Archive for category: Education

Information and stories on education.

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How the Educate! Program Improves Education in Uganda

Education in Uganda
For the last 15 years, the Educate! program has been turning education in Uganda on its head, teaching practical and entrepreneurial skills to break the cycle of poverty and youth unemployment. Currently partnered with more than 350 secondary schools in Uganda and 520 total schools across Africa, Educate! delivers experience-based education to help develop the next generation of community leaders and innovators.

With a growing population, 70 percent of which is young people under the age of 30, Uganda is in need of education reform. Although Uganda introduced free universal secondary schooling in 2011, the youth unemployment rate remains around 66 percent, and factors like attendance and education quality still raise questions. The Educate! program seeks to combat these problems by breaking students into smaller groups taught by mentors in the program, working together to build practical skills such as public speaking, personal savings and social responsibility.

Educate! was first founded in 2002 when U.S. students visited Uganda and were shocked by the number of children struggling to stay in school due to school fees and living and traveling conditions. Educate!’s founders saw the opportunity to turn classrooms into training grounds for students to learn to help themselves, and the organization has been growing and bringing in new teachers ever since.

Outside of the classroom, Educate! is innovating education in Uganda by encouraging interaction between schools with groups such as student business clubs. In these clubs, students utilize skills learned in the classrooms, forming enterprises to compete in the annual National Student Business Competition.

In the last decade, Educate!’s impact in Uganda has increased significantly. Since launching its first education programs in 2009 with seven mentors, Educate! has grown to 200 mentors impacting more than 14,000 students and expanding into other African countries such as Rwanda. By 2024, Educate! aims to reach a million students in Uganda and expand to reach millions more across Africa. Today, the organization reports a 105 percent increase in income among Educate! scholars after graduating high school and a 120 percent increase among female scholars.

The organization is also working with the Ugandan government to spread its mission beyond the scope of just mentors. By building curriculums together with the government and bringing its skills-based model to other schools, Educate! acts as a driving force giving education in Uganda a practical focus. Thanks to its work with the Ugandan government, 45 percent of Ugandan schools now have active student business clubs.

– Nicholas Dugan

Photo: Flickr

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Foreign Aid to Boost Quality Education in Lesotho


Geographically surrounded by the entire nation of South Africa, education in Lesotho, a mountainous country, has maintained an incredible track record. Boasting one of the highest adult literacy rates in all of Africa, Lesotho prides itself on its educational policies and opportunities.

Following the passage of the Education Act in 2010, education in Lesotho experienced tremendous success: by providing free, universal and compulsory education for students, the nation increased the rate of enrollment to 82 percent. In fact, of all the school-aged girls in the nation, 84 percent are enrolled in school.

Similar to many parts of the United States, Lesotho mandates a formal education structure that places students in primary school starting at the age of six. From there, students remain in primary school for seven years (from grades one through seven), enter lower secondary school from grades eight through 10, and complete their education with upper secondary school in grades 11 and 12.

Although the nation has made significant progress, organizations such as the Global Partnership for Education have been working to improve education in Lesotho. As of 2015, they helped reduce the student-to-teacher ratio in primary schools to 45:1 and purchased 1.1 million textbooks throughout the country. They also helped build, reform and furnish 143 classrooms.

In fact, with the World Bank Group’s approval of $25 million for education in Lesotho, leaders project that another 84,500 students will benefit. Lasting until 2021, the project will support teachers, improve student learning and retention and bolster institutional capacity. The project will also aim to reduce dropout rates in 300 of the lowest-performing schools, many of which are inaccessible and are located in poverty-stricken rural areas.

Higher education is also a priority in Lesotho. Through thirteen private and public institutions, including the National University of Lesotho, Lerotholi Polytechnic, Lesotho College of Education and the Limkokwing University of Creative Technology, Lesotho serves the needs of its students interested in pursuing higher education.

In Lesotho, women’s literacy rates remain incredibly high. Recent statistics suggest that, despite a high number of out-of-school girls, 95 percent of all Lesotho women are literate. This suggests that some success is emerging as a result of the educational policies put forward in Lesotho.

Although there remains room for improvement, as no system can ever truly be perfect, Lesotho has made incredible strides as a nation in prioritizing and developing their educational system. Through international support and continued relief efforts, the nation will inevitably reach their goal of providing education for all in the near future.

– Emily Chazen

Photo: Flickr

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10 Facts About Africa’s Education Crisis

10 Facts About Africa's Education Crisis
The right to primary education frames many international statements on human rights and education. While South Africa did achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of universal primary education ahead of the 2015 target year, it is unfathomable to think that 17 million of its school-aged children will never attend school. Africa’s struggling educational sector can be outlined in these 10 facts about Africa’s education crisis.

10 Facts About Africa’s Education Crisis

  1. There are 12 countries in Africa–namely Malawi, Zambia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Benin, Nigeria, Chad, Ethiopia, Congo, South Africa, Namibia and Comoros–in which 30 percent or more of children do not meet a minimum standard of learning by grades four or five.
  2. In countries such as Ethiopia, Nigeria and Zambia, over half of in-school students are not learning basic skills by the end of primary school.
  3. A global competitiveness report released by World Economic Forum ranks South Africa last out of 140 countries in regards to the quality of education offered. This perception will severely impact the willingness of employers to create more jobs and invest in the country, thus plunging the South African economy further down.
  4. The fact that only 53 percent of year 12 students who sat for math exams in 2014 achieved above 30 percent, and only 35 percent achieved above 40 percent, shows the extent of the education crisis. One of the more disturbing statistics among these 10 facts about Africa’s education crisis is that 25 percent of South African schools do not even offer mathematics in grades 10 to 12.
  5. Despite being a middle-income country and having six percent of its GDP spent on education, South Africa’s performance in standardized tests is far below the average for African countries.
  6. Another major concern is the relation between the language of instruction and student performance. South Africa’s population speaks 11 languages, and students writing the examination in a language other than their mother tongue continue to experience great difficulty in interpreting questions and phrasing their responses.
  7. Teachers’ knowledge of English is poor, and, unless emphasis is laid on training and preparing teachers, the state of education will not improve. According to the World Bank, teacher absenteeism, neglect and lack of a working knowledge of the language may be blamed for poor student performance.
  8. In many countries within sub-Saharan Africa, educational disparities exist with respect to wealth, gender and social divisions. The degree of extreme educational poverty, which is defined by less than two years spent in school, is much higher among the poor. For instance, in Ethiopia, a staggering 68.3 percent of the poorest quintile of its population lives in educational poverty.
  9. According to Action Aid, the economic crisis has meant that around £2.9 billion is expected to be lost to education budgets for the sub-Saharan regions. It is not an overstatement to say that most rich countries have failed to keep their promises to help poor countries out of educational poverty. This is also attributed to the fact that both the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have severely restricted funding to poor countries, thus reducing their chances of investing in education.
  10. Despite all these reasons, both internal and international politics play a major role to play in Africa’s educational crisis.

Education is probably the single most influential tool to ensure that poor countries have the resources to pull themselves out of poverty. While many historic, social, economic, political and international issues play an important role in Africa’s existing educational situation, one can only hope that these 10 facts about Africa’s education crisis will shed some light on the existing roadblocks that the continent faces in fighting its education poverty.

– Jagriti Misra

Photo: Flickr

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How Sustainable is the McGovern-Dole Program?


The McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program was established in 2000 by former Senators George McGovern and Robert Dole. It has fed millions of children all over the globe by way of school meals made from surplus U.S. agricultural products. In 2006, McGovern and Dole were awarded the World Food Prize for their work on the program. This award is seen as the “Nobel Prize for hunger.”

The program is credited with helping improve school attendance as well as feeding the hungry, as free school meals provide families with an extra incentive to send their children to school. This is especially the case for girls, as parents sometimes decide to keep them home from school to do housework.

McGovern-Dole has made recent news because the Trump administration’s 2018 budget outline proposes eliminating the program, citing that it “lacks evidence that it is being effectively implemented to reduce food insecurity.”

Forbes contributor Tim Worstall contends Trump’s claim that McGovern-Dole fails to reduce food insecurity is accurate. He points out that because McGovern-Dole consists only of food donations, it lacks sustainability, doing nothing to inject money into local economies or help farmers grow their crops. Although the program feeds people effectively, it is not a long-term solution to ending hunger locally.

This being said, McGovern-Dole does have sustainability measures in place, though they may not address food insecurity directly. The program is concerned with education. All meals through the program are offered through schools. This allows McGovern-Dole to track data such as the number of kids taking medication or learning to read at school. This helps other education-centered organizations focus their efforts. McGovern-Dole also implements teacher training, school infrastructure improvements and nutrition programs for pregnant women in the communities it serves.

Alternatives to direct food aid programs are not always reliable. The cash-based transfer, a form of assistance by which individuals in need receive bank transfers or vouchers to exchange for food at stores owned by the World Food Programme, is ineffective in communities with extremely unstable markets or bank services. Direct food aid like McGovern-Dole provides hungry individuals with food regardless of the state of the market in a community.

– Caroline Meyers

Photo: Flickr

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10 Facts About the Education of Refugees


According to the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than half of reported refugees, 6.1 million people, are under the age of 18. Given this large youth population, the lack of education of refugees has become a significant roadblock for these children and adolescents’ future successes. Here are 10 facts about the education of refugees at present.

10 Facts About the Education of Refugees

  1. The UNHCR reported in 2016 that of the 6.1 million school-aged refugees, 3.7 million had no access to education. 1.75 million of these had not received a primary education, and 1.95 million had not received a secondary education.
  2. Comparing the education of refugees to the global average, refugees are reportedly five times less likely to attend school.
  3. The global average of children attending primary school is 91 percent, while the average for refugee children is 50 percent. Secondary school is even less likely for refugees, with an average of 22 percent attending, where the global average is 84 percent. Only one percent of refugees receive a college- or university-level education. This global average is 34 percent.
  4. The education of refugees became more difficult when the refugee population grew by 30 percent in 2014 and is predicted to continue growing. The UNHCR predicts the need for 12,000 additional classrooms and 20,000 additional teachers annually.
  5. Refugees are displaced from their home country for an average 20 years. Because this exceeds school-age and because the education of refugees is difficult, the potential for refugee children and adolescents to access education is minimal.
  6. Of the 3.7 million out-of-school refugees, more than half come from Chad, Jordan, Turkey, Ethiopia, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Lebanon.
  7. Long-term conflict tends to reverse positive trends in education. For example, 94 percent of Syrian children in 2009 received an education, but this number dropped to 60 percent in 2016.
  8. Progress has been made towards the education of refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq and Turkey through an increase in encouraging school enrollment and reinforcing the “double-shift system.” This means that two groups of students receive schooling at different times with the same faculty. A lack of funding threatens this system’s future as the uneducated refugee population increases.
  9. The education of refugees is primarily covered by emergency funds rather than long-term programs. Given the current refugee crisis, sustainable funding is crucial for the education of refugees.
  10. There are a number of potential solutions to the refugee education crisis. The main three proposed solutions are accelerated education programs, online courses and expanding vocational training. Each of these is promising because they offer the flexibility that makes school attendance a realistic option.

Education has the potential to provide a safe haven for refugees and may even prevent future conflict, but the education of refugees will require systematic changes to become sustainably successful.

– Haley Hurtt

Photo: Flickr

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Radio Used to Gain Support for Women’s Education in Malawi


The need for developing education in Malawi is continual. For example, in 2010, around 10 percent of primary aged children were not in school, and the primary school repetition rate reported in at 24 percent for boys and 29 percent for girls.

Girls in Malawi are exceptionally more vulnerable to a lack of education than boys. In fact, 32 percent of girls aged 14 to 17 are not in school compared to 23 percent of boys this age. Additionally, while 72 percent of boys 15 and older are literate, only 51 percent of women in this age group can read and write.

Part of this gap is caused by the high child marriage rate in Malawi, which is 11th highest in the world. UNICEF reports that approximately 50 percent of Malawian girls marry before they turn 18. Fortunately, this year the Malawian government moved to make marriage legal only after a woman is 18 years old.

Marshall Dyson, founder of the Girl Child Education Movement, is one of many Malawians who recognizes the need for resolution of the educational gender disparity. Dyson’s idea incorporated broadcasting an open discussion of child marriage and girls’ education over the radio. Both men and women of a variety of ages and backgrounds participated in the talk.

The discussion about girls’ education in Malawi broadcasted over Radio Islam, the only Islamic radio station in Malawi. Dyson strategically chose this platform since Muslims rested at risk of discrimination.

Dyson got his start in radio via an internship with Kumakomo Community Radio Station in Zimbabwe. There he served as the content manager of 12 volunteers.

The impact of this position is especially significant, considering that radio acts as the main source of news for most Malawians. According to USAID, the two-hour broadcast “was a collaboration across the YALI and Mandela Washington Fellows networks, and with Regional Leadership Center participants — young leaders between 18 and 35 enrolled in USAID-supported leadership training programs in sub-Saharan Africa.” Around three million people tuned in.

USAID states that “the Muslim Association of Malawi, who attended the event, agreed to open new offices in rural areas where communities can access up-to-date information about education and scholarship opportunities for girls.”

Education in Malawi still has much room for improvement, and humanitarians like Marshall Dyson act as major catalysts in that process. Through work such as his, Malawi is destined to achieve higher standards of education than ever before.

– Emma Tennyson

Photo: Flickr

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UNDP Nursing Schools in Afghanistan Graduate Female Nurses


Two hundred female nursing students recently graduated from six nursing schools in Afghanistan. Now, the students will return to their communities to offer medical assistance in areas most in need.

The women participated in a two-year medical training program including accommodations, three meals a day, transportation and a living allowance. Their days included both time in class and practical work in city hospitals, where the women learned how to perform basic surgery, how to advise pregnant women regarding basic care and nutrition, studied the treatments for various ailments and filled prescriptions.

After completing two years of study, the women work in their village clinics; some reside 100 kilometers or more away from the school. If they perform well, they receive a diploma.

The UNDP, in partnership with the Afghan Ministry of Public Health, set up six nursing schools in Afghanistan. The Global Fund provided a grant for approximately $8 million, allocated to strengthening the health system in Afghanistan through training nurses and improving access to medical care in the community.

Primarily, these nurses provide medical care to two populations desperately in need: people in rural areas and women. However, healthcare professionals from outside a specific area will often avoid rural villages out of fear for their safety.

Women, in particular, lack the ability to receive quality healthcare due to certain cultural norms: women are often not permitted to be treated by a male doctor, and female healthcare workers are few in number. According to WHO, 40 percent of health care facilities in Afghanistan do not have any women on staff.

Women also lack both privacy and the ability to make choices about their treatment. Additionally, healthcare workers often have limited knowledge of women’s health issues. As a result, in 2015 the infant mortality rate in Afghanistan at 45 percent and the maternal mortality ratio of 1,291 per 100,000 live births are among the highest in the world.

Thankfully, having trained female nurses increases the potential to address many of these issues. However, these women must face unique obstacles; it is not customary for women to live or study away from home. In a country in which, according to 2015 USAID statistics, only 8.6 percent of women received a degree in secondary or higher education, and only 14.8 percent of women are literate, these women set a very powerful precedent.

– Emilia Otte

Photo: Flickr

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Teachers Help Improve Education in Venezuela

After years of fighting to reform education in Venezuela at the primary and secondary levels, teachers in Venezuela finally received the pay they deserved.

This month, the government gave Venezuelan teachers  a 15 percent increase to their salaries, totaling a 345 percent increase since the start of 2017.

Following several negotiations between the Venezuelan president and the Venezuelan Teachers’ Federation (FMV), public school teachers were given proper wages for their work. The FMV leader stated that the wage increases acted as a “call for the defense of the right to education, from those who want to sabotage it for political reasons.”

In addition to the wage increase, the government set aside funds that would go toward paying pension benefits for 15,000 teachers.

The wage increase was intended to not only be an investment in the teachers but the education system itself. With these improved wages, now 96 percent of the Venezuelan population can read and write, making Venezuela one of the most literate countries in the world.

However, education in Venezuela didn’t always prosper. The country was previously overextended and underfunded, with about 20 percent of children lacking a formal education. The Ministry of Education of Venezuela and Venezuelan government collaborated to adapt the curriculum, expand compulsory education and upgrade teacher qualifications in order to address the problem of low enrollment.

As a result, the government established the Bolivarian University system in 2003, whose design encompassed democratizing access to higher education and creating the Bolivarian Missions Social Outreach program. The program focuses on literacy programs and university preparation programs.

Later in 2008, five years after President Chavez launched his outreach program that enrolled nearly 2.5 million children, education in Venezuela came to be considered among the highest in the region. The literacy rate rested around 93.8 percent for males and 93.1 percent for females.

Although the total literacy rate increased only by three percent since the initial wage increases, those increases have helped reform curriculum, teacher training and increased enrollment. These changes helped to significantly improve education in Venezuela overall.

– Amira Wynn

Photo: Flickr

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Five Facts on Education in Benin


Centered between the countries of Nigeria and Togo, Benin resides on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean with a population of roughly 10 million. Education in Benin has been free for 10 years.

Benin has maintained a strong, democratic-style government since 1990 when it changed its name to the Republic of Benin. BBC News called the country “one of Africa’s most stable democracies.” Although Benin has a stable government, the country still faces plenty of issues.

Among these issues was the near-collapse of the economy in 1988, a 50 percent currency devaluation that caused inflation in 1994 and devastating floods that destroyed 55,000 homes, killed tens of thousands of livestock and displaced 680,000 people in 2010.

However, education in Benin has proved to be one of the bright spots of the nation’s domestic affairs.

Here are five facts about education in Benin:

  1. Education in Benin was declared free during an educational forum that took place in 2007. With free education, students are able to access Benin’s educational system that operates under 6-4-3-3-4 format. Students are taught in French, the primary language of the country, to start their educational journey by attending six years of primary school, followed by four years of junior high school, then three years senior high school, three years of a bachelor’s degree and finish with four years of a master’s degree. However, for students to pass junior high school, they must take the O-Level exam or Brevet d’Etudes du Premier Cycle: BEPC, and for students to pass senior high school, they must pass the A-level exam or Baccalauréat: BAC, which is the equivalent of a U.S. high school diploma.
  2. Education in Benin follows a numbered grading system. Similar to the letter-grading system, the number grading system ranges from 10 to 20 to determine a student’s level of classroom production. Averaging a 10 is good enough for a passing grade, 12 is a fairly good grade, 14-15 is a good grade, 16-17 is a very good grade and to score a 20 is excellent.
  3. Statistics of education in Benin demonstrate uneven gender enrollment, with the gross primary enrollment rate for boys at 88.4 percent opposed to 55.7 percent for girls, according to a survey conducted in 1996. Male students also maintain a better literacy rate between the ages of 15 and 24, with a 54.9 percent literacy rate, compared to female students who have a literacy rate of just 30.8 percent. The gap between male and female literacy rates worsens out of school, with the overall adult literacy at 40 percent, while only 25 percent of women are literate. Benin also ranks 35th out of 117 countries for having the most girls out of school, with 142,178 females not enrolled in primary or secondary school.
  4. State funding is the primary funding for education in Benin, and yet Benin saw a decline of the national budget towards educational spending between 1993 and 1999 when the percent of the national budget used for education dropped from 21.5 percent to 15.6 percent. However, during that same time span, primary education rose within the education budget from comprising 53 percent in 1993 to 60 percent in 1998.
  5. Education in Benin has also evolved into a variety of educational reforms. One of the earliest reforms took place in 1975 and was named a “new school” system, in hopes to democratize education, add more practical subjects to the curriculum and adapt to local conditions. Although the reform was beneficial for the first couple of years, the new school system reform was impacted by national and social crisis near the end of the 1980s that recorded a dropout rate of 31 percent in 1988 and 1989. Seven years later in 1996, the Government of Benin reconstructed the declaration on population policy. The impact of the revival of the national constitution was intended to support priorities in education, including progressively free-of-charge access to education, guaranteed equal opportunity for all and the fight against dropping out, especially for girls.

With all this said, education in Benin still faces an array of issues such as providing equal opportunity for education to women. Benin has made dramatic attempts to assure educational equality for all and needs to continue to put programs in place to ensure the future success of their educational system.

– Patrick Greeley

Photo: Flickr

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Girl Love: Lilly Singh’s Campaign for Girl’s Education

Girl Love
Girl Love began as a social media campaign by YouTube creator Lilly Singh in December 2015. Singh, along with other successful women like Grace Helbig and Lindsey Sterling, encouraged young girls to spread love, instead of hate, by complimenting other girls rather than insulting them.

Singh’s original video received more than one million views. Within a month of being uploaded, all the profits made from the video were donated to the Malala Fund, an organization which supports education for young women. After a successful first campaign, Singh aimed to do more for women’s issues and decided to take Girl Love further by starting her own fundraising campaign for girls’ education.

Singh partnered with WE charity, part of the ME to WE organization, a for-profit social enterprise that empowers people to work together to change the world. The WE charity donates 90 percent of its earnings to developing villages to help grow them into sustainable communities. For the Girl Love campaign, ME to WE created the Rafiki bracelet, outsourcing the labor for the creation of the bracelets to Kenya, and now sells the bracelets on the ME to WE online store.

Singh has been most invested in this project, saying how the Rafiki bracelets represent “not only being passionate about Girl Love but doing something about it.”

Today, the Girl Love campaign is empowering women to go to school and helping to build sustainable communities. 14,000 women in Kenya have jobs hand-crafting the Rafiki bracelets. These women use this income to get an education or to send their daughters to school and to afford necessities such as clothes and food.

When Singh visited Kenya and met some of the working women that make the bracelets, she was inspired by the impact that she had created. She spoke of how many people imagine that the problem is too big to fix, but how “when you come here and see the school and you see the mamas making these bracelets, and you hear them say, ‘my daughter goes to school because I’m making theses bracelets,’ then you know the problem is actually not too big to fix if you just start to fix it.”

– Deanna Wetmore

Photo: Flickr