UNICEF - Education Programme

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Costs

To make universal basic education a reality for 130 million children will require approximately $7 billion of additional expenditure per year over 10 years - a total of $70 billion.

If we carry on allocating the same resources to basic education as we are now, 162 million children will be out of school by 2015. The message is clear: if we don't invest greater resources in education, we are betraying the world's children. The status quo is unacceptable.

UNESCO data estimate that non-salary expenditure per primary school pupil in sub-Saharan Africa amounts to only $3 per year, against an "absolute" minimum of $5 per pupil per annum, divided as follows: $1.50 on textbooks, $1.50 on writing materials and $2 on teacher training. Costs in other regions of the world vary, and the expense of actually developing books and materials, training and supporting teachers intensively enough to lead to sustained changes in teaching-learning methods is considerably more.

The point is, however, that such changes, if done with community support and in an efficient manner, are not necessarily expensive - a little money can go a long way. In Zambia, for example, children have contributed to raising the school's revenue by selling vegetable and food produce to the local community. Pupils and teachers make some of their own learning materials. The proceeds, collegially controlled, are reinvested in the school (extension, maintenance, buying materials or textbooks).

Country Stories

Burkina Faso	Cambodia	Egypt
Senegal	Thailand	Zambia

Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso is one of the poorest countries in the world. An estimated 82% of the adult population is illiterate. However, the outlook is not bleak. In recent years primary school enrolment has increased, thanks to efforts such as the Satellite School Programme.

The Satellite school programme was initiated by UNICEF and other partners. It aims to provide basic education for 7-8 year old children in the provinces where school enrolment rates are lowest.

Characteristics of Satellite Schools:

Geographical proximity: the school is at a maximum distance of 3km from the village where the students come from.
Cultural proximity: teachers are recruited from the community and teach in local languages. French is introduced gradually.
Community involvement: the surrounding community participates in the construction and management of the school.
Gender parity: 50/50 parity between boys and girls and male/female teachers.
After Grade 3, children who have completed this level are transferred to the formal school system.

Achievements:

Since 1996 the programme has supported the construction and provided equipment for 188 new schools and 33 Non-Formal Basic Education centres (for drop-out 10-15 years old).
By the end of 1998 the programme will have provided access to basic education to 28,000 children. About 45% of them are girls.
UNICEF has also supported the printing of 75,000 textbooks in local languages.
The Programme has mobilized parents to construct and manage schools.
10 child care centres known as Bisongos have been built near the school, helping to liberate girls from the task of looking after younger siblings during school time.
Mothers' organisations in several districts have engaged in income-generating projects, enabling them to reduce their daughters' workloads.
Drop-out rates are low in many satellite schools.

Cambodia

The floating classroom: school clusters

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 school's wooden base is stabilised 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 or paddle their canoes to the school.

Kampong Prahok school is part of a cluster of 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. According to Sieng Sovathana, Deputy Director of the Provincial Office of Education, "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 total, 631 clusters have been established across the country, 44 of which UNICEF supports as of mid-1998.

"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".

Pawan Kucita, UNICEF Education Officer in Phnom Penh, "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".

Egypt

Community schools

About 25% of southern Egypt's rural population lives in isolated, sparsely populated hamlets at least 3km 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 50-70%, compared with 72% nationally. In the most extreme situations, 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 teaching and learning into the formal education system.

Nadia, who thrived in the child-centred environment of the Al Gaymayla 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, Asyet, she plans to pursue her education all the way through university.

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 Minister 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 allow children to more up a grade 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 CRC, the schools foster creativity, critical thinking and problem-solving skills as the basis for lifelong learning.

With support form 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 2 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 and to encourage innovations in education as an ongoing process. Active learning and child-centre class management are being incorporated into the formal schools.

Senegal

Scolarisation des filles (SCOFI)

Less than 27% of Senegalese adults are literate.
40% of Senegalese children are out of school
Almost two thirds of them are girls

The Senegalese Government has developed a National Plan of Action for Girls' Education 1995-2001. Aware of the benefits of girls' education, the Government and UNICEF have jointly prepared a project to reinforce girls' education: Scolarisation des filles (SCOFI). Since 1996 it has been financed by the Norwegian government through AGEI (African Girl's Education Initiative).

SCOFI is a national programme that supports improvements in girls' education both in the formal and in the non-formal schooling systems. It tries to reinforce all levels of girls' education in formal schools, non-formal model classes and in community based schools, which are seen as a link between the two systems. In general the formal schools represent the ordinary primary cycle of six years, whereas the non-formal schools provide literacy training and life-skills education. The community based schools are meant for out-of-school children aged 9-15. Therefore the modern school in Senegal features different forms of schooling.

Characteristics of SCOFI:

The SCOFI schools cover 25 districts with great disparities between boys and girls enrolment.

It targets a total of 280,000 girls (220,000 in the formal and 60,000 in non-formal education).

SCOFI Committees, composed of members from the Government, NGOs, municipalities, and local communities, follow up the implementation of the National Plan of Action for Girls' Education.

Achievements:

Mobilization of decision makers, leaders, and the general population in favour of girls education.
An increase in girls' enrolment in the formal school system.
Support to 1260 adolescent girls in 20 villages through an experimental literacy training programme in local languages and French.
Provision of benches and desks, school materials and audio-visual equipment to school in targeted areas.
Provision of computer equipment for use in data collection and analysis on girls' education in the targeted district.

Thailand

The Children's Integrated Learning and Development project (CHILD)

Somjai is in grade 3 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.

In light of her continuing downward trend, 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. He 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 student were drawn.

The response to this modest request for a second-hand computer has grown far beyond a network of computers in rural schools into a dynamic example of child rights in action. 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, comprising social and family factors that might affect learning. Teachers and communities then use these over time to make informed decisions and propose actions.

The scheme is flexible and can change 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.

Therefore, the CHILD project now redefines its objective as strengthening and preserving children's rights, in line with CRC. 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 that are returning to their villages due to the recent economic crisis.

Zambia

Programme for Advancement of Girls' Education (PAGE) The economy of Zambia has been declining since the late 1970s. Macro economic reforms have had a devastating impact on basic social services, and Zambia is spending 5 times more on debt servicing than on education.

Enrolment in primary education has dropped from 96% in 1985 to 77% in 1994. Girls have been particularly hard hit. Obstacles to education such as high direct and indirect costs, lack of teachers and crumbling school infrastructure affect both sexes, but societal attitudes also present serious problems for girls. Women are often seen as inferior to men, and this view influences the perception of a girl's need for schooling. In an effort to counteract negative stereotypical attitudes which are embedded in the economic, social and educational structures of Zambia's society, the PAGE programme is a systematic attempt to raise the level of public, institutional and pupil awareness of the essential equality of boys and girls.

PAGE (Programme for Advancement of Girls' Education)

PAGE was started in 1994, and in 4 years it has grown from a limited pilot project in two districts to a programme planned to extend across all districts in Zambia. The programme has two aims: to empower girls and young women, allowing them to fully participate in and benefit from the country's development; and to ensure the survival of girls into adulthood with particular emphasis on protection from HIV/AIDS. At the same time, the process involves identification of factors affecting all children, as well as those exclusive to girls.

PAGE intervenes in several ways. On a national level it includes advocacy for girls' education, affirmative action for women, and capacity building at all levels of society, from the Ministry of Education to the schools themselves. A special Girls' Education curriculum model has been developed by teachers. The integration of a gender perspective in existing programmes in the Ministry aims to improve the proportion of women in the management system. Importantly, PAGE serves as a catalyst for advancing quality education for both girls and boys.

At the provincial and district levels, PAGE includes monitoring and reporting on girls' education and gender training for teachers. Single sex classes have been piloted in an effort to improve girls' self esteem, self-confidence and school performance. Because the school is the major focus of change, PAGE addresses specific school issues, such as the school's physical environment, school organization, teacher attitudes and methodologies. PAGE also involves parents in sharing responsibility for their children's education. The whole community is targeted, including village leaders and elders. They are involved when sensitive issues such as girls' initiation rites and early marriage are discussed, and they are consulted about the planning and management of school development.

A recent evaluation of pilot communities showed a number of positive changes for girls, such as:

A decline in enrolment gender disparity.
A change in policy for pregnant girls allowing them to complete their education.
Teachers who are aware of gender problems now working to create girl-friendly schools.
Parents actively involved in their daughter's schooling.

Girls education, as an equality issue, has also broadened the Ministry of Education's vision on other equality related issues in Zambia, and has benefited AIDS orphans, AIDS victims and children in poor rural areas.

Cornerstone

"Education is a human right, with immense power to transform. On its foundation rest the cornerstones of freedom, democracy and sustainable human development."

Kofi Annan

Investment in education provides the cornerstone for improvements in health, nutrition, water and sanitation, and the elimination of abject poverty. The positive impact of education on other sectors goes hand in hand with UNICEF's whole child approach. Children's needs are interrelated and planning focuses on the overall welfare of the child. Education provides a key to overall welfare.

Education as a deterrent to child labour

Universal, good quality primary education is the greatest deterrent to child labour. A comprehensive strategy to combat hazardous child labour must begin with its logical alternative: high quality schools and relevant educational programmes to which families will want to send their children and in which children will want to participate. Providing compulsory education available free to all is also part of a longer term child labour prevention strategy by ensuring that new generations of children are not driven into the most hazardous forms of work.

Education and child labour interact profoundly. Work can keep children away from school. At the same time, poor quality education often causes children to drop out of school and start working at an early age.

Education as a means to fight the commercial sexual exploitation of children

One of the most hazardous and exploitative forms of child labour is the commercial sexual exploitation of children. The physical and psychosocial damage inflicted by commercial sexual exploitation makes it one of the most hazardous forms of child labour. No matter how high the wages or how few the hours, the children involved have to confront serious health risks every day, including HIV and sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies and drug addiction. But they are also plunged into a distorted reality in which violence and distrust, shame and rejection are the norms.

It is self-evident how important education is to these children. Not only will education allow them to distinguish between right and wrong, but also it will protect them from abuse through empowerment and increased knowledge and higher self-esteem.

In all aspects of child labour, girls are particularly vulnerable. UNICEF aims to expand and improve its support to education systems in such a way as to bolster countries' capacities to provide effective alternatives for working children.

Education and Health

Promoting health must be an integral part of any strategy to provide basic education for all children. The Global School Health Initiative of the World Health Organization gives a very clear message: "Good health supports successful learning just as successful learning supports health." At the same time poor health can keep children away from school.

Egypt is promoting a comprehensive package of reforms aimed at generating healthy and health-promoting schools. The package includes:

Regular medical checks for schoolchildren.
A school nutrition programme, with special help for rural areas.
Free health insurance for school children.
The integration of health and nutrition messages into the curriculum.
Child to child programmes to promote health in the community.

Egypt's efforts to make schools and students healthier are resulting in higher and earlier enrolment, lower rates of absenteeism and drop-out, and better learning achievement. Promoting health and nutrition within education will reap rewards. A child who is hungry and malnourished will not concentrate as well as a child who is not hungry.

Research also shows that improvement in the health of schoolchildren reduces the transmission of disease in the community, with children proving to be exceptionally effective as health promoters themselves, passing on what they learn to siblings, friends, family members and other adults.

'Child-Friendly' school

Characteristics of a rights-based, child-friendly school

Reflects and realises the rights of every child - cooperates with other partners to promote and monitor the well-being and rights of all children; defends and protects all children from abuse and harm (as a sanctuary), both inside and outside the institution
Sees and understands the whole child, in a broad context - is concerned with what happens to children before they enter the system (e.g., their readiness for school in terms of health and nutritional status, social and linguistic skills), and once they have left the classroom -- back in their homes, the community, and the workplace.
Is child-centred - encourages participation, creativity, self-esteem, self-confidence, and psycho-social well-being; promotes a structured, child-centred curriculum and teaching-learning methods appropriate for the child's developmental level, abilities, and learning style; and considers the needs of children over the needs of the other actors in the system
Is gender-sensitive and girl-friendly - promotes parity in the enrolment and achievement of girls and boys; reduces constraints to gender equity and eliminates gender stereotypes; provides facilities, curricula and learning processes welcoming to girls.
Promotes quality learning outcomes - encourages children to think critically, ask questions, express their opinions -- and learn how to learn; helps children master the essential enabling skills of writing, reading, speaking, listening, and mathematics and the general knowledge and skills required for living in the new century -- including useful traditional knowledge and the values of peace, democracy, and the acceptance of diversity
Provides education based on the reality of children's lives - ensures that curricular content responds to the learning needs of individual children as well as to the general objectives of the education system and the local context and traditional knowledge of families and the community
Is flexible and responds to diversity - meets differing circumstances and needs of children (e.g., gender, culture, social class, ability level)
Acts to ensure inclusion, respect, and equality of opportunity for all children - does not stereotype, exclude, or discriminate on the basis of difference
Promotes mental and physical health - encourages healthy behaviour and practices and guarantees a hygienic, safe, secure, and joyful environment
Provides education that is affordable and accessible - especially to children and families most at-risk
Enhances teacher capacity, morale, commitment, and status - ensures that its teachers have sufficient pre-service training, in-service support and professional development, status, and income
Is family focused - attempts to work with and strengthen the family and helps children, parents and teachers establish harmonious, collaborative partnerships
Is community-based - strengthens school governance through a decentralised, community-based approach; encourages parents, local government, community organisations, and other institutions of civil society to participate in the management as well as the financing of education; promotes community partnerships and networks focused on the rights and well-being and rights of the children.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child

Articles 28 and 29 relate directly to education.

Article 28

"States Parties recognise the right of the child to education, and with a view to achieving this right progressively and on the basis of equal opportunity, they shall, in particular:
1. Make primary education compulsory and available free to all;
2. Encourage the development of different forms of secondary education, including general and vocational education, make them available and accessible to every child, and take appropriate measures such as the introduction of free education and offering financial assistance in case of need;
3. Make higher education accessible to all on the basis of capacity by every appropriate means;
4. Make educational and vocational information and guidance available and accessible to all children;
5. Take measures to encourage regular attendance at schools and the reduction of drop-out rates
States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that school discipline is administered in a manner consistent with the child's human dignity and in conformity with the present Convention.
States Parties shall promote and encourage international cooperation in matters relating to education, in particular with a view to contributing to the elimination of ignorance and illiteracy throughout the world and facilitating access to scientific and technical knowledge and modern teaching methods. In this regard, particular account shall be taken of the needs of developing countries.

Article 29

States Parties agree that the education of the child shall be directed to:
1. The development of the child's personality, talents and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential;
2. The development for the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and for the principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations;
3. The development of respect for the child's parents, his or her own cultural identity, language and value, for the national values of the country in which the child is living, the country from which he or she may originate, and for civilizations different from his or her own;
4. The preparation of the child for responsible life in a free society, in the spirit of understanding, peace, tolerance, equality of sexes, and friendship among all peoples, ethnic, national and religious groups and persons of indigenous origin;
5. The development of respect for the natural environment
No part of the present article or article 28 shall be construed so as to interfere with the liberty of individuals and bodies to establish and direct educational institutions, subject always to the observance of the principles set forth in paragraph 1 of the present article and to the requirement that the education given in such institutions shall conform to such minimum standards as may be laid down by the State.

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