Not many people appreciate huge billboards blocking out landscapes and pushing companies’ products on such a large scale. Some companies are using innovative methods to change this perception of billboard advertising and clean the environment for their communities. This blend of environmentalism and economics allows companies to sell their brand while cleaning the air and water in their cities. These three types of billboards are doing just that:
1. River-Filtering Billboards
The Pasig River in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, has been devastatingly polluted for decades. A Japanese company has plans to clean up the river through the use of floating billboard advertising.
Shokubutsu Hana, a Japanese cosmetics brand, teamed up with the Pasig River Rehabilitation commission, Vetiver Farms and agency TBWA\Santiago Mangada Puno to design an advertisement using a grass called vetiver. Vetiver has the ability to filter water that passes through its system, cleaning pollution out of 2,000 to 8,000 gallons of water per day. It can filter out nitrates, phosphates and heavy metals, all of which are found in the Pasig.
The billboard is planted to spell out “clean river soon,” an encouragement to the community that their river is being cleansed of pollution. This phrase also serves as a reminder to passersby to avoid throwing garbage in the water. With the success of this billboard, there are plans to create more floating advertisements along the river.
2. Water-Purifying Billboards
The fifth-largest city in the Western Hemisphere is Lima, Peru. It is also located in the middle of a coastal desert, and it sees approximately half an inch of precipitation per year, while also averaging 83 percent humidity. Poor families in Lima cannot afford the exorbitant price of water — a basic necessity to survive.
The University of Engineering and Technology (UTEC) has developed a new billboard that pulls moisture from the atmosphere and converts it into drinkable water — all to advertise for the school. Although it requires electricity to run, the billboard is far easier than the unclean wells that many Lima citizens currently use. It has the capacity to produce 9,450 liters in three months, which is enough to sustain hundreds of families. The idea was the brainchild of advertising agency Mayo DraftFCB, with the hope that the billboard would draw students into engineering at UTEC, while also providing a service to the many people in need.
3. Air-purifying Billboards
In addition to the lack of water, the air quality in the city of Lima, Peru is the poorest in South America. A recent increase in construction has created a toxic atmosphere for many of the city’s residents. The pollutants near these sites cause disease, and possibly even cancer. Again partnering with Mayo DraftFCB, UTEC has developed an air-purifying billboard to alleviate the air pollution caused by growing construction.
The billboard purifies the air as much as 1,200 trees, creating a safe place to breathe within a radius of five city blocks. The billboard dissolves pollutants into water before releasing clean air back into the street. That waste water can then be recycled back into the system, and all of this happens while using only about 2,500 watts of electricity per hour.
UTEC is not the first brand to purify the air with a billboard. Back in Manila, in 2011, Coca-Cola created a billboard that actually contained plants, in partnership with the World Wide Fund for Nature. It is made up of 3,600 Fukien tea plants, which combined removed almost 50,000 pounds of carbon dioxide in a year. The plants grow as the background, forming a silhouetted Coca-Cola bottle. Even the pots the tea plants grow in are recycled from old Coca-Cola bottles. All the plants are watered through trickle irrigation, which drips water down the billboard.
Both billboards provide a healthy environment for citizens who pass through the pollutant-free area.
— Monica Roth
Sources: Fast Company, Visual News, Time, FCB Mayo, Gizmag, Triple Pundit
Photo: Shaw Contract Group
3 Results of Chinese Investment in Africa
Earlier this month, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang attended the Annual World Economic Forum on Africa; on the same trip, he visited Nigeria, Kenya, Angola and Ethiopia. Kegiang’s trip was yet another illustration of China’s deepening economic integration and development throughout Africa.
In recent years, Chinese investment in Africa has increased dramatically. China has invested large amounts of credit and aid to Africa out of economic interest in the nation, primarily exploitation of the continent’s many natural resources as well as energy development, among others.
In 2012, China donated $200 million to construct the sleek new African Union headquarters building in Ethiopia, creating a very literal illustration of favorable Chinese-African relations. As of this month, the Chinese investment in Africa has reached $30 billion in the continent in credit, as well as $5 billion in development funding assistance. Additionally, trade between the two entities has reached a whopping $150 billion.
This intimate economic integration and political entwinement alarms many across the globe, as China’s development in Africa has been (and will likely continue to be be) accompanied by concerns regarding labor ethics and environmental consequences. Others have expressed worries about terrorism and its potential spread as African leaders turn away from American diplomacy and instead focus on Chinese economic integration. Three primary consequences of this relationship are of concern:
1. Environmental Concerns
China has a notoriously unfavorable reputation when it comes to unethical labor standards and a disregard for environmental pollution and emissions. With exponential growth and thousands of laborers in newly developed African factories, how will the latter concerns be addressed, if at all? Will they pay closer attention to human rights concerns in foreign turf?
2. Potential spread of terrorist growth
U.S. diplomacy with Africa has included much counter-terrorism rhetoric and initiative. Secretary of State John Kerry has performed multinational tours of the continent on several occasions, explicitly asserting a counter-terrorist agenda. If African leaders embrace Chinese diplomacy and turn a blind eye toward U.S. efforts, experts predict that such efforts will result in more leniency in counter-terrorism efforts.
3. Human rights regression
In an Al-Jazeera article, some consider U.S.-Africa relations to be quite critical. Writer Abdullahi Halakhe states “African leaders’ uncritical embrace of China to spite unequal relations with the West could roll back the modest progress toward democracy, good governance and improvement in human rights.” In other words, some believe that China’s policies of “noninterference” in foreign nations’ domestic affairs is more appealing to African leaders and might result in backwards progress in the human rights arena, against the efforts the U.S. has concerted in conditional policies with leaders.
— Arielle Swett
Sources: Aljazeera America, Reuters
Photo: The Chine Africa Project
Hunger in Tanzania
It is difficult to believe that large quantities of people could go hungry in a country that relies heavily on agriculture to sustain its economy, but that’s exactly the case in Tanzania. Not only does agriculture account for a quarter of Tanzania’s GDP, but also approximately 75 percent of Tanzanians (most of whom are women) are employed by that sector. Yet nearly half of households don’t have access to adequate amounts of food, and Tanzania’s malnutrition levels are among the highest in Africa. Something isn’t adding up.
What is the problem? It isn’t that Tanzania is exporting all of its food, leaving its own people to starve. Tanzania is actually considered “food self-sufficient,” meaning that it makes most of the food its people need to live. The problem is poverty. Classified as a low-income country and ranked in the bottom fifth of countries in terms of human development, Tanzania simply hasn’t yet developed the infrastructure necessary to get the food from the fields into the hands of those who need it most.
The future is bright, though. Tanzania’s economy has been growing for several years and has the potential for continued growth. Targeted agricultural infrastructure investments could radically reduce the number of hungry Tanzanians, as Tanzania already has excellent land and water resources, in addition to international access via a major port city (Dar es Salaam.) The climate disposes itself to a wide variety of crops, and simply improving the quality and amount of seeds available to Tanzania’s agriculture sector and building the rural roads necessary for the distribution of food could vastly increase Tanzania’s food yield.
International aid organizations like USAID are already working to make hunger in Tanzania a thing of the past. The Tanzanian government is also taking steps to eradicate poverty in its country by instituting policies and programs such as Kilimo Kwanza (which means “agriculture first”) and the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania, which aim to eliminate hunger and reduce poverty by promoting agricultural growth. Motivated to feed themselves, the Tanzanian people simply require the capital to make prosperity a reality.
— Elise L. Riley
Sources: IFPRI, UNDP, USAID, World Food Programme
Photo: WFP
UN Crisis Response in South Sudan
A recently released report from the U.N. offers a sobering update on crisis response and relief efforts in the conflict-torn country of South Sudan. The report said that the U.N. and its various agencies have only received about $739 million of the approximately $1.8 billion that it needs in order to help rebuild after the devastation that has occurred since the conflict first broke out.
The report comes on the six-month anniversary of the outbreak that started in December of 2013, when then-Vice President Riek Machar was forced out of office by Salva Kiir, triggering racial conflict between Nuer and Dinka people, respectively.
Some of the statistics are quite alarming, considering the already catastrophic amount of destruction that has already happened. Over 1 million people are internally displaced, and at least 366,000 have fled the country, while 3.9 million people are at high risk of hunger or famine. And the prices of staple foods have been steadily increasing.
Furthermore, the entire country has also been plagued by a multitude of public health problems. On May 15, a cholera outbreak was declared in the capital city of Juba, with two other outbreaks being declared in other locations. By the end of the year, 116,000 people across the country could be affected by cholera alone. There have also been documented outbreaks of Hepatitis E, meningitis and measles, not to mention that during the current wet season, outbreaks of malaria and pneumonia are on the rise. Without the necessary aid, these statistics could become even worse, and South Sudan could slip even further into disarray.
Toby Lanzer, Deputy Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary General in South Sudan, said “Men, women and children have fled from their homes and sought refuge in the bush, inside U.N. bases and in neighboring countries…With many communities unable to farm or tend properly to their cattle, the risk of famine looms large. In some particularly hard-to-reach areas of the country, people are already starving.”
But despite many of the grim statistics laid out in the report, there have been some successes. For example, 80 percent of communicable diseases have been responded to within 48 hours, 63 percent of children under the age of 5 with severe acute malnutrition have been treated and 82 percent of people that have been affected by the conflict have been provided with safe water.
Fortunately, there is hope for those living in South Sudan. In the words of Lanzer: “With the continued generosity and solidarity of donors around the world, we can help prevent more unnecessary death and despair. Every dollar counts and makes a difference to people’s lives.”
— Andre Gobbo
Sources: The Guardian, United Nations, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, The Borgen Project
Photo: Action Against Hunger
Aid to Education Decreasing
Aid to education has decreased by 10 percent since 2010. There are still 57 million children and 69 million adolescents who are not enrolled in school. Countries are beginning to worry that the goals set by the Education For All Act and the Millennium Development Goals will not be met.
For the first 10 years of the 21st century, aid to education has been steadily increasing. All three divisions — basic education, secondary education and post-secondary education — have seen rises in their funding. But educational funding hit its peak in 2010; since then, total funding has decreased, specifically in the basic education category.
Basic education is the level of education where children learn the foundational skills and core knowledge necessary to advance in the world. This is a vital step in the educational process for children across the globe, but seems to be neglected the most. Basic education is currently receiving the same amount of aid as it was in 2008.
The areas feeling the cuts most are those that are furthest from reaching their educational goals. Sub-Saharan Africa holds half of the world’s children who are not in school, and 12 of the African countries have experienced cuts totaling $10 billion since 2010.
South and West Asia have experienced the most severe cuts in their education aid. They saw cuts worth over a quarter of their total aid in 2010. India and Pakistan were hit the hardest with financial cuts.
Education seems to be a cause that is getting pushed aside when it comes to where aid is being allocated. Other sectors are receiving higher amounts of humanitarian aid; in 2013, the food sector received 86 percent of its requested funds and the health sector received 57 percent of its requested funds. Meanwhile, the education sector is struggling, receiving only 40 percent of its requested funds.
The Global Partnership for Education’s Replenishment Pledging Conference in Brussels is a two-day conference, beginning on June 25, during which donors will be asked to resubmit themselves to the global education cause. The goal is to raise $3.5 billion to support education in the poorest countries.
“We owe it to the children of the world — particularly the poorest and most marginalized — that both international donors and developing country governments step up and commit more funding to education,” said Julia Gillard, board chair of the Global Partnership for Education.
— Hannah Cleveland
Sources: World Education Blog, The World Post, RTT News
Photo: Teach
Climate Change Affects Poverty
For years we have all heard that climate change threatens the sustainable future of our environment. After studying the changes and effects of the climate on the biosphere, 97 percent of climatologists agree that these climate-warming trends will only continue, especially since human activities are the most likely cause of these trends, according to NASA. Reducing these trends will not only provide a safer and healthier environment for future generations, but it will also help those living in extreme poverty.
Especially in developing countries, the poor rely heavily on their environment. According to the U.N.’s Food and Agricultural Organization, the use of forest resources contributes to the livelihood of almost 1.6 billion people globally. Forests provide essential resources such as food, fuel, medicine and even income, showing that these billions of people and the environment in which they live share an interdependent relationship with one another.
With the effects of climate change and environmental degradation on the rise, the livelihoods and habitats of these people could soon disappear completely. It is for this reason that USAID announced the plan to give 45 million Kenyan shillings to a global climate change initiative, which will address a variety of environmental concerns, such as the loss of biodiversity, deforestation and other vulnerabilities to climate change.
With this initiative and other programs already in place, researchers are hopeful that poverty might also decrease along with the effects of climate change. Purdue University researchers announced on May 29 that global malnutrition — one of the key causes of poverty — could decrease by 84 percent by 2050. This would be a huge decrease, since the U.N. currently estimates that approximately 870 million people suffer from malnourishment globally.
However, this percentage decrease relies heavily on the improvements to be made in agricultural productivity and if climate change does not damage that productivity. Although researchers at Purdue University agree that an increase in temperatures and carbon dioxide could benefit agricultural productivity for some time by lengthening the season and improving water proficiency, they also agree that these possible benefits would only be temporary.
All this shows that climate change could have a direct impact on not only nutrition levels, but also the environments of the poor in developing countries. Since these issues are so closely connected, U.N. advisor Professor Jeffrey Sachs warned the New Environmentalism Summit that “We have to tackle climate change if we are to have any hope of tackling poverty.” Sachs also stressed the idea that climate change is not a problem for future generations, but a problem that we must address in today’s society.
Global leaders are experimenting with ways to address this issue, and many, like Sachs, hope that climate change will be a central element in the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals, which will expand on the current Millennium Development Goals, to continue global progress in a variety of health and societal issues after 2015. Regardless of disagreements over how to best resolve this problem, climate trends must be addressed in some way to not only help the poor, but also the planet.
— Meghan Orner
Sources:
Sources: NASA, FAO, All Africa, Purdue University, Business Green, U.N.
Photo: The Guardian
World Cup Viewed Across the Globe
The World Cup truly defines the idea of international competition. With the current 2014 World Cup only two weeks in, the viewership of clips, games, advertisements and the like are higher than any other international competition. According to latinpost.com, people have watched over 1.2 billion minutes of World Cup-affiliated advertisements, which is four times more views than the 2014 Super Bowl ads received.
FIFA research supports this, demonstrating numbers from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Over 3.2 billion people tuned in for at least one minute of the games, compared to 900 million that tuned into the Olympics Opening Ceremony, which is the most highly watched portion of the event.
3.2 billion people represents a large demographic of the world, many of whom represent developing countries. The World Cup represents the level of accessibility isolated countries have to opportunities even to just watch a game. There is a level of danger to watching games in some countries such as the 48 people who died in Kenya at a viewing party, but the dedication to their countries trumps their socio-economic status.
Few events draw the attention of billions, however the World Cup bonds nations. The U.S. typically has a low viewership rate of Major League Soccer in comparison to the NBA, NFL and NHL views.
The Miami Herald reported that 15.9 million Americans tuned into ESPN and Univision to watch the U.S. versus Ghana game, which is the second highest recorded viewership for a World Cup match in the U.S. It pales only to the U.S. versus England match of 2010 which held 17.1 million viewers. Trumping this, are the 18.2 million people who tuned in to watch the U.S. and Portugal battle it out, according to CNN Money.
The possible reason for this is the higher number of countries filming and reporting on the event, with 48 countries present and 34 ultra-high definition cameras watching from all angles. The more access countries have to the games, the more people who will flock to small businesses who play the games for those without home access.
Many of the countries competing represent developing countries, such as Colombia, Uruguay, Nigeria, Ghana and many others. These countries typically have low participation and success in other international competitions such as the Olympics, so they find their nationalism and support in the World Cup due to the accessibility and commonality of soccer.
The number of people tuning to watch their home countries fight for international competitive prestige shows that even in times of turmoil and struggle, nations can be united through watching a small, fuzzy screen of their teams playing everyone’s favorite sport.
— Elena Lopez
Sources: CNN, Latin Post, Miami Herald, Reuters
Photo: Zap 2 It
3 Ways Billboard Advertising Can Help Humanity
Not many people appreciate huge billboards blocking out landscapes and pushing companies’ products on such a large scale. Some companies are using innovative methods to change this perception of billboard advertising and clean the environment for their communities. This blend of environmentalism and economics allows companies to sell their brand while cleaning the air and water in their cities. These three types of billboards are doing just that:
1. River-Filtering Billboards
The Pasig River in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, has been devastatingly polluted for decades. A Japanese company has plans to clean up the river through the use of floating billboard advertising.
Shokubutsu Hana, a Japanese cosmetics brand, teamed up with the Pasig River Rehabilitation commission, Vetiver Farms and agency TBWA\Santiago Mangada Puno to design an advertisement using a grass called vetiver. Vetiver has the ability to filter water that passes through its system, cleaning pollution out of 2,000 to 8,000 gallons of water per day. It can filter out nitrates, phosphates and heavy metals, all of which are found in the Pasig.
The billboard is planted to spell out “clean river soon,” an encouragement to the community that their river is being cleansed of pollution. This phrase also serves as a reminder to passersby to avoid throwing garbage in the water. With the success of this billboard, there are plans to create more floating advertisements along the river.
2. Water-Purifying Billboards
The fifth-largest city in the Western Hemisphere is Lima, Peru. It is also located in the middle of a coastal desert, and it sees approximately half an inch of precipitation per year, while also averaging 83 percent humidity. Poor families in Lima cannot afford the exorbitant price of water — a basic necessity to survive.
The University of Engineering and Technology (UTEC) has developed a new billboard that pulls moisture from the atmosphere and converts it into drinkable water — all to advertise for the school. Although it requires electricity to run, the billboard is far easier than the unclean wells that many Lima citizens currently use. It has the capacity to produce 9,450 liters in three months, which is enough to sustain hundreds of families. The idea was the brainchild of advertising agency Mayo DraftFCB, with the hope that the billboard would draw students into engineering at UTEC, while also providing a service to the many people in need.
3. Air-purifying Billboards
In addition to the lack of water, the air quality in the city of Lima, Peru is the poorest in South America. A recent increase in construction has created a toxic atmosphere for many of the city’s residents. The pollutants near these sites cause disease, and possibly even cancer. Again partnering with Mayo DraftFCB, UTEC has developed an air-purifying billboard to alleviate the air pollution caused by growing construction.
The billboard purifies the air as much as 1,200 trees, creating a safe place to breathe within a radius of five city blocks. The billboard dissolves pollutants into water before releasing clean air back into the street. That waste water can then be recycled back into the system, and all of this happens while using only about 2,500 watts of electricity per hour.
UTEC is not the first brand to purify the air with a billboard. Back in Manila, in 2011, Coca-Cola created a billboard that actually contained plants, in partnership with the World Wide Fund for Nature. It is made up of 3,600 Fukien tea plants, which combined removed almost 50,000 pounds of carbon dioxide in a year. The plants grow as the background, forming a silhouetted Coca-Cola bottle. Even the pots the tea plants grow in are recycled from old Coca-Cola bottles. All the plants are watered through trickle irrigation, which drips water down the billboard.
Both billboards provide a healthy environment for citizens who pass through the pollutant-free area.
— Monica Roth
Sources: Fast Company, Visual News, Time, FCB Mayo, Gizmag, Triple Pundit
Photo: Shaw Contract Group
Secret Military Detentions in Thailand
As of late, Thailand has been struggling to produce a functional government. A coup in 2006 led to a military supported democratic government, which in the past six months, has suffered heavy street protests. This led to its fall and another coup on May 22 of this year. The new military junta has decided to call itself The National Council for Peace and Order led by Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha. They have stated that they intend to install another democratic government, but the time frame for military power has been given as “indefinite.” A recent incident involving illegal military detentions do not bode well for a democratic Thailand.
This week Human Rights Watch called for the arbitrary military detentions by the Thai junta to stop. More specifically, it called for the release of a political activist named Kritsuda Khunasen, 27, who was arrested on May 28, and has not been seen or heard from since. The military government has declined to disclose any information on her whereabouts.
The reason Khunasen’s case raises some red flags is because most of the people arrested with her have been set free, and on June 17, the military junta put her name on a summons list for people who have to turn themselves in or face arrest. By putting her name on the list, it would appear that the military junta is trying to create the perception that she has not already been detained.
Rights organizations are worried they put her on the list because something has happened to her and they are trying to cover up her disappearance. However, there is video evidence of her being arrested on May 28 and her family has not seen her since the arrest.
Khunasen works with the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship, which is a group that was opposed to the late and ineffective prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra. They recently switched objectives and have begun to oppose the military coup. Within the group Khunasen “has been instrumental in a campaign to provide legal and humanitarian assistance to UDD members and supporters affected by political violence.” She is a well-known political activist so her detention is not surprising as many other prominent activists have been detained.
This detention is illegal. It violates the 1949 Martial Law Act which was adopted by the military junta after it took power on May 22 of this year. This law only allows for seven days of detention. Thailand is also a party of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which rules against arbitrary arrests and torture. Disappeared people historically suffer high levels of torture.
The detention of Khunasen and the possible cover-up of her disappearance is worrisome for Thailand, which has been in the midst of political crisis for years now. Since the junta took power a few short weeks ago, between 300-500 people have been detained. The junta has also enforced a curfew and has begun cracking down on immigrant labor. In fact, 188,000 Cambodians have fled the country in recent weeks.
Although the NCPO claims to be in the process of arranging democratic elections by August, an attempt to cover-up an illegal detention brings those claims into question. How can they claim to believe in democratic ideals when they detain people illegally? If the NCPO wants to move Thailand in the right direction, it would seem that Khunasen should be released, or at least given access to a doctor and legal counsel.
— Eleni Marino
Sources: Human Rights Watch, Time, NY Times
Photo: CNN
Education in Swaziland
Swaziland is a lower middle-income country with a population of about 1.2 million people. Most citizens are ethnic Swazis. The official languages are both Swati and English. Its ruler, King Mswati III, is one of the world’s last absolute monarchs, and a man who is not too keen on handing his throne over entirely to parliament.
About half of Swazis live in poverty. Forty percent of Swazis are unemployed and 70 percent of the workforce is employed in sustenance farming. In 2009, there were 0.17 physicians for every 1,000 people.
But it’s not all bad news. Roads are well-paved and far-reaching. The literacy rate is over 91 percent, which might be expected when 8.3 percent of the GDP is spent on education.
Primary school education in Swaziland is not compulsory, but is fully government-funded. Students receive textbooks, stationary, exercise books, meals and school furnishings free of charge. At age 6, students begin Grade one, followed by two and then followed by Standards one through five. At the end of the seven years, children take the Primary School Examination, which determines eligibility for future schooling. Over 90 percent of children in Swaziland complete their primary school education.
From there, things become a little bleaker. Many students forgo secondary education in favor of working to support their families. Only 20 percent of students who attend primary school go on to Forms one through three. There are two main goals of secondary education. The first is to complete schooling and join the skilled workforce in an entry-level position. The second is to take and pass the exams for the Swaziland or International General Certificate of Secondary Education. Both exams are accredited by the Cambridge International Examination and certify preparedness for university.
A tertiary education is a rare thing indeed. Just 5 percent of students go on to attend university. Students looking to stay close to home have the choice of three main universities, all government sponsored. The University of Swazliand offers bachelors, masters, and Ph.D. degrees in education, commerce and science, as well as health science and agricultural fields.
Swaziland’s Department of Education manages curriculum and assessment procedures. Education is so centralized that it can ensure the implementation of its policies. It is not responsible, though, for its budget. That is allotted by the Ministry of Finance, which has caused internal friction.
Still, Swaziland’s educational system seems to be improving. Achievement scores have, in the past, been quite low. In 2000, 76 percent of grade six students read below a grade six level. Ninety-six percent were below grade six level in math. This has improved significantly in recent years. In 2007, the 76 percent in reading decreased to 62, while the 96 percent of struggling math students dropped slightly, to 94 percent. These are projected to continue dropping.
From the investment of the Swazi government in education, to the monitoring of test scores, there are many things that Swaziland is doing right. One of the best things has not yet been mentioned: There is virtually no gender disparity among students. Education is clearly a priority in Swaziland, so improvement seems happily inevitable.
— Olivia Kostreva
Sources: Swazi Legacy, SACMEQ
Photo: Flickr
5 Facts about Education in Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan has been transitioning into its own government after the rule of the Soviet Union, which ended in 1991. Throughout the 1990s, Kyrgyzstan struggled economically due to a decline in production output after the termination of its reliance on the USSR’s industrial regulations.
Due to the country’s difficult economic history, there is a high poverty rate among its citizens; 22 percent of the population lives on less than $2 per day and 41 percent live below the poverty line. Due to the difficult economic situation in Kyrgyzstan, education in Kyrgyzstan has not been a priority. Here are five facts about education in Kyrgyzstan:
1. Low Employment Leads to Low Demand for Education
Due to the low employment rates, citizens of Kyrgyzstan saw less of a value for education after 1991. As a result, the government lowered the required education to nine years while changing other educational policies. Recently, the government has been re-investing itself in education, increasing educational spending and increasing access to education.
2. Decreasing Enrollment
The enrollment in Kyrgyzstan’s pre-primary schools is 10 percent; 87 percent for primary schools, 80 percent for secondary schools and 37 percent for tertiary schools. Throughout the past five years, these numbers have decreased. It is possible that this is due to the 2007 decree that a school uniform is mandatory for all students. Many families are unable to afford this uniform.
3. The Urban-Rural Gap
There is not a significant gender gap in education. There is, however, a gap in urban versus rural access to education. For secondary school, there are 6 percent fewer children attending in rural areas than in urban areas.
4. Struggling Academic Performance
In 2006, Kyrgyzstan scored 57 out of 57 countries for educational performance in reading, mathematics and science.
5. Low Teaching Wages
The student to teacher ration in Kyrgyzstan is one student to 24 teachers. In addition, teachers are paid less than 40 percent of the average national earnings.
Although Kyrgyzstan has been reforming its education — such as a $12.7 million grant to improve preschools — the country has many reforms left to be made in order to improve the quality of education offered to its citizens.
— Lily Tyson
Sources: 24 News Agency, UNICEF, Ministry for Education
Photo: Partnerships in Action