As the international education community begins to focus a long lens on the Sustainable Development Goals taking shape around secondary education and quality, lifelong learning, with special emphasis on technical and vocational skills, Connect To Learn too is evolving our mission to build upon our work providing girls’ scholarships and ICT tools in remote, resource poor classrooms into one that takes a broader, more holistic approach to education.
Zambia joined the rest of the world in committing to achieving Education for All (EFA) goals that would ensure quality access to education by 2015. As such, the Zambia National Education Coalition was born to provide a platform for coordinated civil society advocacy for attainment of the goals.
After the introduction of nine year basic education in 2007 and 12 year basic education by the government of Rwanda in 2010, many of the private schools have lost the majority of their students. Some of them even ended up closing the doors. Private schools leaders blame these two programs as the main cause for their collapse, but the government did not intend to close private schools. Through its efforts of bringing positive changes in public and government aided schools, they are making public schools more affordable to parents and students which has made it difficult for some private schools to compete.
We recognize that 2015 is a particularly transformative year for the global education community as we reflect upon the progress made toward meeting Education for All and the Millennium Development Goals and work to position education as central to the emerging Sustainable Development Goals. During this era of rapid change in education at the global and local levels, it is important to promote approaches and initiatives that advance not only educational equity, access, and quality, but also the education sector as a whole.
A lot is going on in the world. The term a lot is not an understatement or an exaggeration—a lot is going on and I am sure it can feel quite overwhelming. A lot going on can make you feel small and insignificant and unsure about whether you really can do anything to make the world a better place.
Since 2013 the school fees charged by public secondary schools in Kenya have risen dramatically--- some schools charging up to USD 1200 per year. This cost was far beyond the reach of many Kenyans.
The facts are stark. In 2014, UNHCR – the UN Refugee Agency – estimated that 51.2 million people were living as refugees or internally displaced persons globally. What might seem like a temporary predicament often leads to a long-term reality. In fact, the average length of displacement for refugees is 17 years, and 20 years for those internally displaced.
For over 50 years, Malawi used the 1962 Education Act to govern its education system. This document was created before independence. The need to review the act became clear when taking into consideration the transformations that the education system went through over the years.
It’s been 15 years since world leaders committed to improving lives of those living in poverty through the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These goals have been an important point of reference for how far we’ve come, what remains to be done and the existing challenges. International donors also made a commitment that “no countries seriously committed to education for all will be thwarted in their achievement of [universal access] by a lack of resources.”
Successful implementation of Millennium Development Goal #2 will ensure that all boys and girls everywhere will be able to complete a full course of primary school. As we know, although great progress has been made, worldwide there are still more than 58 million children of primary school age who are not in school.