Category Archives: Global education

The battle to bring Kenya’s warrior children back to school – a photo essay

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Covid closures coincided with an initiation ceremony that has put many on a path out of education and set back years of progress

Photographs by Joost Bastmeijer

Shortly after sunrise, three boys step off their motorcycle, pat the dust off their checkered shuka cloths, and enter their family’s boma – an enclosure built from thorny acacia branches in eastern Samburu.

Now that they are morans, the teenagers are considered adults and are no longer permitted to sleep in their parents’ house. Instead, they go each evening to sleep in a nearby school building and return home in the morning. The school has been shut since the Covid-19 outbreak, and benches have been moved aside to make room for mattresses, and a makeshift kitchen.

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West and central Africa’s closed schools putting children at risk, Unicef warns

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Only seven out of 24 countries have reopened classrooms with Covid-safe measures, leaving millions unable to access education

Only one in three countries in west and central Africa have reopened their schools, leaving children at risk of child marriage, early pregnancy and recruitment by local armed groups, Unicef has warned.

Six months after schools across the region closed under lockdown measures, just seven out of 24 countries – Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Sierra Leone – have been able to put measures in place to make classrooms safe for reopening, including hygiene stations and social distancing.

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Suspicion and fear linger as Ethiopia’s campus wars go quiet

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Violent unrest at Ethiopia’s universities has been quelled by police, but the root causes will prove harder to tackle

On a December morning last year, students at Ambo University in Ethiopia’s Oromia region awoke to find threatening notices pinned to the walls of their dormitories. The message was simple: boycott classes. Anyone failing to do so would face punishment.

Written by Oromo student activists calling themselves the Qeerroo, the notices demanded solidarity with fellow Oromos at universities in the neighbouring region of Amhara, after a spate of deadly ethnic clashes there. Similar boycotts had been called in universities across Oromia, the country’s largest region.

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Tanzania to ease education ban on pregnant girls – but not in classrooms

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Official announcement greeted with cautious optimism but World Bank comes under fire over $500m education loan

Tanzania has pledged to improve access to education for pregnant girls after receiving a controversial $500m (£402m) World Bank loan, but has stopped short of readmitting them to mainstream classrooms.

The World Bank has been accused of undermining human rights and has faced criticism from local and international civil society groups over the Tanzania secondary education quality improvement programme loan. Campaigners say approval should not have been given without first securing a commitment from the government to reverse its discrimination towards pregnant girls and end compulsory pregnancy tests.

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Sierra Leone lifts ban on pregnant girls going to school but shutdown expected

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Decision hailed as ‘victory’ comes amid warnings that coronavirus could close schools and leave teenagers vulnerable in quarantine

Sierra Leone has lifted an internationally criticised ban that prohibited pregnant schoolgirls from attending school and sitting exams, in a move heralded by activists as a “victory for feminism” in the west African nation.

The decision, announced on Monday, follows a judgment last December by a top regional court that ordered the immediate overturn of the ban, which effectively barred tens of thousands of girls the right to finish their education. The Economic Community of West African States court instructed Sierra Leone to establish nationwide programmes to help pregnant girls return to school.

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‘No school, no skating’: the Indian skate park bringing children together

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Bringing skateboards to children in Madhya Pradesh gives them enthusiasm to go to school and gives girls a confidence in themselves

The children skid into the dusty courtyard at breakfast time, grabbing skateboards from a stack near a tethered brown cow.

Boards jammed under arms, they sprint barefoot past a large well pump, the main water supply for many families here. They slap their wheels on to the still-clean concrete of Janwaar Castle – India’s newest skateboard park.

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‘I have no regrets’: Tanzania politician branded traitor over World Bank loan

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Opposition leader Zitto Kabwe received death threats after asking bank to suspend education fund over human rights concerns

An opposition leader in Tanzania said he was taking death threats he received after he urged the World Bank to withdraw a $500m (£382m) education loan to the country over human rights concerns “very seriously”.

But Zitto Kabwe, leader of the alliance for change and transparency party (Act), added that he would not be intimidated by comments made by the leader of the ruling party and other officials that his request to the bank was an act of betrayal and he should be killed.

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Bangladesh grants Rohingya refugee children access to education

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Children aged 11-13 will be first to benefit as government eases long-standing restrictions in effort to avoid ‘lost generation’

Bangladesh has confirmed it will lift restrictions on education for young Rohingya refugees, easing bans in place since the existing camps were established 30 years ago.

The government’s move to allow schooling for children aged 11-13 has been widely welcomed by activists and teachers.

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World Bank urged to scrap $500m loan to Tanzania over schoolgirls’ rights concerns

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Campaigners say education funding would be ‘inappropriate if not irresponsible’ in light of ban on pregnant girls attending school

An opposition MP and activists in Tanzania are urging the World Bank to withdraw a $500m (£381m) loan to the country, amid concerns over deteriorating human rights, particularly for women and girls.

In a letter addressed to the bank’s board members, Zitto Kabwe said he feared the money would be used by the ruling party “to distort our electoral processes’” and ensure an easy victory in an election year.

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Nigeria’s child development crisis is a tragedy. Here’s how we can end it

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Investment in health and education and an end to early marriage could transform Africa’s most populous country

If you want a window on the condition of children in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, there is no better vantage point than the Katanga health centre in the impoverished northern state of Jigawa.

In a hut that passes for a nutrition clinic, a group of 25 women wait with their children. Tiny bodies bearing the hallmarks of acute malnutrition – distended stomachs and twig-thin limbs – are lifted into a weighing harness and their arms measured to check for signs of wasting. Ali, who has just reached his first birthday, weighs only 5kg – the average age of a two-month-old in the UK. His mother is 14.

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‘We might be next’: families flee as Burkina Faso tips into chaos

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Schools targeted by extremist groups as half a million people are driven from their homes by violence and the climate crisis

Roukiata Sow looks tired. The mother of five has welcomed 26 people under the roof of her small brick house. “What will those kids become? Some haven’t been to school for more than two years … Are they all going to be bandits?” she asks.

She is sitting, her head draped in a long grey veil, with other women and girls in a small courtyard in front of her home in Dori, the capital of the Sahel region of northern Burkina Faso.

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Sierra Leone ordered to revoke ban on pregnant schoolgirls

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Regional court ruling hailed as ‘landmark moment for thousands of girls’ who will no longer be forced to miss lessons and exams

Pregnant schoolgirls in Sierra Leone will no longer be banned from attending class or sitting exams, after a regional court ordered the immediate overturn of a “discriminatory” policy that has denied tens of thousands the right to finish their education.

In a ruling handed down in Nigeria on Thursday, a top regional court found that a 2015 directive barring pregnant girls from attending school amounted to discrimination and a violation of human rights.

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Soaring arches, broken tiles: why Gaudí’s style was perfect for Senegal

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Experts from Barcelona combined local techniques and materials with the tradition of the Catalan master to build new school

At first sight the school buildings that have sprung up in Thionck Essyl in Senegal resemble a lost work by Antonio Gaudí.

The strikingly-designed school, where classes began in October, is the work of a group of volunteers led by the Barcelona architect David Garcia and his colleague Lluís Morón, who established a foundation to crowdfund the project.

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Italy to put sustainability and climate at heart of learning in schools

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Country will become first to make study of global heating and human influence on natural resources compulsory in state schools

Italy is to become the first country in the world to make sustainability and climate crisis compulsory subjects for schoolchildren.

State schools will begin incorporating the UN’s 2030 agenda for sustainable development into as many subjects as possible from September, with one hour a week dedicated to themes including global heating and humans’ influence on the planet.

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University vice-chancellor stands aside over blackmail claims in Pakistan

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Javed Iqbal denies involvement in scandal over alleged use of CCTV footage to extort money from students in Balochistan

The vice-chancellor of a university in the volatile region of Balochistan in Pakistan has temporarily stepped down from his role following the launch of an investigation into allegations of harassment and blackmail on campus.

Javed Iqbal said on Sunday that he was leaving his post at the University of Balochistan until the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) concluded its inquiry into claims that CCTV footage of students was used by university officials to blackmail them. Most of the students allegedly affected were female.

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Up to 90% of 10-year-olds in world’s poorest countries struggle to read

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World Bank targets ‘learning poverty’ as research shows major shortfall in basic reading skills among least privileged children

Nine out of 10 children in the world’s poorest countries are unable to read a basic book by the age of 10 – a situation mirrored in reverse in rich countries, where only 9% cannot do so by the same age.

Data compiled by the World Bank and the UN also shows that when low- and middle-income countries are taken together – a total of 135 states – more than half of all children cannot read a simple text at 10 years old.

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‘Words, not guns’: learning brings hope to Haiti’s most notorious slum

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Swamped by sewage and prone to floods, Cité Soleil is a hotbed for gangs and violence. But for a lucky few, an education initiative offers a glimpse of a better future

Billy Lafalaise has spent much of his 16 years avoiding the allure of gang life in one of the world’s most notorious slums. He was born in Cité Soleil, the sprawling shantytown of Haiti’s downtrodden and chaotic capital, Port-au-Prince.

“Everyone wants to be in a gang here,” Billy says, his mother Jinette nodding in agreement. “And every gang is always looking for recruits.”

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‘Invest or pay the price’: more than half of refugee children not in education

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UN refugee chief warns of generation condemned to grow up unable to find work, as special education envoy Gordon Brown calls for urgent funding

More than half of the world’s 7.1 million school-age refugee children are failing to get an education despite recent spikes in enrolment rates, the UN refugee agency has found.

School shortages, oversubscribed classrooms and a lack of teachers in host countries are among the barriers faced by the 3.7 million refugee children aged five to 18 who are currently out of school, according to a UNHCR report published on Friday. The vast majority are missing out on secondary school.

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Violence forces 1.9 million children out of classes in west and central Africa

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Unicef report points to three-fold increase in number of schools closed in the region in two years due to intensifying conflict

More than 1.9 million children are forced out of school across west and central Africa due to rising violence and insecurity, putting them at higher risk of recruitment by armed groups, the UN’s children agency has warned.

In an urgent report published on Friday, Unicef revealed that more than 9,000 schools have been shut down as of June this year in eight countries; Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Niger and Nigeria.

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The play’s the thing: the university using drama to bridge ethnic divides

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Ethiopia’s conflicts are reflected at universities but, by walking in each other’s shoes on stage, students learn to do so in life

Rainy season has begun in Ethiopia’s south. On a stormy morning at a university in the town of Wolkite, students are using drama to break down entrenched ethnic barriers.

Understanding between groups is a rarity in a country where violent conflict is common. Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, has promised greater stability, but tensions remain high in various regions and the education system is no more immune to deep-rooted tribal differences than anywhere else.

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