Schools on the front line in the fight against sexual abuse in Haiti Gender-Based Violence (GBV) is a significant public health concern for all girls and women in Haiti and particularly in the urban center of Port-au-Prince. One in three women in Haiti have experienced sexual violence and half of all rape victims are under age 17 at the time of the crime (Amnesty International 2008)
Every year, June 16 is the Day of the African Child. It commemorates the thousands of courageous children in Soweto, South Africa, who in 1976 marched to protest apartheid and to demand equal education. The march ended in violence: – hundreds of youth were wounded or killed. Their legacy continues to build a better future for African children.
The Week of the Young Child™ is an annual celebration sponsored by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) to focus public attention on the learning opportunities for young children, their families, and the professionals and educators who serve them.
As UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon noted this week, “Today, there are 57 million children out of school - and most of them are girls.” Teachers and administrators around the globe are struggling to create school environments that are friendly and supportive to both girls and boys. Yet complex gender-based barriers to education remain, hindering girls’, and in some cases boys’, access to school and participation in the classroom. For example, girls are less likely to begin school in many places, but boys are more likely to repeat grades or drop out altogether.
With less than a 1,000 days to meet the MDG Goals, India still has 290,000 children who are not enrolled in school and every year 13 percent of children drop out in Grade 5 alone.
LinkedIn, the international jobs and professional networking site, recently announced that it was going to allow students 13 years and older create profiles on its site. LinkedIn is the latest example of how young students worldwide -- that is, students who have access to the Internet and the educational opportunities to make them aware of the opportunities available on a site like LinkedIn -- can now learn about a world of work that exists beyond the boundaries of their country and city.
In a tight budget environment for education, it is tempting to view ICT equipment and training as a luxury to cut. We can all think of a case where technology for technology's sake hasn't worked: an unused laptop in the corner of an overfilled classroom, an interactive whiteboard at a school without adequate electricity to support its use, a smartphone game developed for a population of youth without access to smartphones.
Camilla Croso, President of the Global Campaign for Education (GCE), participating in a key session of the Education Summit in Washington, DC sponsored by the United Nations, stressed the urgent need for trained and resourced teachers if the "final sprint" to achieve the education Millennium Development Goal by December 2015.
It is the most wonderful time of the year--the time when we highlight actions taken on behalf of education for all throughout the year! GLOBAL ACTION WEEK 2013! The website has launched and you can find it here.
Around the world, more girls than ever before have access to an education, thanks partly to the Millennium Development Goals' focus on universal access to education. That's the good news. But though girls now have access to school at record levels, there are many differences from one region to the next and many are not receiving a quality education once they're in school. This ‘silent crisis' affects millions of girls around the world and is preventing them from pulling themselves -- and their families -- out of poverty.
