater disadvantage have to be taken into account in monitoring EFA progress. There is a need to identify such locations and groups and specifically target resources and quality provision to reverse their historical disadvantage. Tracking and Targeting ReIt would also be useful to understand how putting these measures in place are budgeted for in existing National Action Plans and in international calculations of the financing gap for EFA. To reiterate the Global Campaign's recommendation on tracking donor support at the country level, it would be useful to know for instance: once good plans are in place, how much donor funding and other resources flow to that country and how quickly? are donors' delivery coordinated and streamlined? does support for a country-owned plan include recurrent costs, or is it money diverted into a series of donor projects? if capacity to develop a good plan is an issue, what have donors done to support and develop capacity? The matching of technical resources to the situations of need in order to enhance and create skills needs attention. We need to address this because despite adequate material and financial resources - without building capacities, the Dakar goals are not going to be translated into feasible and creative plans and will remain elusive. We need a reliable and comprehensive analysis of the costs of implementing the policies needed to deliver on the adult literacy, ECCE and gender parity goals similar to the work done for UPE by the World Bank in 2002. We urge UNESCO, UIS and the World Bank to take this on as soon as possible. International Coordination: The urgency of the situation as underscored by the GMR necessitates that international coordinated response supportive of achieving the 2005/2015 gender targets MUST have its presence and support felt immediately at the national level. In the last EFA Working Group Meeting, we raised our concerns about the EFA agenda becoming increasingly dispersed among different agencies within the UN and the different flagships, without the necessary mechanisms for coordinating between the obviously overlapping mandates - at the country level. The international mechanisms should decisively tackle the issues of resourcing articulated by governments and CSO groups, seek coordinated rather than disparate responses, and work to dispel the notion that gender is the agenda of women alone. Unless the issues of girls and women in education are translated into practical linkages with all aspects of mainstream sustainable development, gender equality and gender parities in education will remain an elusive dream. GLOBAL MONITORING REPORT UNDERESTIMATES EDUCATION CRISIS 9 February 2004 The UNESCO EFA Global Monitoring Report fails to expose the full extent of the education crisis around the world, alleges experienced child rights activist Alam Rahman in a review published this month. Rahman criticises the report for relying too heavily on government's own definitions and statistics. Myanmar's military dictatorship has decided that the official age for primary schooling is 5 to 9, hence a 10 year-old Burmese child sent to work in the fields is not counted by UNESCO as a child out-of-school. The usefulness of the monitoring report is also limited by the fact that most of the data is badly out of date, says Rahman. A good first step towards more robust data would be for UNESCO to allocate more than 0.1% of its budget to EFA monitoring work, he suggests. Read the short version of Rahman's article. EFA HIGH LEVEL MEETING IN DELHI: OUTCOMES AND COMMENT 9 February 2004 HIGH LEVEL GROUP - TIME FOR REFORM By Kailash Satyarthi At the November 2003 High Level Group meeting convened by UNESCO in Delhi, four major issues raised by the GCE were the tracking of donor funds; practical steps to achieve gender parity in education; the role of teachers; and the role and legitimacy of civil society. GCE members organised to lobby for carefully considered positions on each of these issues, and some victories were achieved. However, the continuing ineffectiveness of the High Level Group itself set real limits to what could be achieved in Delhi. The HLG needs fundamental reform to realise the Dakar vision of a forum that can galvanise political leadership and goad governments and donors into action. Tracking donor commitments As GCE chair, I expressed our continuing concern that there has been no detailed monitoring of the donor countries who have been making promises for enhanced funding both in Fast Track Initiative and in general and more or less failed in fulfilling those promises. I suggested that in the next monitoring report, a rigorous evaluation of quantitative and more essentially the qualitative funding cooperation of donor countries be made which was largely appreciated by the developing countries' ministers and thereby initiated a critical debate in the House. The Minister of Education from Burkina Faso, Mathieu Ouedraogo, challenged international agencies to send their experts to the field rather than dealing only with paper plans. He said this might promote better listening, greater modesty, and less arrogance by the international experts. Ministers also expressed many concerns about the delays in getting funds releases to Fast Track countries. "The plane may be ready to leave but there is no fuel in the tank", said Ouedraogo. An impoverished discourse on gender Despite the fact that the meeting focused on gender, many governments, such as India and China, did not want to recognise that child labour is a major factor keeping children, especially girls, out of school. There was a tough debate, but thanks to support from some governments and the ILO delegate, ultimately a statement on the progressive elimination of child labour was incorporated in the final communiqué. Discussion of the 2005 gender parity goal was also largely restricted to primary level, with little attention given to the learning needs and motivations of secondary school age girls and adult women - a point emphasised by our GCE colleague Maria Khan of ASPBAE in her speech to the HLG, and supported by the research study that GCE published earlier last year (A Fair Chance: Achieving Gender Equality in Education by 2005). Teacher shortages a critical issue GCE members present in the meeting, including Mary Hatwood Futrell, President of Education International and Madame Ali Bouli-Diallou, President of FAWE, emphasized that further progress on EFA is impossible unless more teachers are trained and more attention is given to their morale and professional development. Often schools in the most deprived areas receive less qualified teachers. In the same vein, teachers move to schools offering better conditions, resulting in higher quality education for those who can pay. In some countries teachers are leaving the profession for higher paid work, or are being "poached" to work in industrialized countries. In some countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, such as Niger, there are simply not enough teachers (see box). A bright spot in this debate was the presentation by the Education Minister of Guyana, Henry Jeffreys, who said that he plans to use additional funds leveraged through the Fast Track to raise teachers' pay and provide housing for teachers in rural areas. Civil Society: Soft or Hard? Another hot debate concerned the role of civil society. It is encouraging that UN agencies and the governments have started acknowledging the presence and in some cases the constructive role of non-governmental organisations. GCE's success in mobilising nearly 2 million people for girls' education during the 2003 Action Week also helped to persuade some of the delegates that civil society has a legitimate role in advocacy. But many governments would still like to pigeonhole NGOs into a "do-gooder" role, and limit their advocacy role to "soft" awareness-raising activities that could never threaten anyone in power. Most of the governments present in Delhi did not want to accept that NGOs should have a place at the table when governments meet their donor counterparts to negotiate important agreements such as sector plans, or that NGOs should publicly monitor government spending. But at the end of the day there had been some progress. Even the most sceptical governments showed some respect for the professional way that civil society groups conducted themselves in Delhi. We were better-organised and better-informed than many of the government delegations in the room, and proved our ability to be constructive as well as hard-hitting. In a signficant victory for civil society, it was declared in the communiqué that non-governmental and other civil society organisations should become fully recognised and accepted partners in national policy dialogue and other participatory processes between governments and international agencies. A Middling Level and Muddled Group Overall, I feel that despite the improved and enriched discussions and participation in each succeeding High Level Group meetings, the key objective of constituting this group is still missing. And that is bringing together the heads of the governments from donor and recipient countries to create a strong political will. No development ministers from the North attended the meeting. UNICEF director Carol Bellamy decided at the last minute not to participate. The World Bank sent a Senior Vice President rather than its President James Wolfensohn. Dominated by bureaucrats and education ministers, the meeting was a confused mixture of experience-sharing, technical discussion and sweeping rhetoric. There was very little discussion of the findings of the Global Monitoring Report, either at the EFA Working Group (supposedly the professional support to the HLG) or at the HLG itself. The result was a Group that was once again Middling and Muddled. However, despite general recognition that the HLG has been ineffective, and much discussion of the need for more proactive leadership and coordination of the EFA movement, there was little will to do anything about it. GCE proposals for a review and restructuring of global EFA mechanisms, including the HLG, were blocked by those who argued that it is "too soon" to make changes. Instead the communique contains a vague call for "better linkages" between the EFA Monitoring Report, the EFA Working Group, the High Level Group and the Fast Track Partners Group. The GCE will be developing a position paper on how to energise the EFA movement and welcomes input from any member organisations. Please send your comments to: anne@campaignforeducation.org. CHILDREN SHAKE UP 'HIGH LEVEL' EFA MEETING 9 February 2004 Delhi - When Education Ministers and UN officials from around the world gathered here last November for the third High Level Group meeting on Education for All, something unprecedented happened. Midway through the ponderous opening speeches by VIPs, two children took the floor. Bhagyashree from Orissa and Basu from Delhi spoke vividly of children's desire to learn despite all of the barriers they face. The Ministers listened rapt as Bhagyashree told how famine and floods had forced her to abandon her schooling. The children had been chosen as spokespersons by the Children's Parliament on the Right to Education, organised by the Global March Against Child Labour and the Global Campaign for Education as a parallel event to the High Level Group meeting. Eighty children from 11 states across India participated in the two-day Parliament in New Delhi from 8-10 November 2003. The children came together to share their experiences on education, to debate the problems faced by all children to get access to education, and to draft a key set of demands that they identified as important to be dealt with to ensure education for all children. "These are not privileged middle-class children -- they are children who have gone through horrifying experiences during famines, natural disasters and communal riots. They have been victims of minority discrimination. They have been forced to work and been deprived of education," said Jo Walker from Global March, one of the organisers. The children came to present the findings of state-level consultations with other children, and share their own direct experience of key issues denying children access to education. Children from Rajasthan, for example, spoke about girl child education. They were eager to know about actions taken by the government to put an end to social evils like child marriage and dowry systems. Former child labourers explained how happy they are to be free from exploitation and receiving an education, but attacked the government for not doing enough to end child labour. Children from Nagaland had an interesting discussion on HIV/AIDS. Some were not even aware of the nature of the disease and were eager to know more. After discussions, they felt that the only way to fight HIV/AIDS would be to collectively ask the government to provide education to children world over to protect themselves from the disease. Throughout the High Level Group discussions, the Children's Declaration was referred back to on several occasions, giving the children a real sense that their voices were being heard by the adults who can make 'Education For All' a reality. "This particular involvement of children in such an important meeting rendered a strong human face and emotion to the dry discussions and deliberations," commented GCE chairperson, Kailash Satyarthi. Explained Beauty from Bihar, one of the delegates: "Our Parliament will be an ideal parliament. We will not only keep the demands and promises closed in files but will take all the necessary steps to follow it up." Click here to read the Children's Declaration on Education for All. Click here to view the Global March Against Child Labour's online photo gallery of the Children's Parliament QUALITY AND EQUITY LATIN AMERICAN NGOS DEMAND QUALITY FOR ALL, NOT FOR THE FEW 9 February 2004 Santa Cruz - The second gathering of Latin American Civil Society to discuss how to influence education policy in Latin America, focusing this time on quality issues, took place in Bolivia from 11-13 December 2003. Rich debate about the obstacles to achieving quality -- such as lack of resources and lack of relevance - kicked off with a stimulating paper analysing research on quality in 6 Latin American countries. "The quality of education cannot be the quality for the few, it has to be quality for all… ", said the paper's author, Brazilian academic Maria Malta Campos. Campos also criticized the current vision of education which see the family as a mere consumer of education services and not a subject of rights. The conference was attended by representatives from 49 national education councils from Latin America and the Caribbean, the Director of the Intercultural Bilingual Minister of Education of Ecuador, and other networks such as REPEM and Fé y Alegría, national education forums and national committees for the Defence of the Right to an Education and a representative from the Global Campaign for Education. A work plan for the Continental Campaign for the Right to an Education (Latin America) was also consolidated and the delegates gave their support to participating in the Global Campaign for Education Week of Action 2004. The conference was sponsored by Ayuda en Accion, ActionAid, CEAAL, the PIDHDD and Ibis. Click here to read the Final Declaration of Santa Cruz. - (Spanish version only) URBAN SCHOOLS FAILING THE POOR, INDIAN SURVEY SHOWS http://infochangeindia.org/EducationItop.jsp?recordno=2661§ion_idv=5#2661 9 February 2004 Mumbai - A survey, carried out by the NGO Pratham in 20 Indian cities, reveals that schools in poor areas are failing to teach basic literacy skills. Nearly half of the 41,000 pupils tested, between the ages of 7 and 14, could not read simple sentences, and 40% barely knew the alphabet. There was little difference between private and public schools. INDIA: COURT ORDERS PRIVATE SCHOOLS TO ADMIT POOR CHILDREN http://infochangeindia.org/EducationItop.jsp?recordno=2771§ion_idv=5#2771 9 February 2004 Delhi - A high court has ruled that private schools must reserve at least 25% of their places for poorer students. The ruling applies to private schools that get land at concessional rates from the government. The Social Jurists' Forum, which brought the case on behalf of poor families, convinced the court that the land concessions are a form of government subsidy. As publicly-subsidised schools they are obliged to serve all sections of society, the court concluded. POOR QUALITY HURTS POOR CHILDREN MOST, SAYS NEW REPORT www.odi.org.uk/publications/briefing/mdgs_public_expenditure_april03.pdf 9 February 2004 It's well known that government spending on higher education favours the rich, who are far more likely to attend university. But new research shows that even at primary level, governments spend less per head on poor children than on better off children. Urban areas are typically better provided with primary schools than rural areas, and poorer areas have fewer schools than more prosperous areas. What's more. schools serving poorer children tend to provide a worse quality education. This means poor children are more likely to drop out and less likely to acquire marketable skills. The report, by the Overseas Development Institute, recommends that ministries devote more of their budgets to reaching underserved groups. More spending on quality improvements, targeted especially at deprived areas, is also recommended. See also: GCE briefing explains why quality is an equity issue. HIV-AIDS WORLD AIDS DAY 2004: WOMEN AND GIRLS THE FOCUS 9 February 2004 The theme for the World AIDS Campaign 2004 is Women, Girls, HIV and AIDS. The year-long Campaign launched in February, culminating in World AIDS Day on 1 December, seeks to accelerate the global response to HIV and AIDS through a focus on women and girls - preventing new infections, promoting equal access to treatment and mitigating the impact of AIDS. The main goal of World AIDS Campaign 2004 is to accelerate the global response to HIV and AIDS through a focus on women and girls - preventing new infections, promoting equal access to treatment and mitigating the impact of AIDS. Campaign messages include: promoting leadership and the role of women and girls in tackling the epidemic; supporting women and girls living with HIV to tell their story; . raising awareness of the impact HIV and AIDS has on women and girls globally, regionally & nationally; changing gender imbalances .that make women and girls more vulnerable to HIV; ensuring gender focus in national policies and responses to HIV-AIDS; increasing confidence of women, especially those vulnerable to/or infected with HIV. KENYA: ADMIT HIV-POSITIVE CHILDREN TO SCHOOL, JUDGE ORDERS www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=21577 9 February 2004 A Kenyan judge has ordered the Kenyan government and Nyumbani Home - the oldest and largest AIDS orphanage in the country - to develop an agreement that would allow HIV-positive children from the orphanage to be admitted to area primary schools, the AP/Yahoo! News reported. Nyumbani on Wednesday sought a court order against the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and the attorney general's office to force state schools to admit HIV-positive children, Nyumbani attorney Ababu Namwamba said. Source: Pambazuka News SWAZILAND: FEES KEEP AIDS ORPHANS OUT OF SCHOOL www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38872 9 February 2004 As schools re-opened this month, teachers in Swaziland say that unemployment and HIV/AIDS are affecting enrolments. "The problem is school fees - and it's not a new one. Parents scramble to come up with money for tuition, school uniforms, transportation, boarding and other fees. What is measurably worse this year is the number of parents who are out of work, and the growing population of children without parents," said Alexander Tsabedze, a headmaster in the northern Hhohho region. Source: IRIN News. TEACHERS ISSUES AFRICAN TEACHERS RESOLVE TO 'FORM OR JOIN' GCE COALITIONS 9 February 2004 Lome - The capital city of Togo was bursting into a flurry of educational activities when 60 teachers' organisations from 48 countries in Africa assembled from the 18 -26th January 2004 under the aegis of Education International to discuss Education for Global Progress. The final communique of the conference called on all African teachers organisations to join the GCE national coalitions where they exist, or lead a process towards forming one in alliance with other actors in civil society. The guest of honour, the Prime Minister of Togo graciously opened the conference while Dr Mary Futrell, the President of EI delivered the key note address. The Pan African conference was preceeded by a two day round table on women issues. Over fifty women gathered to discuss trends regarding the situation of African women teachers, problems they face in education, society and their unions and best practices and major achievements in the last three years. In his address to the conference GCE Coordinator Emanuel Fatoma called on teachers to develope a two- pronged approach to teacher unionism in Africa . He said that teacher professionalism would complement the trade union efforts of collective bargaining while at the same time give public recognition to the contribution of teachers in society. Teachers were encouraged to fully engage themselves in the EFA process and urged to collaborate with NGOs and other CSO's in education so that they become active members of the GCE. The GCE he opined was a global family of teachers unions, child labour activists, NGO's , faith based organisations and other civil society organisations established to bear political and moral pressure on governments, donors and multi-lateral institutions to fulfil the promise made in Dakar to make EFA a reality. No time has ever been more opportune for teachers in Africa to play a leadership role in the education delivery process, Fatoma concluded. The final communique lauded the efforts of GCE in popularising EFA and their contributions in making the FTI process transparent and participatory. PEOPLE MONIQUE FOUILHOUX RECEIVES UNESCO MEDALS 9 February 2004 Monique Fouilhoux of Education International stepped down as President of the UNESCO/NGO Liaison committee at the last NGO Conference (17-19 December, Paris). On the occasion, she received the UNESCO Medal awarded to personalities who greatly contributed to promoting the objectives and ideals of UNESCO. Monique was also warmly congratulated by the NGO community who awarded her the UNESCO Human Rights medal. |
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