Archive for category: Education

Information and stories on education.

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Higher Education in Ethiopia Improves Despite Difficulties

Education_in_Ethiopia
In 2015, enrollment for higher education in Ethiopia reached only 8%, compared to the 32% global average enrollment rate. While enrollment numbers fall short, Ethiopia’s education system has improved since the end of their civil war in 1991.

Recovering from the damages of civil war is a difficult task and Ethiopia has been successfully making education a top priority. In 1990, 7.5% of government expenditure went to education and in 2009, 23.6% of government expenditure started going to education.

Most of the challenges for the infrastructure of higher education in Ethiopia are due to funding cuts and lecturers being committed to political parties. Anonymous workers at many universities say the schools require students to join the party and that spies report what is being said in the classrooms.

Over the next two years, Ethiopia plans to expand the number of universities to 42, an increase of 40 universities since 2000. The University of Jimma, which opened in 2013, has become one of the top research schools in Africa for materials science and engineering. Materials science and engineering is seen as the one of the most important fields for development and alleviating poverty in Ethiopia.

For primary education, the World Bank helped provide more than 78 million textbooks to students and improved conditions for teaching and learning in 40,000 schools through the General Education Quality Improvement Project. Teachers are becoming more qualified and many more are earning a three-year level diploma level.

Enrollment in primary education rose 500% from 1994 to 2009 with 15.5 million students in school. Today, 67.9% of school-aged children are attending primary school, a dramatic increase since the end of the civil war. Their progress in education exceeds the numbers of other war-stricken countries, such as Liberia, where only 40.6% of children are enrolled in primary school.

USAID is impacting the lives of 15 million children in primary school by improving their reading levels. In 2010, reading performances were low, and one-third of second grade students were non-readers. With the help of USAID, Ethiopia is experiencing an increase in reading and writing skills and more involvement from parents.

As primary and secondary education in Ethiopia strengthens, it is hopeful students will enroll in higher education and take part in PhD programs, which few Ethiopians have a chance to achieve. University of Jimma’s engineering department graduated their first 18 PhD students without any funding from the government.

The university staff volunteered their time to help students with the opportunity of gaining a high degree that will help propel those living in poverty and improve development in Ethiopia.

“You only need a couple of weeks in Ethiopia to realize that materials science is a priority,” says Pablo Corrochano, associate professor at Jimma. “Even in the capital you’ll experience cuts in power and water; in rural areas it’s even worse.”

– Donald Gering

Sources: The Guardian, ODI, Social Progress Imperative, USAID, World Bank
Photo: Pathfinder

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XPrize Sets Sights on Bringing Literacy to 250M Children Worldwide

literacy

New data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics states that global literacy rates for youths and adults have been on the rise. Sixty percent of all countries that provided data in 2012 reported overall literacy rates of 95% or higher.

Still, there is a great need for a solution in this regard. The report also said that “An estimated 250 million children around the world cannot read, write, or demonstrate basic arithmetic skills. Many of these children are in developing countries without regular access to quality schools or teachers.”

These statistics ultimately became a project for a nonprofit called XPrize. XPrize runs competitions that aim to produce technology to benefit humankind. An ongoing competition that began in 2014 requires that teams develop an open source software that enables children in developing countries to teach themselves basic reading, writing and arithmetic.

XPrize launched a 6-month registration period and all teams have 18 months to develop their own solution. Currently, there are 198 registered teams. The top five finalists with the best results will receive one million dollars. The ultimate grand prizewinner will receive 10 million dollars as the top performing team solution.

Click here for more information on how to get involved and remain updated on the progress of the competition.

XPrize believes that children are a solution to global poverty, and that many of the world’s greatest minds are untapped due to a lack of basic education. “By enabling a child to learn how to learn, that child has opportunity–to live a healthy and productive life, to provide for their family and their community, as well as to contribute toward a peaceful, prosperous and abundant world.”

For the competition’s promotional video, several children  were asked what their ultimate life goals were. So many of those goals have seemed unrealistic due to their location and state of living. However, with support from XPrize, those dreams can become a reality.

– Anna Brailow

Sources: Xprize 1, Xprize 2, Tech Crunch, UIS, YouTube
Photo: CNN

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Education for Children with Disabilities in Ethiopia

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One in seven Ethiopians has a disability. In Ethiopia, disability is generally considered to be a curse, so families as well as communities discriminate against people with disabilities. In the past, only 0.7 percent of disabled people in Ethiopia have had access to an education. This situation has been changing as education for the disabled in Ethiopia is becoming more and more inclusive.

The 2011 World Report on Disability states that attitudes toward disabilities have been shifting “from a medical understanding towards a social understanding.” Today, inclusive education is no longer an amenity but the target approach to education in both developed and developing countries.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s 2009 Guidelines on Inclusion in Education state: “Inclusive education is essential to achieve social equity and is a constituent element of lifelong learning.” This means that inclusive education is not a marginal issue but is a necessary component of a quality education for all learners and the development of inclusive societies.

Inclusive education means that marginalized and mainstream children are schooled together unless that approach does not provide an education of equal quality. Some services, such as physical rehabilitation or learning Braille and sign language, can still be provided outside the mainstream classroom when necessary. Marginalized children are not just children with disabilities but have been excluded due to gender, HIV and AIDS, ethnicity, language, religion, economic status and social standing.

Inclusive education is a challenge in both developed and developing countries. It requires changes in a community’s attitude, educational system and finances. It is also strongly linked to the Education for All goals and the Millennium Development Goals. In order to achieve these goals, attention must not only be paid to ensuring that all children attend school, but that they are also provided a quality education. Children who are excluded are not receiving an education of good quality.

The Ethiopian government recognizes the significant role of education in reducing poverty and sustaining economic growth. It is committed to accomplishing the EFA goals and the MDGs. In 1994, the government established an education and training policy with an overall goal of including all citizens in active participation in the community and society. Aligned with the Ethiopian constitution, the policy promotes inclusive education.

In 2009, UNESCO noted that Ethiopia had made considerable progress in reaching the EFA goals but also noted a gap in the ability to provide access to all children. It noted these specific barriers to realizing inclusive education: lack of knowledge about diversity, inadequate preparation of teachers and educational leaders, poor teaching methods, inflexible curriculum, inappropriate learning equipment, insufficient needs identification and inadequate assessment procedures. These gaps resulted in obliging students with special needs to adapt to the schools instead of adapting schools to the needs of the students.

These gaps also pointed out the need to adjust community attitudes, educational services and financial priorities in order to succeed at inclusion. In 2005, Rehabilitation and Prevention Initiative Against Disability, an organization that works to improve the quality of life for people with disabilities, began providing services in Ethiopia that address these three needs. RAPID provides community based services that focus on changing negative community attitudes and supporting children and youth with disabilities to participate as equal members of the community and contribute to the economy.

RAPIDs programs operate on four essential principles in order to realize effective inclusion of children and youth with disabilities:

1. Provide comprehensive physical rehabilitation to serve the poorest children and youth
2. Create programs and projects that help schools to ensure inclusion
3. Lead awareness raising activities that help communities learn about the causes and effects of disability and advocate for government implementation of existing policies regarding disability issues
4. Develop opportunities for youth with disabilities and their families to enter mainstream sources of employment

Since its inception in Ethiopia, RAPID has made progress on many fronts. These are some of the highlights as of 2013:

The community based rehabilitation programs have reached 450,000 people in four cities in the Arsi Zone of the Oromia Region.

  • Staff estimated that nearly 80 percent of the communities served are not only aware of disability issues but also recognize the abilities of people with disabilities.
  • Health centers provide free treatment for people with disabilities.
    The government funds a bus that transports people to rehabilitation services.
  • Accessibility of health centers has improved with sign language training so staff can communicate with deaf people.
  • During 2012, 210 people launched income-generating businesses.
    In 2009, all parents who were given a loan and training to earn a sustainable income and support their children to go to school reported earning a better income.

In these ways, schools in the Arsi Zone of the Oromia area of Ethiopia are adapting to the needs of the children and youth with disabilities. Ethiopia is on its way to removing the barriers that prevent people with disabilities from obtaining the common services of not only education but also healthcare, employment, transportation and information.

– Janet Quinn

Sources: CBM, Inclusive Education in Action, WHO, IBE
Photo: USAID

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The Unprecedented Greek Brain Drain

Brain_Drain
With the Greek economy in the throes of crisis, and its exit from the EU imminent, employment prospects for educated Greek professionals seem bleak. Questions over their homeland’s future have caused a mass exodus among many educated Greeks. The emigration of Greece’s most talented professionals has earned an informal name in the media; they are called ‘Grexit’s.

In fact, the modern western world has never before experienced a brain drain on this scale; Emigration levels have increased by 300% from before the crisis hit at the onset of the Great Recession. This diaspora exceeds 200,000.

Of those that have emigrated, educated professionals represent a sweeping majority, with up to 180,000 possessing a university degree. Over 10% of Greek professionals currently work and reside abroad.
After looking at the figures, it is not hard to understand why so many young and talented Greeks have left their homeland. The employment rate for those under 24 stands at an abysmal 50%, and between 2008 and 2013 Greece lost nearly 1 million jobs—over half of which belonged to young people. Considering that Greece’s total population stands at around 11 million, this represents a substantial decline in employment opportunities.

Those that have escaped the inhospitable economic climate have found better job prospects in professional fields abroad. Destinations in Europe are the most popular, with countries like Germany and the UK accepting more than half of Greece’s emigrants.

Germany in particular has become a receptacle for many aspiring Greek doctors, as its well-funded healthcare system has a large demand for personnel. So far, 35,000 Greek doctors have traveled to Germany where their pay is substantially better. Ironically, Greece actually possesses a surplus of medical professionals and has more neurosurgeons than even Germany, the largest country in Europe by population. This fact highlights an important, yet tragic, facet of the Greek Brain Drain; Greece possesses a disproportionally large number of high achieving and highly educated people, many of whom have already left.

Three percent of the world’s most prominent scientists hail from Greece. While that figure may seem measly, Greece’s population represents only .2 percent of the global population. Despite all of Greece’s scientific heft, 85% of these globally recognized scientists conduct their research and reside outside of their home country.

For Greece, this represents a devastating loss of investment. Funds spent on education, from both government programs and from family’s pockets, has essentially gone to waste; those who have enjoyed a Greek education and then chose to work abroad are not innovating at home. With so many talented professionals leaving, it will become more challenging for Greece to pull itself out of its depression.

Greek professionals are not alone, as 46% of Greeks have entertained the idea of emigrating from their home country. With this attitude settling upon many, the problem has only compounded. According to the managing director of Endeavor Greece, Haris Makryniotis, “there is a sense of paralysis, and it’s gotten worse since the elections in December.”

Greek banks have also mirrored this mindset and have stopped giving out loans. According to a report by CNBC, this “means that if you are running a business, there is no debt financing available for working capital right now. And if you are an entrepreneur looking for start-up capital, investors are not untying their purse strings.” Effectively the Greek economy is at a standstill.

There are no quick solutions to a crisis such as this. In order for Greece to prosper, its people, including its reluctant expatriates, must look towards the future. Many hope to return once the economy is back on its feet. Hopefully, at the end of their odyssey abroad, they will find themselves back home once again.

– Andrew Logan

Sources: CNBC, The Economist, The Guardian, NPR
Photo: CNBC

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40% of African American Children Living in Poverty

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For the first time since the United States began keeping Census records, the number of African American children in poverty has surpassed that of white children. As of 2013, there were reportedly 4.2 million African American children living below the poverty line versus 4.1 million white children. What makes this statistic even more alarming is the fact that white children outnumber African American children under the age of 18 by three to one.

According to an article by USA Today published on July 16 of this year, “The poverty rates for Hispanic, white and Asian children improved as the United States emerged from an economic recession, but for African-American children, little changed. Poverty is defined as living in a household with an annual income below $23,624 for a family of four.” African American children have suffered more than any other demographic in the United States over the past few decades.

Location is largely to blame for the disparity among African American children. Poor black neighborhoods have remained in poverty for decades without any real sign of improvement. The poverty numbers are highly concentrated in these primarily urban, black areas. Detroit has emerged as a hot-spot for African American children.

In the Michigan city, roughly 60 percent of these children are in poverty, significantly higher than anywhere else in the area. An excerpt from CBS reporting on the matter says, “In Detroit, the jobs have left, the good schools have left, there is poor transportation, high insurance rates, and difficulty getting reasonably good paying jobs.” African American children in poverty suffer as a direct result of their environment.

This trend will continue to increase and spread rapidly across the country if real change does not come soon. More African American children are continually falling behind because of a lack of proper education and social reform. The numbers will continue to grow until the government begins to take this situation seriously.

– Diego Catala

Sources: USA Today, CBS Global
Photo: Flickr

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Global Education Emergency Fund Proposed

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Education is a fundamental step in bringing people out of poverty. It gives boys and girls the opportunity to seek a higher paying job. It also gives them the chance to become better informed citizens that can make an impact on their country later in life.

The United Nations and other organizations have set about tackling the education issue in the developing world with programs that provide the resources for successful schools. While the programs have been very successful, there are still children without access to education; 58 million, to be exact. That is why on July 6-7 an education summit was held in Oslo, Norway to look at some of the problems that still exist with global education.

One major issue that came up in talks was education amid disasters. The recent earthquake in Nepal and the conflicts in Syria and Yemen demonstrate that wars and natural disasters hinder children going to school. Roughly 65 million children are not in school because of these events. Their absences range from a few months to years. Another issue these recent events highlighted was that education was not included as part of the emergency relief aid, while health, food, and shelter are.

As part of the summit, leaders looked at ways to solve this issue and increase support for educational humanitarian aid. What was proposed was a multimillion Global Education Emergency Fund. The idea behind the plan is to have reserve funds available for building/rebuilding schools, buying books, paying teachers and more in the event that a disaster destroys a school or children become refugees with no access to school.

For the case of medicine, food and shelter, there are already emergency funds set up. In order to fix education issues after disasters, money has to be raised first. This delays the time that reforms can be made and means that children spend more time away from school. The Global Education Emergency Fund would solve this issue. With the fund, education would be addressed as a natural human right. Children would be able to have access to schooling even during strenuous times in their lives. They would be able to continue learning and their development. It would enable them to better themselves and pass through difficult times.

– Katherine Hewitt

Sources: BBC, Gordon And Sarah Brown, Oslo Education Summit
Photo: Oslo Education Summit

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Visually Impaired Kenyan Students Receive a New Kind of Education

Visually Impaired Kenyan Students and Education - TBP
The initiative “Computer Labs for the Blind” aims to bring assistive learning technologies to 356 blind and visually impaired Kenyan students at the St. Oda Primary and Secondary School for the Blind in Gem District, Siaya County, Kenya.

This technology will be provided by partnerships between the organizations InAble, AccessKenya and the Rockefeller Foundation.

The program will not only train blind and visually impaired students, but also their teachers. The students will learn basic computer skills and how to access the Internet, and will also complete an online education program.

The goal of the organizations involved is to help these students develop skills that will make them employable, leading to a life that many visually impaired Kenyans could only have dreamed of in the past.

Over the years, the education of the blind and the visually impaired has faced many obstacles, including logistics, the availability of facilities and teaching resources. With these setbacks, the visually impaired have not been capable of participating in mainstream life.

Visually impaired students that reach the high school level are barred from participating in the sciences, such as chemistry and physics. Even if they were able to participate, most teachers are not properly trained in the appropriate methods for teaching blind and visually impaired people.

This leaves the students at a tremendous disadvantage.

“Braille textbooks happen to be bulky and expensive, requiring up to four or more students to share a single book, presenting a challenge in imparting knowledge to students,” said Irene Mbari Kirika, executive director of InAble Kenya. “For instance, whereas the costs of books required by a Form 4 student are KES 7,060, it would cost slightly over KES 61,000 [to get] braille [textbooks], which is way out of reach for very many Kenyans.”

However, it is not only the braille books that are more expensive: the notebook paper blind and visually students write on also costs more. Many schools are not equipped with the necessary funds for blind and visually impaired students, even though these students are expected to sit for the same tests and exams as other students.

AccessKenya Group will be investing KES 7.2 million over the next two years in the provision of technology resources and financial support. From the fund, KES 6 million will go towards the “Assistive Technology Labs” project, which will include broadband Internet.

Emily Kinuthia, Marketing Manager at AccessKenya, added, “We realize that there was a lot of focus on the provision of hardware but little emphasis on skilling both for the teachers and students. We are therefore making it easier to access the curriculum and other resources, such as digital books and applications, all of which will be available online in order to deliver value in technology studies.”

With these set goals, blind and visually impaired students in Kenya will be schooled in useful, everyday skills. And with these skills, these students will have the opportunity to enter the job market, something that many blind and visually impaired individuals have previously never thought possible.

– Kerri Szulak

Sources: IT News Africa, All Africa
Photo: Inable

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Fighting Ebola with Liberty and Justice

Fighting_Ebola
When the Ebola virus attacks the human body, the symptoms include muscle pain, vomit, fever and unexplained hemorrhage. While these symptoms are tragic and often fatal, there are no surprises when it comes to the virus itself—we know what it looks like and we can visibly see the damage it leaves in its wake. When the Ebola virus attacks an economy, however, as it did in Liberia in 2014, we know little about the exact symptoms and even less about the treatments available to combat it.

Until 2014, Chid Liberty, the founder of fair trade clothing manufacturer Liberty and Justice, had run his operations out of his native Liberia with ease. This changed almost overnight with the Ebola outbreaks of 2014.

“We had built the company up to a 500,000 orders per month and in a flash we were out of business,” Liberty said in an interview with Madame Noir. “The Ebola epidemic left us and the hundreds of workers and families that were depending on us stranded without income.”

Our economies are just as vulnerable as our immune systems, and can succumb to Ebola just as easily. It is estimated by the World Bank Group that nearly 50 percent of working adults in Liberia lost their jobs after the outbreak. However, Liberty refused to close his doors at the behest of the disease. Instead he turned his ingenuity into a tonic for the symptoms of Ebola and founded UNIFORM, a company based in Liberia dedicated to making affordable school uniforms for children who had been forced to leave school due to Ebola.

Liberia already has one of the lowest rates of primary education enrollment rates in Africa. According to The Global Economy website, an average of only 53.85 percent children reported having completed primary school between 1978 and 2011.

School attendance often incurs costs far beyond those of just tuition—the prices of books, the inability to work a salaried job, and even the cost of the mandatory uniform act as considerable deterrents to struggling families. The uniforms especially act as barriers to school attendance. Abdul Latif Jameel confirmed this in his 2009 study in Kenya, in which he discovered that providing children with free uniforms reduced school absenteeism by 44 percent and decreased dropout rates (particularly among girls) by a third.

Liberty’s UNIFORM brand has embraced the challenge of mollifying the effects of Ebola on the education of Liberia’s children. Their kick starter campaign, which has $174,760, has already given away 7,000 new school uniforms, all of which are being manufactured by small factories throughout Liberia (Madame Noir).

“I am very proud to be working on such a project,” said Ms. Annie Blamo to the UN Ebola Response team. Blamo is a worker in the Monrovian Liberty and Justice factory who has been manufacturing uniforms for the N.V. Massaquoi school, Blamo’s eight-hour days paid off when her son returned to school in early May. “We are so happy for what this factory has done for the children at the N.V. Massaquoi school and their name will be forever remembered.”

UNIFORM’s kick starter campaign will continue to accept donations until July 16, 2015.

– Emma Betuel

Sources: Ebola Response, Madame Noire, Poverty Action Lab, Time Dotcom
Photo: New York Post

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Chinese Woman Receives Global Recognition For Education

Global Recognition_For_Education
On July 2, Dr. Betty Chan Po-king received her third honorary degree in Bath, United Kingdom, from the University of Bath, granting her global recognition for education efforts from three continents.

At the summer graduation ceremony for the University of Bath, an honorary graduate award was presented to Po-king for Doctor of Laws. After her fifteen-year relationship with the university, the accolade was given to her for her commitment to providing and stimulating education, cultural diversity, and leadership.

This honor is one of three given to Po-king in the span of five years. Po-king initially earned an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U.S., her first intercontinental accomplishment in her professional career.

Four years later, she received a second award in China, Asia. The Honorary Fellowship by the Hong Kong Institute of Education was presented to Po-king in acknowledgement of her grand involvement in education in Hong Kong and beyond.

The University of Bath facilitated her third academic accolade in Europe. Honorary degrees are the most esteemed awards given by this university and are set aside for people of noticeable excellence.

Po-king originally earned her doctorate at The Union Institute and University in Vermont in 1985 and went on to acquire experience for teaching. She then became the Director of Yew Chung International Schools in China and California, which was founded by her mother, Madam Tsang Chor-hang.

In addition to her several doctorate degrees, Po-king has also served in numerous leadership positions for her educational efforts.

She has served as the Treasurer of the Pacific Early Childhood Education Research Association, the Chairperson of Child Education and Community Services Discipline Board of Vocational Training Council and the adviser of the Center for Child Development.

Po-king has served as a Member of Standing Committee on Language Education Research, a member of the Education and Manpower Bureau and a member of Appeals Board (Education) in Hong Kong, as well. She was also appointed as a Hong Kong Convention Ambassador of the Hong Kong Tourism Board and the Advisory Committee on Teacher Education and Qualifications.

Po-king’s educational ability has also presented her with unique opportunities as a Chinese female educator.
She became a member of one of the first groups of female life members of Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation. In addition, she was the first Chinese Keynote Speaker at the 2004 Alliance for International Education Conference in Dusseldorf, Germany.

Po-king has traveled all around the world for her educational experience. According to China Education Development, where she is a founder, “she has integrated the essence of the Eastern and Western education and has accumulated rich experience in teachers’ training.”

With her extensive knowledge of education, Po-king could very well earn additional award in another continent, but for now, her global recognition in Europe, the U.S., and Asia will continue to propel her career and enhance global education.

– Fallon Lineberger

Sources: China Education Development, PR Newswire, University of Bath 1, University of Bath 2, Yew Chung International School, Yew Wah Education Management
Photo: South China Morning Post

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Malala Opens Girls School for Syrian Refugees

Malala-Yousafzai-All-Girls-School-Syrian-Refugees
The Malala Yousafzai All-Girls School opened on July 12 to Syrian refugees—for girls who have fallen victims to displacement. Malala Yousafzai opened the school on behalf of the 28 million children who are kept from classrooms because of armed conflict. The event also marked Malala Yousafzai’s 18th birthday, of which she was proud.

Malala Yousafzai is no stranger to armed conflict, as she was attacked in her native Pakistan in 2012 because of her support and efforts to campaign for girls’ rights and education. For this brave act, Malala was in fact awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014.

Yousafzai currently believes that world leaders are failing Syria’s children. At the opening of the school she stated, “On this day, I have a message for the leaders of this country, this region and the world: you are failing the Syrian people, especially Syria’s children. This is a heart-breaking tragedy — the world’s worst refugee crisis in decades.”

That is why this school is one small step on Yousafzai’s part to help the children of the war-torn country. This effort is applauded by Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. He stated, “We are really heartened by Malala’s ardent support for the education of refugee girls whose aspirations have already been so cruelly cut short by war. These children are the future of Syria; we must not jeopardize that by denying them the basic right to education while they are in exile”.

The newly opened school will serve around 200 Syrian girls living in refugee camps in the Bekaa Valley region along the Lebanese border, to which many Syrians have fled.

This school will stand as a testament to the perseverance and strength of the Syrian children and hopefully become inspiration to the similar creation of future schools.

– Alysha Biemolt

Sources: Look to the Stars, UNHCR, PBS, Voanews
Photo: Sampsonia Way