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Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 18:36:08 -0800
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Subject: The Drum Beat - 292 - MDG #2 - Achieving Universal Primary Education


The Drum Beat - Issue 292 - MDG #2 - Achieving Universal Primary Education
March 28 2005


from The Communication Initiative...global forces...local choices...critical voices...telling stories...


Partners: ANDI, BBC World Service Trust, Bernard van Leer Foundation, Calandria, CFSC Consortium, The CHANGE Project, CIDA, DFID, Exchange, FAO, Ford Foundation, Fundacion Nuevo Periodismo, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs, MISA, OneWorld, The Panos Institute, PCI, The Rockefeller Foundation, SAfAIDS, Soul City, UNAIDS, UNICEF, USAID, WHO.


Chair of the Partners Group: Garth Japhet, Soul City [log in to unmask]
Director: Warren Feek [log in to unmask]
http://www.comminit.com


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Access this issue online at http://www.comminit.com/drum_beat_292.html


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Millennium Development Goal (MDG) #2 mobilises world leaders to ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere - boys and girls alike - will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling (grades 1-5). This issue of The Drum Beat will explore some of the facets of this multi-dimensional challenge, emphasising the role communication can play in enabling and motivating children to attend and stay in school, as well as in improving the quality of education received (measured by the literacy rate of youth ages 15-24). This issue highlights examples of communication strategies and initiatives that are contributing to meeting MDG #2 at local, national, regional, and global levels.

Please visit our MDG Impact section - http://www.comminit.com/mdgs.html - for additional examples of the impact of communication on reaching the goal of primary education for all. Click here to view these examples and excerpts: http://www.comminit.com/mdgs/mdgs/mdgs-3.html

For background on MDG #2 and the other goals, see http://www.comminit.com/mdgs/mdgs/mdgs-1.html


Next month we will focus on MDG #3: Gender Equity. Please send your projects, articles, events, etc. to Deborah Heimann [log in to unmask]


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CONTEXT


1.	Worldwide, an estimated 114 million children of primary school age are not enrolled in school, depriving 1 in every 5 children of access to even basic education.
Source: The United Nations (UN) Volunteers programme -
http://www.comminit.com/redirect.cgi?r=http://www.unv.org/infobase/facts/04_05_20DEU_MDG_2.htm


2.	Access to Primary Education
Between 1990 and 2000 the percentage of children enrolled in primary school increased from 78% to 82%. Most of those still left out are children affected by disability, HIV/AIDS, or conflict; children of economically poor families; children of ethnic minorities; and children in rural, peri-urban, and remote areas.
http://www.comminit.com/baseline/baseline2001/baseline-335.html


3.	Education in South East Asia during the Era of Globalisation
In 1999 about half the total population of South East Asia was illiterate. In the 1990s, over 40% of children did not reach grade 5. In 1998, mean years of schooling for boys in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Nepal was 2.9 - 3.5 years; for girls it was 0.9 - 1.2 years. There has been a trend of increasing drop-out rates at the primary education level.
http://www.comminit.com/baseline/baseline2002/baseline-189.html


4.	Child to Child Dialogue: Census, Which is Carried out by Children Themselves
More than 550 children in grades from 2-7 participated in this census, which was carried out by the members of the Ethiopian Teenagers' Forum and UNICEF-Ethiopia in 20 elementary schools in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The children specified why their out-of-school peers are unable to attend, highlighting inability of those children's parents to afford the payment of school bills (68.8%) and lack of materials like school uniforms, textbooks, stationery, and pens or pencils (29.2%). Nine other reasons are detailed here.
http://www.comminit.com/strategicthinking/st2005/thinking-1029.html


5.	Future Forsaken: Abuses Against Children Affected by HIV/AIDS in India
"Six-year-old Anu P.'s teacher sent her home from kindergarten in 2003, instructing her older sister to tell her 'please not to come again to the school.' Her grandfather, who had been caring for Anu and her siblings since their parents died of AIDS, explained, 'The teacher didn't allow her to come to school because she believes Anu is HIV-positive. I believe that other parents were talking amongst themselves, so the teacher said she shouldn't come.' Sharmila A., age ten, was HIV-positive and had lost both of her parents to AIDS. She stopped going to school in the fourth grade, she said. 'When I went to school, I sat separately from the other children, in the last mat. I sat alone. The other children wanted to be with me, but the teacher would tell them not to play with me. She said, 'This disease will spread to you also, so do not play with her.'"
http://www.comminit.com/materials/ma2004/materials-1492.html


6.	Learning to Survive: How Education for All Would Save Millions of Young People from HIV/AIDS
by Anne Jellema & Ben Phillips
"New analysis by the Global Campaign for Education suggests that if all children received a complete primary education, the economic impact of HIV/AIDS could be greatly reduced and around 700,000 cases of HIV in young adults could be prevented each year - 7 million in a decade....[A] good primary education for every child is an eminently affordable and achievable target, costing only about USD$100 per child per year....The combined annual cost of [universal primary education, or] UPE and expanded [HIV/AIDS] treatment and prevention - US$17bn - is less than the amount Europeans and Americans spend on pet food every year..."
http://www.comminit.com/strategicthinking/st2004/thinking-535.html


7.	Kenyan Officials Discover That By Addressing One Educational Need They Have Created Another
When the new Kenyan government came to power in 2002 it introduced free primary education. As a result, 1.7 million previously excluded children enrolled in school, and in 2004 the number of pupils sitting for the certificate of Primary Education increased 12% from 2003. But more than 50% of those who graduated from Kenya's 17,600 primary schools last year cannot be accommodated by its 4,000 secondary schools.
http://www.comminit.com/baseline/baseline2005/baseline-432.html


8.	Oxfam Education Report
by Kevin Watkins
Sets out the scale of the worldwide education crisis, identifies the causes, and articulates an agenda for reform. Establishes a new analytical tool, the Education Performance Index, to assess the rate of progress towards universal primary education.
http://www.comminit.com/materials/materials/materials-993.html


EDUCATION ACTIVISM: CAMPAIGNS FOR CHANGE


9.	Send My Friend to School - Global
This Global Campaign for Education Action Week, held from April 24-30 2005, involves the participation of children and adults worldwide in communicating the following message to world governments: education is the key to end poverty. The "Send My Friend to School" global action is an advocacy campaign whose goal is to confront politicians around the world with 6 million cut-out "friends" - one for every 10 girls who do not get an education. The strategy involves providing guidance in the creation of hand-made cut-out "friends" that carry written advocacy messages (education pledges). Armed with these "friends", campaigners will take to the streets of their communities and march to their parliament buildings, hold face-to-face meetings with their Heads of State, and invite local politicians to schools. The purpose of the project is to lobby politicians and local leaders to make a pledge to act during 2005 to live up to the promises they made on primary education and gender eq!
uity as part of the MDGs.
http://www.comminit.com/experiences/pds2005/experiences-3012.html
Contact Jo Walker [log in to unmask]


10.	Decade of Education for Sustainable Development - Global
On March 1 2005, UNESCO's Koïchiro Matsuura launched a communication-centred advocacy effort focusing on the role of education and learning - for all people in both developing and developed countries - in the pursuit of sustainable development. This decade-long (2005-2014) undertaking involves activities developed and carried out at local, national, regional, and international levels - with a particular eye toward "the degree of change in attitude and behaviour in the lives of communities and individuals at the local level." Organisers emphasise the linkages between education for sustainable development and both MDG #2 and the Dakar Framework for Action on Education for All (EFA).
http://www.comminit.com/experiences/pds2005/experiences-3031.html
Contact [log in to unmask]


11.	Azim Premji Foundation
Builds partnerships with the government and the community to improve access to, and the content and delivery of, education and to ensure ownership by the community in the management of schools. The aim is to catalyse a national movement for the universalisation of elementary education in India.
http://www.comminit.com/links/linksfound/links-230.html


12.	You are a Child Campaign - Global
EarthAction has launched a series of 4 campaigns that are designed to encourage countries worldwide to ratify and fully implement particular articles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The advocacy efforts urge citizens to raise awareness on the part of fellow community members and to lobby those in positions of power. The "Education for All" Action Kit features a full-size colour poster with a photo of children in an overcrowded classroom. The provocative words, "You are Six and Your Education is Over" are superimposed over the photo. Several postcards bearing this message are also included. Meant to be sent to legislators, the postcards feature bright neon colours and a brief letter (to be signed by the campaigner) detailing specific legislative actions to be taken. An Action Alert, Parliamentary Alert, and Media Alert are also included.
http://www.comminit.com/experiences/pdskdv112003/experiences-1030.html
Contact [log in to unmask]


13.	Global March Against Child Labour
A movement to mobilise worldwide efforts to protect and promote the rights of all children, especially the right to receive a free, meaningful education and to be free from economic exploitation. Carries out the Global Campaign for Education as part of a coalition of civil society organisations.
http://www.comminit.com/links/linkssocialmove/links-599.html


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PULSE POLL
http://www.comminit.com/pulse.html

At the centre of the international development community's response to the Tsunami should have been the direct provision of USD 500 equivalent in local currency straight to each affected person.

[For context, please see http://www.comminit.com/conundrums/conundrums/conundrums-10.html]

Do you agree or disagree?

VOTE and COMMENT at http://www.comminit.com/pulse.html


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SCHOOLING STRATEGIES


14.	To School or Not to School? School Enrolment in India
Although government schools charge negligible fees and do not turn children away, 41% of all 6-14 year old children (and 54% of girls) in northern India were out of school in 1993. The small "backward" Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh bucks the regional trend. Here strong community involvement in education has created a 96% attendance rate for 6-14 year olds. Research by the Delhi School of Economics and the University of Oxford suggests that: 1) Provision of school meals is a significant incentive to attendance. Girls who are provided with lunch are 30% more likely to finish primary school, 2) greater promotion of women's development committees in villages would raise female school attendance rates, and 3) wider support of parents' associations would boost attainment levels.
http://www.comminit.com/strategicthinking/st2003/thinking-297.html


15.	Improving Schools through Teacher Development: Case Studies of the Aga Khan Foundation Projects...
This book presents a selection of experiences in school improvement activities in East Africa from 1985 to 2000, which focused on sustained teacher development. The core of the book consists of 6 evaluations of school and district-wide improvement projects supported by the Aga Khan Foundation in Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda. The case studies present information about the successes and challenges of a comprehensive approach to school improvement grounded in a common set of strategic principles. Chapter 5 is entitled, "Supporting Child-Centered Teaching under Universal Primary Education in Kampala, Uganda".
http://www.comminit.com/materials/ma2003/materials-269.html


16.	I Educate - El Salvador
I Educate seeks to reach children and youth, especially girls, between the ages of 4 and 22 years who live in the economically poorest rural areas of El Salvador with large deficits in educational coverage. I Educate is made possible by collaboration between the State and the community; the programme is guided by the Communal Associations of Education (ACE), made up mostly of parents, through which families sign a covenant with the Department of Education. The latter then provides funds that the communities administer, to the end of providing basic education. Classes are held in traditional classrooms or in spaces selected by the community. Organisers claim that participants have enjoyed increased access to educational services, improvement in the quality of education through the contracting of trained teachers and through books that are reflective of and harmonious with the reality of the country, better-equipped classrooms, and greater parental participation as compared to!
  traditional rural schools.
http://www.comminit.com/experiences/pds2005/experiences-3052.html
Contact Lourdes Maricela Aguilera [log in to unmask]


17.	Children's Parliament - Tilonia, Rajasthan, India
Barefoot College developed night schools for working children using a curriculum specifically adapted to rural surroundings. In addition to a strong emphasis on environmental education, the subjects taught are Hindi, Arithmetic, Social Studies, Science, and Geography. Classes emphasise learning by doing; use is made of local resources such as folklore, traditional songs, puppets, and drama. Night school teachers are local (often economically poor) residents who have been trained for 2 years, having been named by the village community as promising young candidates. The emphasis is on teachers learning alongside their students in a process that is designed to enable the beneficiaries to serve their communities rather than seek individual gain and prosperity.
http://www.comminit.com/experiences/pds82004/experiences-2051.html
Contact [log in to unmask]


18.	Institute for Literacy Movement [ILM] - South Asia
According to the UN, the total number of illiterate people (age 15+) in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan will increase from 392 million in 2000 to 413 million in 2010. ILM is a voluntary organisation dedicated to alleviating poverty through research, training, and advocacy that supports increased literacy in South Asia. The group works in a Punjab village (Village Bhoun, District Chakwal, Pakistan) with youth and adults who have passed school age without basic literacy and numeracy skills. If the ideas, vocabulary, and concepts are to be meaningful for learners in their daily life, ILM holds, community-based research is central; ILM carries out focus group discussions to learn why illiterate people want or do not want to become literate. These findings guide the formulation of literacy packages featuring practical words, concepts, and messages on topics and themes that the particular community has deemed useful. ILM then trains teachers in the use of the primers, empha!
sising participatory modes of learning. ILM is working to develop audio and video materials for both teachers and learners to support self-learning.
http://www.comminit.com/experiences/pds2005/experiences-3046.html
Contact Javed S. Ahmad [log in to unmask] OR [log in to unmask] OR
[log in to unmask]


ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES


19.	Panos Southern Africa: Zambia Radio Clubs Evaluation Report, Oct 2001
Reflecting on a Panos project that involved 13 rural women's clubs in the Mpika district of Zambia, some community members attribute to the project a raised awareness of the value of information and education in general: "Children never used to be keen about going to school, but of late, because of what the parents talked about on radio they feel very encouraged and each one of them wants to go to school."
http://www.comminit.com/strategicthinking/stimpactpanos/sld-2199.html


20.	Meeting Key Educational Needs in Priority Social Sectors - Chile
Implemented by the Junta Nacional de Jardines Infantiles and funded by the Organization of the American States, this educational programme involves the family as a mediator to help educate children who are not being reached by the formal educational system. The specific goal is to reach 5,500 families in urban areas whose children are under 6 years of age, and who have been "left out" because of the non-existence of educational establishments, overcrowded classrooms, or a family decision. It uses the mass media to promote the educational role of the family, with the support of various strategies and educational resources. Although the programme is oriented to families living in poverty, organisers claim that the open channels of communication used (e.g., radio) have permitted children from other socioeconomic sectors to enjoy the educational benefits.
http://www.comminit.com/experiences/pds2005/experiences-3058.html
Contact Ofelia Reveco Vergara [log in to unmask]


21.	How Radio, Cellphones, Wireless Web are Empowering Developing Nations
by Alexandra Samuel
Samuel suggests that countries benefitting from a "leapfrogging strategy" can be characterised as having "limited IT infrastructure, limited education access, and limited literacy rates." She also indicates that many of the most successful applications of technologies are often relatively simple. For example, in Zambia, "a radio-based training system is now delivering primary education to out-of-school children, about a third of whom are orphans".
http://www.comminit.com/strategicthinking/st2005/thinking-1051.html


22.	Radio Education For Afghan Children (REACH) - Afghanistan
BBC's Afghan Education Project (AEP) uses radio to help address the educational needs of Afghan children aged 6-16 who have missed most or all of their schooling. The programmes are child-centred and encourage listeners to become active learners by giving them tasks to do during and after the programmes that are meant to empower them to learn independently in their local surroundings. "REACH is not really a replacement for schooling: you can not provide formal education with a curriculum over the radio when there is no support on the ground - no teachers to reinforce the messages, no texts and notes for pupils to study in their own time. REACH does not teach: it gets children to learn by awakening their curiosity, helping them understand and ask questions about the world, helping them set their lives in a wider context."
http://www.comminit.com/experiences/pds22004/experiences-511.html
Contact Shirazuddin Siddiqi [log in to unmask]


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Seeking National Policies, Plans & Curricula on HIV/AIDS & Literacy

An individual is researching the links between HIV/AIDS and literacy. He is particularly interested in existing national policies, plans and curricula on HIV/AIDS which make clear reference to literacy and/or include literacy and HIV/AIDS dimensions in curricula, training etc.

Contact: Inon I. Schenker, PhD, MPH - Senior HIV/AIDS Prevention Specialist
[log in to unmask]


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This issue was written by Kier Olsen DeVries.


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The Drum Beat seeks to cover the full range of communication for development activities. Inclusion of an item does not imply endorsement or support by The Partners.


Please send material for The Drum Beat to the Editor - Deborah Heimann [log in to unmask]


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