The State of the World's Children 1999
Carol Bellamy, Executive Director, United Nations Children's Fund
Contents
Foreword by Kofi A. Annan, Secretary-General of the United
Nations
Chapter I
Education For All: Making the right a reality
The right to education
The education revolution
Investing in human rights
Chapter II
Statistics
General note on the data
Explanation of symbols
Under-five mortality rankings
Regional summaries country list
Tables
1 Basic indicators
2 Nutrition
3 Health
4 Education
5 Demographic indicators
6 Economic indicators
7 Women
8 The rate of progress
Panels
1 Education in free fall: A region in the midst of
transition
2 What children understand: The Monitoring Learning
Achievement project
3 Beyond the ruler: Competency-based learning in Tunisia
4 Second-hand computer, first-class vision: Thailand's
CHILD project
5 A Tanzanian school welcomes the disabled
6 The floating classroom: School clusters in Cambodia
7 Joyful learning: Empowering India's teachers
8 Which language for education?
9 A new beginning: Education in emergencies
10 In India: Helping the poor choose school
11 Egypt's community schools: A model for the education of
girls
12 The macho problem: Where boys are underachieving
13 Women educators push the limits for girls in Africa
14 Parent education: Supporting children's first teachers
Spotlights
Sub-Saharan Africa
Middle East and North Africa
South Asia
East Asia and the Pacific
Latin America and the Caribbean
Central and Eastern Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent
States, and the Baltic States
Industrialized countries
Text figures
Fig. 1 Children out of school
Fig. 2 Net primary enrolment, by region (around 1995)
Fig. 3 Reaching grade five, by region (around 1995)
Fig. 4 International milestones for education
Fig. 5 Net primary enrolment, by region (1960-2000)
Fig. 6 AIDS orphans: A looming education crisis in
Sub-Saharan Africa
Fig. 7 Primary enrolment: Where the boys and girls are
Fig. 8 Education's impact on child mortality
Fig. 9 At a glance: The gender gap in primary education
and related indicators
Fig. 10 Generational impact of educating girls
Fig. 11 Who benefits from public spending on education?
Fig. 12 School mapping
Fig. 13 MEENA: An animated advocate for girls' rights
Fig. 14 Cost of education for all by the year 2010
References
Glossary
PANELS
Panel 1
Education in free fall: A region in the midst of transition
Classes full of bright-eyed children, from industrial
Eastern Europe right across Asia to Yakutsk: Of the many
propaganda images of the former Soviet Union, this is one of
the few that has proved to have real substance in the wake
of communism's collapse. Soviet-bloc countries attained
remarkable levels of access to free education. Although the
quality of the education often left much to be desired --
teaching was often rigid and authoritarian, aimed at
inculcating facts rather than the capacity for creative
thought -- basic schooling between the ages of 6 and 14 was
virtually universal; and girls and boys had equal access.
From this foundation was laid a solid basis for many
countries. The Third International Mathematics and Science
Study, a 1995 international survey of 13-year-olds' learning
achievement, for example, ranked the Czech Republic,
Hungary, The Russian Federation, Slovakia and Slovenia ahead
of most major Western countries.
While many systems, especially in Central Europe, continue
to offer good schooling post-transition, reports from other
countries of the region paint a picture of decline. Adoption
of a new social model could have been an opportunity for
these countries to build on the best of the old education
system while discarding the worst. Instead, many children
today are receiving an education that is inferior to that
their parents received.
For some countries, the shock of economic and political
change accompanying the transition from communism has been
profound. Many nations have had to build or rebuild
themselves: The region now comprises 27 countries where only
8 existed at the end of the 1980s. In almost every country
of the region, gross domestic product (GDP) is below -- and
often well below -- 1989 levels; shrinking government
revenues and growing inequality between rich and poor in
some countries affect state provision of education and
families' ability to cover school costs.
For other countries, the transition has been marked by civil
war, notably in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Tajikistan and
former Yugoslavia. In these countries the educational
heritage has been shattered -- in Bosnia and Herzegovina
during the war, for example, if children were educated at
all it was in shifts, by teachers without materials, often
in the dark and without heating.
A recent report by the UNICEF International Child
Development Centre, in Florence (Italy), gives a graphic
picture of educational decline amid the dislocation of the
switch to a market economy:
• The costs to families of educating children have gone up,
often sharply, at the same time family incomes have fallen.
Fees charged for kindergartens have risen, fees have been
introduced in some countries for upper secondary schools and
they are becoming more common for tertiary education.
Frequently there are now charges for textbooks, and clothing
and shoes are no longer subsidized.
• The quality of schooling has dropped. Huge reductions
have taken place in real public expenditure on education --
by almost three quarters, for example, in Bulgaria. Teacher
morale has often deteriorated along with pay. Buildings and
equipment have suffered disproportionately from spending
cuts; many are in a state of disrepair. Heating of schools
in winter has become a serious problem in Kyrgyzstan, the
Republic of Moldova and the former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia, for example.
• Overall enrolment and attendance have dropped as rising
costs and falling quality have depressed demand. For
example, in the Caucasus and Central Asia, there have been
major falls in enrolment at every level of schooling. The
number of places in schools has also decreased: Over 30,000
pre-schools were closed in the 12 countries of the
Commonwealth of Independent States between 1991 and 1995.
The portrait is not just one of general decay but of
re-emerging inequality, with poor families less able to pay
for their children's education, and children in rural areas
and from ethnic minorities disproportionately affected. But
if the educational gulf between rich and poor within
countries has widened alarmingly, so too has the gulf
between the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and
those of the Caucasus and Central Asia. In Central Asia
particularly, educational provision is spiralling down
towards standards not seen in a generation, and in many
other countries there is serious cause for concern.
The social impact of the transition from central planning to
a market economy is all too often forgotten, as if the
economy is the only thing that matters. The story of
education in the 1990s from Slovakia to Siberia, Uzbekistan
to Irkutsk, makes it clear that the world forgets the social
dimension at its peril.
Panel 2
What children understand: The Monitoring Learning
Achievement project
The first-ever attempt on a global basis to help countries
uncover and understand the trends, weaknesses and strengths
of their education systems is bearing fruit, with some
findings strikingly consistent across countries. For
instance, pupils in urban schools perform better than those
in rural schools; girls' performance is better than that of
boys in the lower grades, but later, due to diverse cultural
and socio-economic factors, begins to decline; and pupils
from private schools generally outperform those from public
schools.
These profiles are emerging from the project on Monitoring
Learning Achievement (MLA), a collaboration between UNESCO
and UNICEF launched in September 1992. The project's
central team at UNESCO headquarters in Paris has overseen
its development from a pioneer phase in five countries
(China, Jordan, Mali, Mauritius and Morocco) to its current
embrace of 27 countries at three different stages of
implementation.
Its goal is to help countries monitor their performance in
meeting 'minimum basic learning competencies' -- in other
words, acceptable levels of learning in literacy, numeracy
and life skills -- through a child-centred approach. From
the data collected, countries then are able to:
• identify the factors promoting or hindering learning
achievement in primary schools;
• understand the role of key participants;
• analyse problem areas;
• propose policy changes and practical measures to
improve the quality of education.
Specific recommendations that have emerged, for example,
were that classroom practices must be improved in Sri Lankan
primary schools; the most urgent need in Nigerian primary
schools is to ensure effective teaching and learning of the
English language; and in Mozambique, the priority is to
develop children's critical thinking and problem-solving
skills.
The addition of life skills to the more normal '3Rs'
(reading, writing and arithmetic) is important since most
testing excludes this element entirely. In China, for
example, children were shown to be gaining an adequate
understanding of reading, writing and mathematics. But their
learning achievement in life skills was significantly less,
which led to the recommendation that "the teaching-learning
process in China needs to emphasize more problem-solving
skills and the ability to apply knowledge in dealing with
real-life problems."
While the project has the same broad goals, each government
develops its own country-specific monitoring system. This
country-specific design is important, since conditions
differ so markedly. If monitoring is to be meaningful, it
has to take into account not just local cultural differences
but also the type of school, its location, its way of
organizing classes and so on. Questionnaires are filled in
by the pupils themselves, their parents, their class teacher
and their head teacher so as to build up as complete a
picture as possible of the child's learning environment,
both in school and at home.
The project investigates three major areas of life skills:
health/hygiene/nutrition; everyday life; and the social and
natural environment. Again, some of the skills assessed
within these areas are common to all while others are
country-specific. All the pioneer nations, for example,
wanted children to be able to recognize the symptoms of the
major childhood diseases. Jordan wanted its children to know
about the harmful effects of coffee and tea.
The MLA project makes it possible for participating
countries to exchange information, and consequently, those
joining the scheme later have benefited from the experience
of the five pioneers, avoiding pitfalls and putting their
monitoring structures in place more quickly. This is not
just as a result of international seminars of the
participating nations, though these have also been useful,
but due to specific 'mentoring': China, from the original
group, has acted as adviser to Sri Lanka from the next batch
of countries, for example, just as Jordan has helped Oman.
In all these cases, better monitoring of learning
achievement is helping governments to skirt some of the
deepest potholes in the road to Education For All.
Panel 3
Beyond the ruler: Competency-based learning in Tunisia
A stork has nested in the minaret of the white-painted
mosque across the road. Below, two children are tying up the
donkeys they have ridden from their homes to this school in
the peaceful village of Mahjouba in north-western Tunisia.
In the school courtyard, dozens of birds warble from almond
and apricot trees shading a vegetable garden and a rabbit
hutch. On the right are five classrooms decorated with large
murals painted by the children. On the left is a large
multipurpose room hosting a school library and
extracurricular activities -- the room is a vital resource
in a school where students have to use the classrooms in
shifts.
The school in Mahjouba is a typical example of Tunisia's
integrated school development project, which was begun in
1992 in the governorate of El Kef on the Algerian border. In
this area, more than 40 per cent of the population is
illiterate and more than 10 per cent lives in absolute
poverty.
The project aimed to enhance the performance of 30 of El
Kef's rural schools through improved teaching methods, while
also developing the infrastructure (building compound walls
and multipurpose rooms, for example), providing safe water
and planting vegetable gardens or fruit trees to provide
learning opportunities for the students. Teaching methods
pioneered by Mahjouba and other schools in El Kef have since
been introduced in 475 primary schools across the country.
The new framework, devised by a national steering committee
of experts from UNICEF and the Ministry of Education, is
called 'competency-based teaching'. This term refers to a
system based on the skills or 'competencies' children should
be able to acquire, which become the key focus of teaching,
remedial and evaluation systems. Teachers run regular
assessments in order to observe what competencies children
have acquired and which areas need additional attention.
In many parts of the world teaching is based on assumptions,
and all too often lack of comprehension and learning only
show up in end-of-year examinations, with many students
having to repeat a year because their problems weren't
diagnosed early enough to be addressed. The results from El
Kef are still preliminary but are nonetheless encouraging:
The pass rate at the end of grade six has increased from 46
per cent in 1991 to 62 per cent in 1997.
Unexpected responses that might have earned a pupil a rap on
the knuckles in the past are now seen by teachers as a
normal part of the learning process, which can be used to
assess learning achievement.
Samir Elaďd, who has taught at the Mahjouba school since
1987, agrees. The academic results also indicate the value
of the system: Three years ago, 10 of the 30 pupils in his
third grade class had to repeat a year, whereas in 1998 only
4 have had to do so.
Abdallah Melki, principal of the Mahjouba school, is another
convert. A 50-year-old with a ready smile, he was initially
uncomfortable with the new methods but now feels they are
highly effective, especially for problem students. His one
regret is that the competency-based approach has so far been
limited to three subjects: Arabic, French and mathematics.
Competency-based science teaching will be introduced in the
1998/99 school year.
The Mahjouba school has also helped to pioneer three other
innovations. In the first, students sign a contract with the
teacher on the work to be accomplished in a certain period:
for example, two pages of spelling and one of mathematics in
the coming week. Teachers in El Kef have found that this
agreement helps children build a greater sense of
responsibility for their own learning.
The second divides the class into groups of three or four.
Students work individually on the same assignment, then
discuss their results and come up with a joint answer. In a
slight variation of this system, groups are made up of
students of different levels who work together and help one
another.
The third innovation is the practice of stronger pupils
'tutoring' weaker ones and offering them advice and
explanations. At the Mahjouba school, for example, Wahida
tutors her friend Hanene who is glad of the help. Hanene
herself chose Wahida as her tutor because they are friends
who walk to school together each morning.
On Wahida's part, she has found that her studies are much
more interesting and she understands them better since her
learning has been gauged by regular assessments.
Panel 4
Second-hand computer, first-class vision: Thailand's CHILD
project
Somjai is in grade three of her primary school in north-east
Thailand. In her first year she made good progress, but by
the end of grade two she was faltering and her test scores
were low.
Now, with this downward trend continuing, her teacher refers
to Somjai's computerized learning profile. From it she
learns that Somjai was often absent during her second year,
that she rarely attends the health clinic despite her poor
nutritional status and that she has three younger siblings
and a divorced mother.
The teacher decides to visit the mother in case Somjai is
missing school to care for her siblings while her mother
works. She will suggest that the younger children attend the
community day-care centre, or she might persuade the school
authorities to talk to local officials about starting an
income-generating project in the community.
Somjai is a good example of the Children's Integrated
Learning and Development (CHILD) project in action, which
started when the head teacher of a small, rural, primary
school in the poorest region of Thailand wanted his 150
students to have access to a computer.
The head teacher wrote to the Institute of Nutrition at
Mahidol University asking if they knew of anyone willing to
donate a computer. He explained that it would be used not
only in the classroom, and to improve the school's
administration, but also to track changes and influences in
the community from which the students were drawn.
The response to this modest request for a second-hand
computer has already grown far beyond a network of computers
in rural schools into a dynamic and distinctive example of
child rights in action that could yet inspire similar
ventures worldwide.
Launched in two schools in one province in January 1997, in
the course of a year the CHILD project spread to 25 schools,
38 communities and some 3,000 children in the province. The
project, run by Mahidol University with UNICEF support,
creates an early warning system that integrates educational
with community indicators to help all children achieve their
maximum learning potential -- particularly those with
special educational needs.
Schools compile a child's learning profile (ideally
computerized, in spreadsheet form), comprising social and
family factors that might affect learning. Teachers and
communities then use these over time to make informed
decisions and propose actions in an integrated, holistic
way.
The early expansion of the scheme is a sign of its success.
Its rapid spread has also meant changes in focus to address
the diversity of social conditions of the new schools and
communities.
For example, in several communities protein energy
malnutrition, iodine deficiency disorders and iron
deficiency anaemia are threatening children's health and
thus their ability to attend school. In other communities
where parents migrate to seek work, increasing numbers of
children are being left in the care of grandparents who have
limited knowledge of modern basic health care.
Concentrating on learning alone, therefore, has proven
insufficient in the effort to facilitate children's
learning. For this reason, the CHILD project now redefines
its objective as strengthening and preserving children's
rights, in line with the Convention on the Rights of the
Child. This holistic and practical view of child rights
enables communities to see the connections between poor
learning in school and health, nutrition and other factors.
As a result, communities have become more active
participants in their own and their children's development.
They are undertaking a wide range of activities to increase
children's access to primary and secondary education,
upgrade the quality of school lunch programmes and improve
water supply and sanitation facilities. Communities are
setting up day-care centres and establishing vocational
training centres for youth who are returning to their
villages due to the recent economic crisis.
Panel 5
A Tanzanian school welcomes the disabled
The happiest day of Martina Mukali's life was the day her
parents told her she could go to school. Then eight years
old, Martina travelled with her mother, a nurse, from her
home in Morogoro region to the capital, Dar es Salaam, 200
km away, to attend the Uhuru Mchanganyiko Primary School. In
the United Republic of Tanzania, nearly a third of all
primary school age children are not in school. For Martina,
who was born blind, the opportunity was really a dream come
true.
Established in 1921, the Uhuru Mchanganyiko Primary School
is one of the oldest in the country and the first to accept
children with disabilities alongside other children, in the
classroom and in all other activities. Of the 1,200 current
students, 62 are blind, 11 are deaf-blind and 55 have mental
disabilities. Like the other blind students, Martina resides
at the school; she visits her sister in Dar es Salaam on
weekends and holidays.
It is difficult for children with physical and mental
disabilities to overcome the grave problems limiting their
access to education. Fewer than 1 per cent of children with
special needs make it into education systems in the
developing world, according to UNESCO. Children in rural
areas are the most seriously isolated.
In Tanzania, education is not free -- students must pay fees
and buy uniforms, exercise books and other materials -- but
the major costs of disabled children's schooling are covered
by the Government. Boarding costs, school fees, medical
expenses and learning materials for those who come from
outside Dar es Salaam are also provided.
Martina, now 17, has achieved more than many of her sighted
peers. Her classmates help her navigate the campus, and she
reads and writes in Braille and loves to sing. She says, "I
can do everything that you can do except cook, and that is
only because nobody has bothered to teach me!" Her love of
life and learning are infectious and inspire her classmates
and all who meet her.
At the Uhuru Mchanganyiko Primary School, blind students are
integrated from the third year, or Class 3, onwards. Before
they begin regular classes, they are oriented to the school
campus -- dormitories, classrooms and playground -- and
given instruction in mathematical symbols, elementary
Braille and basic life skills consisting of personal care
and hygiene. Eight specialist teachers and eight blind
teachers -- themselves graduates of the school -- work
together with teachers of geography, history and social
studies, preparing all their materials in Braille and
dictating them to the students. Braille course materials are
produced at a printing press on site. Students in need of
extra help can attend special classes after regular school
hours.
Of the deaf-blind students, four live on the school campus.
The other seven live at home, and specially trained teachers
work with their parents and other family members on ways to
improve communication and interaction with these children.
One of every five students -- and the majority of the
disabled students -- enrolled in the Uhuru Mchanganyiko
Primary School goes on to secondary school. Many students
find work or begin trades on finishing primary school, so
hands-on vocational training in carpentry, masonry and
brick-making is offered to boys and girls at the end of the
primary school programme.
One child with mental disabilities who thrives in the
carpentry classes is Kenny Lungenge, 15 and living with his
mother, an onion vendor, in Dar es Salaam. When he first
arrived at the school five years ago, he knew nothing about
basic hygiene or about how to communicate with other
children. Today he interacts with his peers and is able to
craft beds, bookshelves and cupboards. His friend Hussain
Ali, who also is 15 and has mental disabilities, has
mastered basic arithmetic and civics and reads at Class 2
level. Hussain also studies masonry.
The Uhuru Mchanganyiko Primary School achieves these rich
results with threadbare resources. The dormitory facilities
are spare, and there are no live-in specialized staff to
look after the blind and deaf-blind children. Teaching
materials, classroom furniture, and supplies and equipment
used in vocational training are in short supply. Still, the
school is succeeding in eliciting community support. There
are plans to involve parents and the community in
fund-raising activities, to sensitize the public about the
disabled and to market products the students make, with
proceeds to directly benefit them.
As the school's appointed timekeeper -- a Class 6 student --
strikes the rim of an old car wheel, sounding the end of
another day and calling the children to afternoon assembly,
the disabled mingle with the other children, distinctions
among them blurred by the hope and energy of schoolchildren
ending their school day and at the threshold of life.
Panel 6
The floating classroom: School clusters in Cambodia
Kampong Prahok school is imposing, brightly painted and
modern looking. It is also a houseboat moored among the wood
and bamboo houses of a floating village at the northern end
of Cambodia's Tonle Sap lake. When the villagers float their
homes to more sheltered waters at the start of the rainy
season, they tow the school with them.
The wooden base of the school is stabilized under the water
by a steel hull balanced on two sides by sturdy bamboo
poles, roped together to form thin logs. A corrugated roof
keeps out the monsoon rains. There is a small teachers'
office and two classrooms that can accommodate up to 80
students. The village children punt gondolier-style or
paddle their canoes to the school, fastening them to the
railings of its exterior boardwalk.
Kampong Prahok school is not unique -- in fact, it is part
of a cluster of such floating schools.
In mid-1993, UNICEF, in cooperation with the Cambodian
Government, established the cluster schools in seven target
areas of rural, urban and minority populations. The major
objective of the clusters is to redress imbalances in school
quality by sharing resources, administration and often even
teachers, to improve the weaker schools without diminishing
the stronger ones. Government policy nationalized their
development in 1995. In total, 631 clusters have been
established across the country, 44 of which UNICEF supports
as of mid-1998.
Over time, experience has shown that parents move their
children to cluster schools because they realize that these
schools offer good teachers, new or refurbished buildings
and better equipment. Surveys indicate that enrolment rates
in these schools are substantially higher than the national
and provincial averages and drop-out rates are much lower,
especially in urban areas.
The cluster system makes it possible to stretch scarce
teaching resources and equipment by making them available
via a common resource centre. Such centres can serve as a
location for classes.
Given these advantages, it is no wonder that cluster schools
are popular. Nevertheless, the floating fishing community
had to work hard to bring a cluster school to Tonle Sap.
Parents from the area journeyed for two days to the
Provincial Education Office to insist that someone visit
their community to help them plan the schools. The officials
arrived a few months later to find a functioning
parent-teacher association despite the fact that there still
was no school and that all the association's members were
illiterate.
"It was a difficult area," says Sieng Sovathana, Deputy
Director of the Provincial Office of Education. "We used to
have an enrolment rate of around 15 per cent because we only
had one school." Now, with UNICEF's help, four floating
schools move with the villages, and the old school building
has been renovated as a resource centre. Enrolment is up to
60 per cent. "As a result of the cluster school system,"
says Ms. Sovathana, "we've seen an increase in enrolment,
improved quality of education and a reduction in drop-out
rates and in the number of children who have to repeat a
year. Also the administrative work has improved remarkably."
This is not to say that Kampong Prahok is without problems.
The teachers in the floating schools have no boats, for
example, so whenever they want to go somewhere, they have to
borrow one from the students. And Chhorn Rey Lom, a
13-year-old student who is about to complete grade two,
faces the prospect of having to give up school when she has
barely begun, as the Kampong Prahok cluster presently offers
only the first two grades. "I will have to stop studying,"
she says, "and work and fish to help my parents. I wish we
had more grades and more schools in this community."
But on the whole, the advantages of the cluster system
outweigh any problems, according to Ms. Sovathana. "It means
the bigger schools with more resources can help the poorer
schools. First we group the schools, then we group the head
teachers so they all know what's going on. Then we group the
teachers so they can help each other with teaching
techniques and exchange ideas and experiences. Finally we
group the communities."
In a country like Cambodia, with its grim recent past of
suffering and civil war, clustering schools can serve an
extra purpose. "Since 1979 people do not talk freely to each
other, or share things with each other," says Pawan Kucita,
UNICEF Education Officer in Phnom Penh. "The cluster's
concept of sharing resources, materials and ideas, between
schools and between villages, can only help. We look at the
school as an agent of change in the community. It is one
mechanism we can use to build harmony in society, a
willingness to share and develop together."
Panel 7
Joyful learning: Empowering India's teachers
The first hint that this school is different is the
building's colour -- a warm, inviting pink. Inside, the
difference from other Indian schools is even more palpable.
It is not just the animal and floral decorations painted on
the whitewashed upper walls, nor the displays of children's
artwork, nor the metre-high 'blackboard' -- the
black-painted lower wall -- that runs all the way around the
room. The most striking difference is in the atmosphere.
Both the children and the teacher are clearly enjoying their
work. They want to be here. A more dramatic contrast with
the dismal rote-learning that has been the standard practice
in Indian classrooms for generations could not be imagined.
This is a 'bal mitra shala' -- a child-friendly school --
and it is part of the strategy of Shikshak Samakhya, the
teacher empowerment programme that has rejuvenated primary
schools in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The word
'strategy' is carefully chosen: This is a different model of
teacher education, a change in classroom process and
practice and a very effective motivation programme, but it
is much more than the sum of these parts. For almost the
first time, the education system -- the planners and
administrators -- have placed their faith in the teachers at
the grass-roots level. And they have been rewarded by the
most heartening success stories.
The district where this venture began was not an easy place
for a pilot scheme. Dhar has long been classified as
'backward': Scheduled tribes comprise more than 75 per cent
of the population, people regularly migrate to cities to
find work and school attendance is poor.
In 1992, when the programme was launched on 5 September --
Teachers' Day -- in 186 primary schools and 23 cluster
resource centres, local teachers initially saw it as yet
another wearisome government programme. But Shikshak
Samakhya's great strength is the way it motivates teachers.
From the first, they were involved in designing and
developing the scheme so that they soon claimed it as their
own. The new approach spread rapidly to neighbouring
districts, and the commitment of the original teachers to
supporting their colleagues in areas new to the scheme has
been vital.
By 1995, Shikshak Samakhya was achieving national notice --
programmes inspired by it are now operating in 10 other
Indian states, under the generic name of teacher empowerment
or 'joyful learning'. Joyful learning refers to the movement
whereby teachers pledge to teach with enthusiasm and to
incorporate song, dance and the use of simple, locally made
teaching aids, bringing children more actively into the
learning process. Programmes are supported by several United
Nations agencies, including UNICEF, the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA).
The programme has helped teachers regain the pride and
respect that Indian tradition affords their profession, says
Sardar Singh Rathore, a head teacher from Dhar. Such respect
had eroded in the past two decades. "Not only are they
enjoying their teaching in the classrooms, but they have
been able to make it so interesting that children are eager
to come to school," said Mr. Rathore. A further benefit has
been increased enrolment in the schools served, especially
of girls and working children.
Teachers in the programme attend a two-day initial
orientation session where they learn about the new
philosophy from other teachers and are given practical
training in preparing the new classroom aids. The teacher
education itself is conducted along 'joyful learning' lines,
with the extensive use of songs, riddles and group
activities.
Built on the premise that a motivated teacher and a
satisfied student are the best way of transforming an
education system, the teacher empowerment/joyful learning
strategy is based on the belief that primary teachers can be
motivated and successful if they receive sufficient trust,
support and guidance. Parents will send their children to
school if the learning experience is made relevant,
effective and enjoyable.
"Seeing the children both learning and longing to go to
school, the parents and community have come forward to
support the teacher and the school," continues Mr. Rathore.
The virtuous-circle effect could not be clearer: India's
investment in the strategy has succeeded in empowering
teachers and making learning and teaching fun. It has had a
positive impact on children's learning achievements. The
strategy has also crossed national boundaries and has
influenced planning in neighbouring Bangladesh, Nepal and
Pakistan. The founding principles of teacher empowerment and
joyful learning thus hold lessons not just for the rest of
India but for the world as a whole.
Panel 8
Which language for education?
School can be an alien and daunting place for the many
millions of young children who begin classwork in a language
different from their own. Compelled to adopt a second
language when they are as young as four, five or six, these
children must give up an entire universe of meaning for an
unfamiliar one. They may also come to believe that the
language they have known from birth is inferior to the
language of school. In learning complex subjects such as
mathematics and reading, they must undergo one of the
greatest challenges they will ever face, yet the linguistic
skills on which much of their cognitive faculties rest have
suddenly been deemed irrelevant to the task at hand.
As these building blocks of knowledge crumble, so can the
children's self-esteem and sense of identity. It is no
wonder that so many of them struggle to stay in school and
succeed. A recent study in Zambia, for example, showed that
students who began school using English instead of their
mother tongue did not acquire enough reading proficiency to
learn well by grades three to six.
Experts increasingly recognize how important it is for
children to use their mother tongue when they begin school.
Use of this tongue validates their experiences. It helps
them learn about the nature of language itself and how to
use language to make sense of the world, including all
aspects of the school curriculum.
The mother tongue is an essential foundation for learning.
But acquiring proficiency in a national language -- or in
even a third, international language such as French or
English -- also has advantages. It broadens communication
and, later on, affords greater opportunities for higher
education and jobs. Aboriginal educators extol such two-way
learning, which helps students participate in the community
and in the wider world as well.
After the first few grades -- at least by the end of primary
school -- students who begin studies in their mother tongue
should therefore ideally add a national language. This could
be, for example, a Western, former colonial language, such
as French in Senegal, or a dominant indigenous language,
such as Hindi in India. Ascertaining which national language
to introduce in schools, however, can be a matter of
political debate.
In many countries, the two-language education ideal is
rarely attained, despite the fact that most people in the
world deal with more than one language in their daily lives.
Cultural and political considerations often come into play.
Many parents and decision makers, for example, advocate
teaching in the national language from the start as a way to
assimilate children into the dominant culture. For this
reason, some parents will not send their children to a
school that uses only the mother tongue.
Shortages of materials and training programmes have also
hindered the two-language goal. To begin with, teachers may
not speak the local or indigenous languages of their
students, and they are often hard-pressed to find curriculum
materials in these languages. Moreover, even teachers
proficient in a local tongue will require training in how to
teach the national language as a second language in the
later grades.
For governments, the costs of developing learning materials
and teacher-education courses can be enormous, especially
where many languages exist. West Africa, for example, has
500 to 1,000 languages. Yet those costs need to be weighed
against the price society pays for high drop-out and
repetition rates in schools where such language programmes
do not exist.
Whether they learn a second language in first or fourth
grade, children often struggle with a new language, which
can be radically different from their own in terms of
vocabulary, sentence structure and meanings. For example,
Khmer, an indigenous language of Viet Nam, uses a script
derived from a South Indian alphabet, whereas Vietnamese,
the national language, uses the Roman alphabet. Most
children learn a writing system from scratch in the early
grades, but those learning to write in a new language have
to overcome the obstacle of attaching symbols to unfamiliar
words.
Countries, such as Ecuador, have made considerable progress
in bilingual education. Bolivia recently passed its
Education Reform Act in support of the right to a mother
tongue. Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Tanzania and
Zimbabwe have introduced mother-tongue instruction in
primary schools, and villages in Burkina Faso have
introduced it in community-managed schools. Education policy
in Papua New Guinea allows communities to decide the
language of instruction for grades one and two. In Nepal,
UNICEF supports government efforts to produce learning
materials in four languages.
Early mother-tongue instruction is a key strategy to reach
the more than 130 million children not in school -- and help
them succeed.
Panel 9
A new beginning: Education in emergencies
It is 7:30 a.m. on a misty Monday, and the morning haze is
mixed with the smoke of campfires drifting across rows of
tightly packed, blue plastic 'homes'. Dressed in her best --
a striped sweater drooping to her knees, donated by someone
from another continent -- Veridiane joins the trail of small
figures swinging empty plastic bags. The line of children
snakes its way to a clearing under a wide acacia tree called
'school'. There are benches of stones or logs lovingly
aligned by parents. The teacher welcomes Veridiane and the
others to their first day of school.
Such sights were typical in refugee camps in Tanzania after
the massive influx of 500,000 refugees from Rwanda in 1994.
From these first days of 'schools under trees', emergency
education eventually reached 65 per cent of all the children
in the camp, providing much needed stability in their lives.
Veridiane and the other refugees were forcibly repatriated
to Rwanda in December 1996. By then, a new wave of refugees
from civil conflict in Burundi and the Democratic Republic
of the Congo had arrived in Tanzania.
Many lessons learned from the Rwandan refugee experience
were applied: Within a few weeks of their arrival, 'schools
under trees' began with materials provided by UNICEF, the
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) and others. For the 58,000 Burundian children,
textbooks identical to those used in their schools at home
were printed and distributed. The 20,500 Congolese children
in the camps will also soon receive educational materials.
The curriculum, the same as that used in the children's
country of origin, is recognized in many cases by school
systems at home. So it was that six Congolese children, by
agreement with both Governments involved, took the
Democratic Republic of the Congo's national examinations in
1997, which were conducted in Tanzania. Negotiations
continue with the Burundian Government over recognition of
camp-acquired qualifications, so that children will not have
to repeat a grade when they finally return home.
Some elements of refugee schooling nevertheless remain
particular to the situation. For example, children are
taught English and Kiswahili in Tanzania's camps so they can
communicate with surrounding communities. Child rights are
taught through the use of illustrated booklets produced by
Kuleana, an NGO based in Mwanza (northern Tanzania).
Conflict resolution is also a vital part of the school
curriculum -- as well as of adult-education initiatives in
the camps.
In phased approaches to education in emergencies around the
globe, children suffering from psychosocial stress should
have their needs addressed first. Before more formalized
curricula and pedagogic responses can be organized,
recreational programmes -- sports, drama and art -- can give
children opportunities to express and release their
feelings. In acute crisis situations, training packages such
as the Teaching Emergency Package (TEP), developed by
UNESCO, UNICEF and UNHCR for Rwanda, are instrumental as an
early response to educational needs.
However, none of these should be considered stopgap
measures. On the contrary, emergency situations can provide
a new beginning, laying the groundwork for education systems
that are more sensitive to child rights and that include
education in democracy, human rights and peace -- topics
that are still too infrequently addressed in mainstream
classrooms.
The UNICEF-supported Education for Peace project has grown
out of Lebanon's 16 years of civil war. Launched in 1989 in
collaboration with the Lebanese Government and 240 NGOs, the
project has trained 10,000 young people who have, in turn,
organized educational activities reaching approximately
200,000 children. The goal is to promote peace and a culture
of reconstruction and reconciliation; emphasis is placed on
child rights and child development, conflict resolution and
environmental education.
In Sri Lanka, in its 15th year of civil conflict, the
Education for Conflict Resolution project is weaving the
values of tolerance, compassion, understanding and peaceful
living, appreciation of other cultures and non-violent
conflict resolution into school curricula. Since the project
began in 1992, it has reached more than 1 million primary
school children and trained more than 75,000 administrators
and 30,000 student leaders. In 1999, the project will be
introduced into Sri Lanka's secondary schools.
In a world where nearly 50 million people have been uprooted
from their homes, either forced to flee across borders as
refugees or displaced within their own country's borders --
1 in every 120 of the world's population -- the new
understanding of how to educate people in emergency
situations has never been more urgently needed.
Panel 10
In India: Helping the poor choose school
In Andhra Pradesh, India's fifth largest state, 75 villages
are child labour-free because their children are enrolled in
school, due in large part to the efforts of the M.
Venkatarangaiya Foundation (MVF) over the past seven years.
From the inception of the programme in 1991, MVF efforts
have been guided by two interrelated objectives: No child
shall go to work; all children shall go to school.
The MVF programme began in five villages by enrolling 16
children, all girls, in school. By 1998, more than 80,000
children, 5 to 14 years old, boys and girls alike, from 500
villages were enrolled by MVF in government-run schools
throughout the rural areas of the Ranga Reddy district.
"The essence of the programme lies in making the community
accept the idea that no child should work," explains Shanta
Sinha, the Foundation's Secretary-Trustee and a professor of
political science at the University of Hyderabad. "This in
itself is an extremely difficult task since an enormous
conflict of interest is involved. To the parent it means an
immediate loss of a helping hand, while to the employer it
implies the loss of an accessible labour force. To the
teacher it results in a large increase in the number of
children to teach, while the community as a whole takes on
additional responsibility."
Even more difficult than resolving these conflicts of
interest is transforming the social values and cultural
norms that support the concept of children working. How MVF
accomplished this shift is a model of community organizing
and consensus-building among parents and the children
themselves, with teachers, many of whom have joined together
in a 'Forum for Liberation of Child Labour', youth
volunteers known as 'education activists', local officials
and employers. First, MVF contacted every family directly
with the help of the volunteers to determine the status of
each child in the district. Children 5 to 8 years old were
enrolled in regular schools and children aged 9 to 14 were
sent to special night schools or residential camps for three
months in the summer as a sort of 'bridge course',
preparatory to being enrolled in regular schools. The
experiences and progress of both groups of students were
monitored by committees of parents.
Simultaneously, MVF held public meetings, poster campaigns
and rallies. Parent-teacher associations were activated at
the village level and administrative committees at the
district level. "Just as community pressure is built up to
encourage parents to send their children to school," says
Professor Sinha, "employers are also encouraged to stop
hiring children. There have been a number of instances where
employers have, under pressure from the community, come
forward to sponsor for education children whom they once
employed. The community has responded by honouring these
former employers."
With the increased number of children in school, the
teaching staff faced new demands. Additional community
teachers, funded partially by the community and many of whom
were first-generation literates themselves, were hired to
serve the students as a link between the worlds of work and
school. Government teachers were supported by MVF through
workshops that focused on teachers' attitudes towards the
working child attending school for the first time, and
others that addressed the specific problems of working
children.
As the programme matured, MVF's role evolved. In 1997, the
Foundation trained more than 2,000 youth volunteers,
government teachers, 'bridge course' teachers, women
leaders, and elected and NGO officials.
In contrast to most programmes, MVF provides no economic
incentives or recompense to either the children or their
families. Yet the approach has been so successful that the
state government is now duplicating it in other villages.
How does MVF explain its experience?
"The view of the Foundation," says Professor Sinha, "is that
in many cases children have been put to work because they
were not in school rather than the other way around." MVF's
experiences clearly refute the prevailing theory that
economic necessity makes poor parents choose work for their
children rather than school. The poor families of Andhra
Pradesh, given the opportunity and encouraged to do so,
readily withdrew their children from work and enrolled them
in school.
"We seem to have hit upon an agenda that is close to
parents' hearts for what they wanted for their children,"
says Professor Sinha. "The programme strikes a chord."
Panel 11
Egypt's community schools: A model for the education of
girls
Surprisingly, educational innovations are more easily found
in the deprived rural communities of Egypt's south than in
Cairo's wealthy neighbourhoods. Where the desert meets the
lush agricultural fields next to the Nile and where
mountains loom over the valley, time-honoured traditions are
giving way to child-centred schools that are attracting the
most estranged students: girls.
About 25 per cent of southern Egypt's rural population
resides in isolated, sparsely populated hamlets at least 3
km from the nearest village school. Girls are most affected
by these conditions. In most rural areas in the south,
girls' net enrolment rates range from about 50 per cent to
70 per cent, compared with 72 per cent nationally. In the
most extreme situations in some remote areas, only 12 girls
are enrolled for every 100 boys.
In Asyut, Suhag and Qena -- among the most deprived
governorates in the south -- close to 200 community schools
have been established. Their success, in reducing the
obstacles to girls' education and in fostering the active
participation of both girls and boys in the classroom, has
led to the integration of their principles of quality
teaching and learning into the formal education system.
Nadia, who thrived in the child-centred environment of the
Al Gamayla hamlet school, is now an adolescent, with sound
self-esteem and solid educational skills. Currently
attending a preparatory middle school in Om Al Qossur
village, Asyut, she plans to pursue her education all the
way through university, an aspiration emphatically supported
by her family.
"When she was only in the third grade she could read and
write with greater ease and proficiency than her older
brother who had attended the nearest village school. We then
began to rely on her for advice. She became the one to write
our confidential letters to her uncle who is working abroad
in the Gulf," said her father.
Nadia's middle-school teachers quickly noticed her academic
prowess and her active participation in class, leading them
to approach the community school project for guidance about
their new methods of active learning, including
self-directed activities, learning by doing, working in
groups and children's participation in managing the
classroom.
It is the accomplishments of students like Nadia and 4,000
other children who have become active learners that have
prompted Egypt's Ministry of Education and the Government to
expand the community school project. A number of elements
are going to scale, such as training teachers and principals
in active learning pedagogies, developing self-instructional
materials and piloting flexible promotional systems that
advance children when they complete levels of learning
rather than when they pass a specific exam.
The community schools began in 1992 through strong
partnerships among the Ministry of Education, communities,
NGOs and UNICEF. Combining multiple grades in one class,
they represent a model of active learning especially
attractive to girls, based on the principles of community
ownership and parents' participation in their children's
education. True to the principles contained in the
Convention on the Rights of the Child, the schools foster
creativity, critical thinking and problem-solving skills as
the basis for lifelong learning.
With support from the Canadian International Development
Agency (CIDA), the community schools are being integrated
with a government initiative begun in 1993 called the
'one-classroom' schools, which also target girls in deprived
rural hamlets. The schools are operating in more than 2,000
communities across the country.
The integration of the two projects began in earnest in
1995. By ministerial decree, an Education Innovation
Committee (EIC) was created to bring the two initiatives
closer together and to incorporate the best practices of the
projects into the formal basic education system at large, to
encourage innovations in education as an ongoing process.
Active learning and child-centred class management are being
incorporated into the formal schools.
EIC sits in the heart of the Ministry of Education, with
membership drawn from universities, the national literacy
agency, the media and the staff of the Ministry of Social
Affairs. Recently, the Ministry of Education proposed that
NGOs, community members, businessmen and women as well as
health and environment officials also be included.
With such evident demand from communities, parents and
policy makers for quality education, a movement is on its
way, with community schools viewed as a catalyst for social
change and personal transformation. The quest for quality
learning with communities taking responsibility and
ownership of their schools is building a solid foundation
for sustainable development and lifelong learning. Some
refer to it as a silent revolution: a cherished
collaboration for community learning and empowerment.
Panel 12
The macho problem: Where boys are underachieving
"Parents look after girls more," says 16-year-old Sebastian
Brizan. "Boys need protection, too." Sebastian, who lives in
Trinidad and Tobago, feels that both parents and schools pay
less attention to boys than to girls. He started skipping
school at the primary level. He says that he found school
boring and felt the teachers lacked commitment. Ultimately
he failed the Common Entrance Examination - a test required
for entrance into secondary school in the English-speaking
Caribbean.*
In the Caribbean, unlike the majority of the developing
world, boys are doing significantly worse than girls at
school: Fewer boys pass the Common Entrance Examination and
they are more likely to drop out of school. Part of the
problem seems to be that boys grow up with rigid ideas about
gender roles.
"I never wanted nobody to tease me and call me a 'sissy',"
says 17-year-old Algie, from Dominica, on why he used to
skip classes. It has become routine for boys in the
Caribbean to perceive academic effort as 'sissy',
'effeminate' or 'nerdy'.
"The boys don't utilize education in the same way," says a
female teacher from St. Vincent and the Grenadines. "Much of
it has to do with image. They don't want to be seen as a
nerd, and a nerd is someone who works hard at school." A
teacher from Barbados agrees: "They also prefer to be seen
not working. It's not popular to be male and studious. It's
not macho."
The problem is exacerbated by the low proportion of male
teachers in the Caribbean -- especially in Jamaica -- where
positive educational role models for boys are as hard to
come by as they are for girls in many developing countries.
This is also true of primary schools in the industrialized
world, where boys are taught almost exclusively by women.
The problem of boys' educational underachievement is
currently ringing alarm bells there, too.
As recently as the early 1980s, the dominant concern in the
industrialized world was, as in most developing countries
now, with female rather than male underachievement. But now
girls are routinely surpassing boys in average educational
attainment. Some observers link this trend to changes in the
economy and job market. These observers believe men's
traditional role has been taken away, and the resultant
feeling of hopelessness is percolating through even to boys
who are quite young.
Yet in Nigeria, as in many countries in Latin America, it is
precisely boys' greater access to the labour market that is
proving a problem. In eastern Nigeria, the number of boys
dropping out of school is spiralling: In the states of Abia,
Anambra, Enugu and Imo, 51 per cent of boys were out of
school in 1994 and 58 per cent in 1996.
Chima Ezonyejiaku is one of them. His father is a retired
head teacher and his mother still teaches in a village
school, yet Chima has abandoned his studies to apprentice
himself to a wealthy trader in the town of Onitsha. Like
most of his friends, he feels that school is a waste of time
and wants to begin the process of making money.
Boys like Chima are unlikely to go back to school and need
special educational opportunities tailored for them. UNICEF
is assisting the Nigerian Government and Forward Africa, a
local NGO, to provide non-formal educational opportunities
in local market places, mechanic workshops and Koranic
schools. New curricula and instructional materials address
the realities of young boys and girls outside the formal
school system. Classes and school hours are flexible, and
instructors emphasize reading, writing and survival skills
for present-day life.
When Sebastian failed Trinidad and Tobago's Common Entrance
Examination, he was lucky to enrol at the Cocorite Learning
Centre. UNICEF in the Caribbean supports children at risk of
staying out of school -- particularly boys -- through
assistance to centres such as Cocorite. There, he says, the
students are taught right from wrong; teachers talk to him
"about life" and give him guidance. He is able to gain
practical as well as academic skills that help keep him
interested. He no longer skips school because one of the
teachers checks up on him and ensures that he doesn't.
The focus is on improving overall life skills -- including
negotiation, coping, decision-making, critical thinking,
conflict resolution, interpersonal relationships and
communication -- and providing vocational training with an
emphasis on building self-esteem and confidence.
In the Caribbean, as elsewhere, the need is to transform the
education system so that it is 'gender sensitive' -- ready
to address in school and, where possible, out of school, the
social and cultural problems of being a girl or a boy, which
may impede children's educational development. And that
change is just beginning.
___________
* The examination will be abolished in Trinidad and Tobago
in the 1999/2000 school year.
Panel 13
Women educators push the limits for girls in Africa
Impassioned about making a difference in girls' education in
Africa, 60 visionary and influential women -- current and
former ministers of education, university vice-chancellors
and education specialists -- make up the Forum for African
Women Educationalists (FAWE). The organization's agenda on
behalf of Africa's young women and its expectations of
Africa's policy makers are clear. "Girls and women are the
intellectual resource in Africa that will contribute to the
crucial change that the continent is looking for," says Dr.
Eddah Gachukia, FAWE's Executive Director. "Girls must not
only be educated, they must also be accorded the opportunity
to use their education and their skills to make decisions
about and be participants in the development of Africa."
And FAWE insists that problems -- even the unmistakable
issue of funding -- are solvable. "We at FAWE never want to
hear resources cited as an excuse for the lack of Education
For All," Dr. Gachukia told UNICEF during an interview in
her downtown Nairobi office. "Africa has the resources,
internal and external. What Africa needs is to manage these
properly for the benefit of everybody."
With 26 associate members, comprising male ministers of
education and senior policy makers, and 31 national chapters
in all areas of sub-Saharan Africa, FAWE has worked since
1992 to promote Education For All, especially for girls,
through advocacy, concrete actions and policy reforms. Now,
after six years of operation, FAWE's mission extends beyond
just access to education and improving its quality.
In certain ways, FAWE's members -- accomplished in their
individual spheres and working together as a network of
professionals across nations, sectors and disciplines --
personify the organization's vision of educated women
actively engaged in the public life of Africa. In 1994, for
example, citing research findings, they successfully lobbied
the ministers of education in several African countries to
change policies that excluded pregnant girls from
re-entering school. "The message has been," says Dr.
Gachukia, "that education is the right of every child, even
the girl who becomes pregnant, and not a privilege for those
who do not become pregnant."
Through FAWE's national chapters, the organization supports
grass-roots efforts with grants and awards to individuals
and institutions that have found cost-effective, innovative,
replicable ways of promoting girls' education and gender
equity in education. By the end of 1997, FAWE had awarded
more than 40 grants in 27 countries.
"We do not compete with other girls' education programmes,
we recognize them as partners," explains Dr. Gachukia. "All
we do is link them to policy makers so that their local
ideas can gain national and regional recognition and
support."
FAWE's most prestigious award is the Agathe Uwilingiyimana
Prize for innovative achievements in female education in
Africa. The Prize, first awarded in 1996, is dedicated to
the memory of the late Rwandan Prime Minister, a dedicated
educationalist and a FAWE member, who had been a teacher in
a girls' secondary school and once served as Minister of
Education. Projects in eight countries (Burkina Faso,
Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Malawi, Sierra Leone and
Zambia) have been recognized for their success, and the
lessons learned through them have been documented and
shared.
The organization's greatest strength, according to its
Executive Director, is in policy outreach. In 1995, in
Ethiopia, Guinea and Tanzania, FAWE began its programme of
Strategic Resource Planning (SRP) in collaboration with the
Institute of Development Studies, Sussex University (United
Kingdom). The project has since expanded to Ghana, Malawi,
Mali, Senegal, Uganda and Zambia. Through SRP, the
organization assists ministries of education to identify
specific problems affecting girls, collect and analyse data
and develop a range of policy options to close the gender
gap and assure primary schooling for all.
"We present the findings of SRP for each country and we
invite everyone -- community members, teachers, donors,
policy makers -- to sift through the findings and
recommendations," says Dr. Gachukia, explaining that
partners at the national level are then ready to work
together to put their recommendations into action. "We
believe that this strategy makes everybody involved feel
part and parcel of the process and whatever policy that
emerges."
In the final analysis, as effective as its programmes and
activities have been, FAWE's most valuable contributions to
Africa's development may well be in the demonstrated
capabilities of the organization's members to change the
consciousness -- minister by minister, country by country -
about what to expect of girls.
Panel 14
Parent education: Supporting children's first teachers
In most societies, the home and family are the most powerful
socializers of children. Children's learning begins at birth
and continues through early childhood, serving as a strong
preparation for schooling. The role of parents and other
caregivers becomes especially important, therefore, in
fostering the social, intellectual, emotional and physical
characteristics that will enhance children's later learning,
both in school and in life.
Cultures have long perfected ways of transmitting knowledge
to children, and the common wisdom of societies provides a
basis for child care and development that is usually well
adapted to the needs of the particular situation. But the
world is changing, and sometimes parents, especially young
ones, can benefit from new information and knowledge now
available about children's healthy growth and development.
"Many times local or traditional practices are sound, but
increasingly they do not take advantage of all that is
known," says Dr. Robert Myers, the founder of the
Consultative Group on Early Childhood Care and Development,
an inter-agency group, and an international authority on
ECCD.
Indeed, recent studies on child-rearing practices by UNICEF
and the Latin American Episcopal Conference have found that
many parents are aware of 'new' information on children's
affective and cognitive development, but that the
information is often not put into practice.
Parent education programmes can fill this knowledge gap,
helping parents and other caregivers understand what is
needed for better child development, adopt good child-care
practices and effectively use existing services directed at
children's health, nutrition and psychosocial development
needs. Such programmes also bolster parents' self-
confidence, making it easier, in turn, to promote their
children's development.
Innovative programmes that support and educate parents and
other caregivers are in place around the world, from Cuba to
Indonesia, China to Turkey. They have proved popular because
they reach large numbers of people through existing
community networks at a relatively low cost.
The results are tangible and impressive. In Mexico, parents
who have been trained in the nationwide Initial Education
Programme, which targets caregivers of 1.2 million of the
country's poorest children under the age of three, say that
their attitudes about child-rearing have changed. Many add
that they now recognize that traditional punishments for
children are often inappropriate. This non-formal programme,
run by the Government with UNICEF support, reports that
gender roles in childcare are also changing. In remote rural
villages, it is the fathers who attend the training
sessions.
A parent training programme in Turkey has become a model of
non-formal, multipurpose education designed to keep children
in school and learning. Group discussions are held on such
topics as children's health, nutrition and creative play
activities, and mother-child interaction. In follow-up
studies of the first pilot project, significant differences
were found in cognitive development between children whose
mothers had undergone the training and those who had not. As
hoped, children in these families stayed in school longer.
Since expanded, the programme is conducted in cooperation
with the Turkish Ministry of Education and has served more
than 20,000 mother-child pairs.
For 15 years, the Promesa (Promise) project in Colombia has
served about 2,000 rural families. It began by encouraging
groups of mothers to stimulate the physical and intellectual
development of their pre-school children by playing games
with them in the home. Gradually, the mothers in the groups
started to discuss health, nutrition, environmental
sanitation and vocational training. Over time, the project
expanded with residents spontaneously organizing themselves
to solve other issues.
In the Philippines, the Parent Effectiveness Service
combines home visits by volunteers with regular parent
discussion groups. An evaluation of the programme showed
that it has contributed to the development of parents'
knowledge and related skills in the areas of health,
parenting, ECCD, child discipline and husband-wife
relationships. In selected regions, parent discussion groups
were supported by a 30-minute weekly radio broadcast,
'Filipino Family on the Air', which covered 26 topics,
including child rights, gender-sensitive child-rearing,
children and the media, and child abuse.
Parent education activities are most effective when they
complement and reinforce more formal, organized service
programmes, and in fact can sustain children's gains in
early development even if a programme or child-care centre
disappears.
Yet "parent education programmes are no panacea," says Dr.
Myers. To rely on them alone, without the range of more
formal programmes such as child-care and health services,
deprives parents of the full range of support they need --
including resources, facilities, time and information -- for
their children's growth and development.
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