Archive for category: Education

Information and stories on education.

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What Have the Millennium Development Goals Achieved?

What Have the Millennium Development Goals Achieved?

What Have the Millennium Development Goals Achieved? In 2000, the United Nations set out on a clearly defined mission to end global poverty by means of tackling eight core areas of need. Now we are looking back, 15 years later, and seeing how successful the UN was in meeting their goals-and where the new Sustainability Goals will need to take up the slack.

The Millennium Development Goals were designed as a framework for developing impoverished nations by addressing the most critical needs of the society, like reliable food sources, access to education, and adequate health care.
Each goal had specific targets which the United Nations hoped they would meet by 2015. Some goals had more success than others.

The UN’s goal of halving global poverty was met with resounding success, as the number of people living on less than one dollar and 25 cents a day dropped from one point nine billion in 1990, to 836 million in 2015. An estimated 14 percent of the global population are living in extreme poverty today, down from nearly half in 1990.

The reduction in the proportion of undernourished people globally narrowly missed its target, coming within two percent of the 50 percent reduction goal. Though narrowly missing their target, given the exponential human population growth over the last three two decades, it is still a considerable success.

The goals suffered two more near misses in their attempts to increase educational opportunities for all, including establishing gender equality in schools. An estimated 10 percent of children are not receiving any formal education, and only about two -thirds of developing countries have achieved gender equality in the classroom.

Goals four and five of the Millennium Goals, which addressed child and maternal mortality, respectively, both failed to meet their targets. While both the mortality rate of children under five and maternal deaths were reduced by over half, both failed to reach the two-thirds reduction target.

Goal six, stop and reverse the spread of HIV/AIDs, malaria, and other diseases was similarly not met in the given 15 year time frame. Although the rate of new HIV/AIDS infections has fallen by around 40 percent, an estimated two point one million people are still being infected annually. The fight against malaria and other diseases prevalent in developing areas has seen more success however, with an estimated six point two million malaria deaths averted between 2000 and 2015.

The final two goals of the 2000 Millennium Development Goals tackled strengthening infrastructure, sustainable development, and international partnership. While both goals are still on-going endeavors, over the last decade, two point six billion people have gained access to improved drinking water and official development assistance to developing nations has risen by nearly seven percent.

Overall, the United Nations has experienced great success in their struggle to address the needs of the poor around the world, but they are the first to admit that more work is needed. In the official Millennium Development Goals report, released earlier this month, Wu Hongbo Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs admitted that success has been uneven across developing nations. “Millions of people are being left behind, especially the poorest and those disadvantaged because of their sex, age, disability, ethnicity or geographic location. Targeted efforts will be needed to reach the most vulnerable people,” said Hongbo.

The Quick and Dirty of Hits and Misses:
Goal #1: Target goal met and exceeded
Goal #2: Target goal nearly achieved
Goal #3: Not met
Goal #4: Not met
Goal #5: Not met
Goal #6: Not met
Goal #7: Target achieved ahead of schedule
Goal #8: No target specified, on-going action

The Sustainable Development Goals of 2015 will pick up where the Millennium Goals left off and continue to guide the United Nations as they work to eradicate global poverty.

– Gina Lehner

Sources: The Guardian, UN
Photo: Global Classrooms

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UK Government Set to Scrap Child Poverty Act as Rates Stay Consistent

UK Child Poverty-TBP

Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, announced this past week that the U.K. government will be scrapping its Child Poverty Act. The act, which promised to end child poverty in the United Kingdom by 2020, is being terminated after a recent report stated that current child poverty levels are “unacceptably high.”

Smith has stated that the government will be replacing the act with new perspectives on how to view child poverty, chiefly by changing its definition altogether.

The original act defined child poverty as a child living in a household with an income below 60% of the country’s average. Smith has spoken out against this definition, calling it “deeply flawed” as well as “a poor test of whether children’s lives are genuinely improving.”

Duncan’s new plan defines child poverty by “levels of educational attainment, worklessness and addiction,” as opposed to “relative material disadvantage,” according to The Guardian.

This news prefaces a large cut in tax credits to be introduced in the July 8, 2015 budget as a means to reduce the welfare budget. These cuts make the original 2020 goal all the more unobtainable.

The commission that oversaw the act, the Child Poverty and Social Mobility Commission, will be renamed to simply the Social Mobility Commission.

“We want to eradicate child poverty. This is not a departure from that proposal,” Smith said. “What we want to do is to ensure, however, that we do this by changing the long-term life chances of those who live in the poorest families.”

– Alexander Jones

Sources: BBC, The Guardian 1, The Guardian 2
Photo: The Guardian

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The Youth of Yemen Promote Peace

The Youth of Yemen Promoting Peace

Yemen has been through a whole lot in the past few years. While political unrest has plagued the nation for years, in the recent months, the country has been dealing with ongoing airstrikes.

“Some days it’s calm, and some days it’s not. It’s so unpredictable. Right now, we’re on day four with no electricity. When it does come on, it will only be one for an hour,” Hana reports. At 26-year-old, Hana is a youth assistant project manager for the Foundation for Peace project.

The project was founded in 2012 by the Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE), with the goal of teaching members of the community to effectively prevent and resolve conflicts. They focus on women and youth that typically do not have the opportunity to be influential or participate in dialogue.

So far, 560 youth, women, and local community leaders have received training. In addition, CARE has provided 15 water tanks for poor neighborhoods.

Many people in the country do not have nearby access to water sources and have to walk for miles every day. The limited amount of water sometimes results in clashes within communities.

In the past, wealthy business owners and merchants have paid for trucks to bring water to the poor. However, the trucks wasted a lot of water since they did not offer an effective method of collection. To rectify this inefficiency, the water tanks that CARE installed are permanent. They allow for people to obtain water with ease and less conflict.

Airstrikes and a naval blockade, however, have been preventing essential supplies, such as fuel and food, from reaching Yemen. Because of the lack of fuel, prices have soared and the cost to ride the bus has doubled. Service has also become undependable and people have switched to riding bikes for transportation.

The closure of many Yemeni schools poses another issue. Yemen has a very large population of young people and the majority of them are unemployed and out of school. This leaves them susceptible to recruitment into dangerous militant groups.

Yet, Yemen’s youth are finding ways to stay out of trouble and bring about dramatic change. For example, they initiate groups that spread awareness about issues like women’s rights. Women are fighting for the right to ride bicycles, which is traditionally not allowed in Yemen.

They turn destroyed buildings and windows into art and paint messages of peace all over their cities. Young people are passionate about promoting peace and developing their nation.

The United Nations Development Program gives out a yearly National Award for the Best Innovative Small Business Plan to Yemeni youth. Young people are able to submit smart business ideas for a chance to make their ideas into an entrepreneurship opportunity.

The goal of the award is to kick start the motivation and genius of Yemen’s youth, as well as generate new opportunities for employment. With the award, young people start their own businesses to contribute to their community and the nation’s developing economy.

The youth’s ability to take their lives and future into their own hands also grants them a hearty amount of satisfaction and self-esteem. There are five winners chosen who each are given $20,000 and support from the UNDP while executing their idea.

At the moment, Yemen receives funding from organizations like CARE. But even without aid in the future, the youth hope to keep inspiring progress and peace.

– Lillian Sickler

Sources: CARE, Yemen Innovation And Creativity Award, The Globalist
Photo: Care

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Effects of Gender Relations in Textbooks

Gender-Relations

The effort to educate the world’s poor is making strides with the United Nation’s new commitment to education, as well as the resourcefulness of people who see a need for their communities. The U.N. proposes that 90% of children have been reached. However, the majority of students are boys and many children who do not attend school are girls.

Getting to school is not the only challenge for girls. Part of the problem are the curricula’s textbooks that depict gender inequality. This is evident in countries like Thailand, Pakistan, Bengal and Kenya.

The stories, images or examples either do not include women or describe them in submissive, traditional roles like cleaning, cooking and serving men. The men are depicted as the ones who hold positions as political leaders, drivers, teachers or doctors. Often, history books leave out influential women in history or do not accurately portray the lives of women. For example, a Thai book shows only a man receiving a land title, when in reality a large portion of the women hold their own land titles. While these biases are subtle, studies have shown that they still reinforce negative stereotypes of women.

Rae Blumberg, who has done extensive research on gender relations in textbooks, insists that “When girls don’t see themselves in textbooks, they’re less likely to envision themselves doing great things.” There are already low percentages of women working in government and leadership positions in these poor nations. The textbooks only “reinforce, legitimate and reproduce patriarchal gender systems” that keep women out of these positions.

The lack of accurate portrayals of women in these positions can discourage young girls from getting an education or trying hard in class. However, educating women and young girls is the key to raising communities out of poverty. For instance, by keeping young girls in school, child marriage can be reduced. There are links between education and lower birth rates and birth mortality. Education can also protect children from diseases and malnutrition through the provision of health information, such as prevention techniques. With an education, girls can make a living and be positive contributors to their community, the economy and their family.

It is important to keep young girls in school. While changing cultural norms that prevent girls from attending school will take time, addressing bias in textbooks is a reasonable start. By replacing the textbooks or having conversations about the bias, more girls can succeed in getting an education that will hopefully eliminate gender biases.

– Katherine Hewitt

Sources: The Guardian, Manushi-India.org NPR, UNESCO Reuters Blogs
Photo: Fabius Maximus

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Education in Bangladesh Sails on Despite Floods

Education-in-Bangladesh-Despite-Floods

Ripped apart by rivers, drenched by monsoons and floating just above the sea, Bangladesh is like the toe that the Himalayas are using to test the waters of the Indian Ocean. All of this exposure to water leads to yearly flooding, an immense challenge for the developing nation of 156 million. From crop loss to infrastructure damage, the costs of flooding are massive hurdles to poverty reduction; the floods in 2004 costed the country seven billion dollars. Perhaps the most insidious impacts of the floods is their disruptive effects on education in Bangladesh.

Founded in 1998, the Bangladesh nonprofit Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha, recognized how the floods prohibited students from making it to school and decided to bring the school to them. They achieve this by bringing boats up the flooded waterways, which serve as both school buses and schools.

A fleet of 22 boats sail up the swollen rivers stopping to pick up children before they dock and class begins. Each boat takes around 30 children and has a small library and access to the world’s largest library through computers hooked up to the Internet and powered by solar panels.

With primary school attendance around 80%, increasing access to education is high on the agenda. The boat schools provide classes to an estimated 1,810 children. Although many more remain in need, Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha reaches some of the most vulnerable.

What’s more, the boat schools provide critically-needed adult education that focuses on sustainable agriculture, healthcare and climate change adaptation. These programs holistically target the restraints that keep them in poverty.

For example, the climate change workshops help farmers develop production methods, such as floating vegetable gardens and raising fish and ducks, that can endure longer flooding periods and raising sea levels, both of which are effects of a changing climate. The lessons on sustainable agriculture help farmers to reduce erosion and pollution, and increase yields. These programs work together to clean the environment, increase access to food and boost incomes. Healthcare, Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha’s other focus, brings medicines and doctors to rural parts of the country that have no access to clinics, keeping the populations healthy throughout the year.

What is even more important is that the success of the floating school model appears to be scalable. Many other parts of the world face similar issues that climate change will exacerbate. Cambodia, Nigeria, the Philippines, Vietnam and Zambia are all testing this innovative development strategy. The humanitarian arm of the United Nations that focuses on children and mothers, UNICEF, praises this method as “having a transformative impact upon education and communities in flood-prone regions.”

– John Wachter

Sources: Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha, World Bank BBC, UNICEF 1 UNICEF 2
Photo: Tenders On Time

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Computer Game Educates Players About Global Issues

Computer_Game_Educates
Five years ago, a group of students from the Philippines created the computer game “Wildfire” to win the Microsoft Imagine Cup Game Design Competition, one of five major categories in the annual contest. The theme of the contest was, “Imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems.”

The technology competition brings together students from all around the world with the goal of helping solve the globe’s biggest issues. Overall, the 2010 contest saw over 300,000 students from more than 100 countries go head-to-head.

The five creators of “Wildfire,” a mix of college students and graduates, call themselves By Implication. The group of friends decided to enter the contest after Typhoon Ketsana brought devastation to Manila, the capital of the Philippines, in 2009.

On its website, By Implication stresses that worldwide problems must be tackled head on, as they cannot be overcome by using magic or potions.

“Wildfire,” which is free and can be played an unlimited number of times, demonstrates just this. The computer game educates players about global health issues and how they can help solve them.

Designed and created with a virtually nonexistent budget, the game permits users to navigate their own city in an attempt to defeat the health issues, known as the “bad guys.”

Players are on their own until they collect “inspiration points,” which they can then use to obtain the assistance of volunteers around them. This teaches that a player is powerless if he or she is alone. Transition to the real world, and this idea illustrates that by working together, people have the ability to do something great.

In addition, the computer game educates players with informative buttons. A player can encounter the buttons, which contain short facts about crises including poverty and water quality, while navigating his or her own city. In the end, if players and volunteers can defeat not only the problems they encounter, but also the time limit, their city will thrive.

For the creators of “Wildfire,” they hope that by learning about certain issues, those who play the game will become motivated to help solve them.

– Matt Wotus

Sources: ABC News, Imagine Cup, Imagine Cup Wildfire by Implication
Photo:Neogaf

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Cash Incentive Improves Malawian Girls’ School Attendance

girls_school_attendance

Global poverty is connected to the lack of access to education that many young girls face. In Malawi, a program offers cash incentives to young girls and their families in order to encourage school attendance. The results have exceeded expectations of the girls’ school attendance, and there are also additional health benefits for these young women.

Young girls are often not encouraged to attend school because their parents do not understand the value of education for girls or would prefer for them to help out at home. A recent extreme case in Pakistan is a clear example. A father strangled his three girls to death because he did not want to “waste money” on their education and felt that the girls were a burden to his family.

While stories such as this one are shocking, the conditional cash transfer program in Malawi works to help alleviate the barriers to education for young girls and their families. On the other hand, the father of the young girls in Pakistan refused to provide them with any money, and their school fees had to be paid for by their maternal grandparents.

The Zomba Cash Transfer program in southern Malawi offers girls and young women aged 13 to 22 and their parents up to $15 per month if the girls attend school regularly. An additional group in the study received the money without conditions, and a control group did not receive any money.

Improvements in school attendance were observed after 18 months. There was no significant difference between the two groups that received the cash payments, suggesting that education can be valued without forced restrictions if families can afford to send their children to school.

In addition to the increased school attendance, there were changes in the sexual behavior of these young girls. Girls had less sex and chose safer, younger partners. Child marriage and teenage pregnancy were also reduced. Most significantly, the International Center for Research on Women states that there was a “reduction by 60 percent of HIV prevalence rate and [a decrease of the] HSV2 (herpes simplex virus) infection.”

The program targeted 23,561 households in seven of Malawi’s districts and has the potential to be scaled up even further. In addition to sending their children to school, families used the money to buy food, medicine and farming supplies, and to travel to the hospital to buy antiretroviral drugs to treat HIV/AIDS. The money can help lift families out of poverty and empower young girls. With proper education, these girls can then participate fully in society and help break the devastating cycle of poverty for their own children.

David Bull, Executive Director of UNICEF U.K., believes that investing in education for girls benefits everyone in society. Girls will specifically benefit from the obtainment of skills to participate in society and protect themselves. However, businesses will also be able to hire more qualified women and broaden their customer base. When half of a country’s population is prevented from participating fully in the economy, economic growth will be stunted.

Global health and development, as well as the protection of human rights for girls, are central global goals. While conditional cash transfer programs need to be further evaluated to understand their sustainability and long-term effects, there is promise for great improvements in gender equality.

– Iliana Lang

Sources: Boston University, Daily Mail, The Guardian, International Center for Research on Women, National Center for Biotechnology Information, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Photo: Camfed

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Michelle Obama Launches New Education Program for Girls

michelle_obama

On a recent visit to London, Michelle Obama unveiled a new international plan to improve girls’ education. Obama’s Let Girls Learn Initiative aims to bring quality education to girls around the world. To kick off the initiative, Obama announced a new $200 million partnership between the United States and the United Kingdom.

The new partnership will be a joint effort by both countries to properly allocate funds to the countries with the greatest educational needs. The first projects will help 450,000 children in the Democratic Republic of Congo receive a primary school education, with benefits also going to Sierra Leone and Liberia.

In developing areas like these, girls often lack access to proper education. In total, there are approximately 62 million girls around the world today that are not in school. Even worse, half of this uneducated female population is made up of adolescents.

Looking ahead, the First Lady’s multi-million-dollar program is expected to benefit more than 755,000 girls between the ages of 10 and 18 over the next five years. Through bilateral collaboration, girls will be provided with access to education.

The plan includes enrolling students in accelerated primary school programs, reducing barriers to school access and mobilizing parental and community support. It will also focus on improving the quality of teaching materials and methods.

The partnership will also encourage other advocacy organizations to collaborate with one another in order to find the best solutions to improve girls’ education worldwide in terms of quality and access.

Shortly after the initiative was originally announced in March, the White House released a statement saying, “When a girl receives a quality education, she is more likely to earn a decent living, raise a healthy, educated family, and improve the quality of life for herself, her family, and her community.”

This press release highlights the connection between girls’ education and even larger, more deeply rooted worldwide problems. It is in the world’s poorest areas that girls’ education suffers the worst deficiencies. Improved education could bring improvements in other important areas as well.

Rocco Blume of the charity Plan International U.K. points out that improved education for girls could result in an influx of contributions to developing economies and impoverished communities. In fact, targeting issues like girls’ education is key in tackling other challenges like poverty and maternal health.

Countries with more girls in secondary school tend to have lower maternal mortality rates, lower infant mortality rates, lower rates of HIV/AIDS and better child nutrition. These facts stand at the foundation of the Let Girls Learn Initiative and the core of the U.S.-U.K. partnership.

Poverty is one small word for one incomprehensibly large problem. It must be tirelessly chipped away at, piece-by-piece. The worldwide effort to combat poverty is strengthened by zeroing in on particular issues like girls’ education. Hopefully, this new partnership will spark increasingly focused on international collaboration.

– Sarah Bernard

Sources: CNN, Essence, Voice of America, The White House
Photo: eNCA

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The Grim State of Education in Pakistan

Education in Pakistan
The status of education in Pakistan is a bleak one. Officially, the overall literacy rate is 46%, with 26% of girls being literate. However, third party organizations reduce the overall rate to 26% by excluding people who cannot do more than sign their names. It has the second-highest rate of uneducated children worldwide, with 5.1 million kids out of school in 2010. Two-thirds of the children out of school are girls, giving a ratio of 8 educated girls for every 10 educated boys.

There are merely 40,000 schools in the country that serve girls. Moreover, these schools are concentrated in more heavily populated areas, with more remote girls receiving little access to education. In these regions, half of the girls have never attended school. Furthermore, in many of these rural provinces female education is restricted due to religious reasons. In the provinces of Baluchistan and North-West Frontier, female literacy stands at approximately five percent.

Girls in these areas oftentimes enter the workforce early to support their families and many become domestic workers. Khanzadi, a 10-year-old girl from a rural province who works in a wealthy district in Karachi is “lucky she’s with [a rich household] because [they] can spare some food and help her grow,” her mistress says. However, seeing urban girls her age attend school every day makes Khanzadi feel less than fortunate.

Militant groups, including the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and foreign groups, have been based in the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas for more than a decade and launch attacks both into Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan. Since June 2014, more than one million displaced children have been unable to attend school. Hazrat Zaman, a father of 17 who brought his family across the border to Afghanistan to search for schools before returning to Pakistan, said, “We are completely in the dark about our children’s future.”

Several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have stepped in to improve education access for girls in rural provinces. One organization, Alkhidmat, has set up more than 100 informal schools for girls and women to receive a basic education. The organization operates on the belief that women who are educated will help build a stronger, more developed nation.

Needless to say, there are many long-term impacts on a heavily uneducated population. One in three young Pakistani people, or about 12 million people from the ages of 15 to 24, lack the basic skills necessary to be hired. Men earn, on average, 60% more than women. This income gap is widest among illiterate workers. However, education still makes a huge impact on women’s earnings: educated women earn 95% more money than their uneducated counterparts.

– Jenny Wheeler

Sources: IRIN News, UNESCO 1, UNESCO 2,
Photo: Pakistan Today

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Education Helps Eradicate Poverty in Chile

Education-Eradicating-Poverty-in-Chile
In recent times, some of the largest economic growth in South America has occurred in a small and notoriously narrow country, the Republic of Chile. A standard-bearer of free-market capitalism, Chile’s rapid expansion over the past 35 years has been staggering. According to Forbes, “poverty has fallen from 50 percent to 11 percent, per-capita income has increased from 4.000 dollars to almost 20.000 dollars and inflation was reduced from over 250 percent per year to less than 7 percent per year.” Often referred to as the “The Miracle of Chile,” this development seemed to lift the country out of economic and political chaos and into remarkable prosperity.

In 1973, Chile was in dire straits. Its annual rate of inflation had reached 150 percent and its economy was spiraling downward. On top of this, the country experienced the bloodiest coup of 20th century South America in which the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet seized power from the Socialist president Salvador Allende. Over the course of just one month, over 3,000 Chileans lost their lives as military planes strafed and bombed the presidential palace. Ironically, this militaristic dictator became the source of the economic miracle.

General Pinochet promptly began to dismantle Allende’s socialist system and in its place instituted free-market economic policies. To enact these policies, Pinochet gathered together a collection of economists named the ‘The Chicago Group,’ as many members had studied at the University of Chicago. The group endorsed lower tax rates, the privatization of state companies, lower government spending and deregulation. But this growth came at a price to civil liberties and democratic values. In his 1980 constitution, Pinochet set the stage for Chile’s growth by prioritizing economic freedom at the cost of political oppression and social programs.

In 1990, Pinochet failed to retain his office after losing a public election and Chile steered back towards democracy. While his policies in the 1980s had brought the country out of financial failure and into economic prosperity, they left the poorest Chileans behind. Due to tax cuts and lackluster government spending, 45 percent of Chileans still lived in poverty. To the new Chilean government of the 1990s, the next big step was to confront poverty. Their solution was social spending.

Their plan was extraordinarily successful. Between the years of 1989 and 1997, the new Chilean government increased “health and education investments (mostly ignored under Pinochet) by 179.3 and 115 percent respectively,” according to a report from Brandeis University. This social spending helped to dramatically lower poverty; every percentage of growth Chile experienced between 1990 and 1996 counted 50 percent more to the reduction of poverty than under Pinochet’s regime. Ultimately, the poverty rate fell from 39 percent to 20 percent from 1990 to 2000. In comparison, poverty across South America only fell from 48 percent to 44 percent.

Of all social expenditures, education received the most attention and made the greatest impact. During the 1990s, spending on education grew at a rate of 10.6 percent annually and 274 percent cumulatively over the entire decade. The same Brandeis study mentioned above found that the increases in education spending were particularly effective in decreasing the severity of poverty in Chile.

However, Chile’s expansion, while exceptional, has not exactly been miraculous. According to the Brookings Institute, Chile has one of the highest rates of income inequality in the world. Unfortunately, Chile’s education system, particularly higher education, suffers from a similar form of stratification even though it has expanded by 33 percent in the past two decades. In terms of enrollment, 62 percent of Chileans from the upper 20th percentile in income attend institutions of higher education. By contrast, only 21 percent attend from the lower 20th percentile.

While Chile has developed rapidly, due in large part to social spending in education, it has left many of its poorest behind. With the current president Michelle Bachelet planning further tax increases to provide free education to all Chileans, it is possible that another miracle may be on the horizon.

– Andrew Logan

Sources: BBC, Bloomberg, Brandeis University, Brookings Institute, Forbes, IFPRI, MIT Poverty Action Lab, University of Hawaii
Photo: SnipView