A joint meeting of the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education and the Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and Training has welcomed the plan by the Department of Basic Education to incrementally implement the use of African languages in all South African schools.
According to the Department of Basic Education, the programme will be implemented as from 2014 for Grade R and Grade 1. This will incrementally increase to include Grade 12 by 2025. The language selection for First Additional Language (FAL) would be Xitsonga, any Nguni language, a Sotho language, Tshivenda or Afrikaans. (via Parliament welcomes use of African languages in all schools (English))
Mali: School of Hope
It’s been almost 10 years since teachers searched the streets of Bamako, Mali for hearing-impaired children, 19 of whom would be their first pupils. Today, the School of Hope is ensuring that its 160 pupils have an education – and a role at the centre of their families.It is estimated that 90 per cent of the pupils at the School of Hope are survivors of meningitis – an inflammation of the protective membranes of the spine and brain.
In 2011, UNICEF reached nearly 11 million Malians under the age of 29 through an aggressive meningitis vaccination campaign.
Like all children, those with disabilities have many abilities, but are often excluded from society by discrimination and lack of support, leaving them among the most invisible and vulnerable children in the world.
On 30 May, UNICEF launched its flagship report The State of the World’s Children 2013: Children with Disabilities. The report brings global attention to the urgent needs of a largely invisible population.
Read more: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/mali_69546.html
[UNITED STATES] Poverty is getting so concentrated in America that one out of five public schools was classified as as a “high-poverty” school in 2011 by the U.S. Department of Education. To win this unwelcome designation, 75 percent or more of an elementary, middle or high school’s students qualified for free or reduced-price lunch. About a decade earlier, in 2000, only one in eight public schools was deemed to be high poverty. That’s about a 60 percent increase in the number of very poor schools!
Last week, Chicago announced the closure of 50 public schools, the majority of them on the South and West sides of the city, in the poorer neighbourhoods. The closures represent about eight per cent of the 681 public schools in Chicago, the third-largest school district in the country.
More than 400,000 students are enrolled in these public schools, a large majority African-American or Hispanic and from low-income families. In fact, around 100 schools have closed since 2001 in Chicago where 88 per cent of the students affected were African-American, according to the New York Times.
(via Education International - US: 50 schools to be shut down - largest public school closure in history)
Nigeria: Extremist attacks hit school attendance (21 May 2013)
EI [Education International] has strongly condemned attacks on Nigerian schools, teachers and students that have kept 15,000 children away from school since last February. News of the attacks by Boko Haram (BH) extremists came from IRIN, the news service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The attacks on state schools in the Borno State, North-Eastern Nigeria, have continued.
Teachers killed and schools burnt down
Most of the affected children are primary school students, according to a Borno State Ministry of Education spokesman. So far, BH has burned or destroyed 50 of the state’s 175 schools, he said. Teachers in the state have confirmed the numbers.
Students are staying at home for fear of attack, or being transferred to private Islamic schools, known in the north as Islamiyya. On 6 May, state schools were officially to reopen following a six-week break, but many have stayed closed, as officials and teachers fear attack.
via Education International - Nigeria: Extremist attacks hit school attendance
See the child - before the disability
Children with disabilities have a much greater role to play in societies.UNICEF LAUNCHES STATE OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN
This year, UNICEF’s flagship publication highlights not just the challenges of the estimated tens of millions of children who live with disabilities, but also the contributions they can make, if allowed to achieve their ambitions. It says that concentrating on abilities rather than disabilities would benefit society as a whole.“When you see the disability before the child, it is not only wrong for the child, but it deprives society of all that child has to offer,” says UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake. “Their loss is society’s loss; their gain is society’s gain.”
Visit the SOWC Website: http://www.unicef.org/sowc2013/
#thisability
In Mongolia, centre helps children with disabilities learn new skills
Like all children, those with disabilities have many abilities, but are often excluded from society by discrimination and lack of support, leaving them among the most invisible and vulnerable children in the world.
In northern Mongolia, a centre supporting children with disabilities has proven a lifeline for 13-year-old Uyanga.
(by unicef)
Also see here.
The Kenya National Union of Teachers yesterday asked teachers in schools bordering the Kenya-Somali border to stay away until the government guarantees them of security.
This is after five people among them a school teacher were killed last Saturday during the attack on two police posts by Al Shabaab militants …
BUCHAREST, 24 May 2013 – This week, Romania’s Ministry of Education and UNICEF, in partnership with the Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Protection and Senior Citizens, the National Institute of Statistics and the Institute of Education Sciences have launched “All Children in School by 2015 – the Global Initiative on Out-of-School Children: Romania Country Study”.
The report was developed as part of the global Out-of-School Children Initiative, an equity focused effort developed by UNICEF and the UNESCO Institute for Statistics aiming to reduce the number of out-of-school children, address disparities in access and attendance and achieve universal primary education by 2015. (via Romania launches ‘All Children in School by 2015,’ a country study on out-of-school children | Back on Track)
