Millennium Development Goal (MDG) #2 urges people around the world to take action to ensure that, by 2015, every child is able to complete a full course of primary schooling. This issue of the Drum Beat explores how communication is being used strategically to help meet this Goal - by increasing the numbers of children who are able to attend and stay in school, and by enhancing the quality of that education.

For background on MDG #2 and the other goals, click here.

Next month we will focus on MDG #3: Gender Equity. Please send your projects, articles, events, etc. to Deborah Heimann dheimann@comminit.com

CONTEXT

1. Millennium Campaign

• 1 in 4 adults in the developing world - 872 million people - is illiterate. (Oxfam UK - Education Now Campaign)
• Universal primary education would cost US$10 billion a year - that's half what Americans spend on ice cream. (ActionAid)
• Young people who have completed primary education are less than half as likely to contract HIV as those missing an education. Universal primary education would prevent 700,000 cases of HIV each year - about 30% all new infections in this age group. (Oxfam)

2. Girls' Education: A Worldwide Snapshot

103 million children of primary school age are not in school; 58 million are girls. Two-thirds of illiterate adults are women. In a typical developing country, giving girls 1 additional year of schooling would save as many as 60,000 children's lives.

3. Deadly Inertia: A Cross-Country Study of Educational Responses to HIV/AIDS

by Tania Boler & Anne Jellema

The Global Campaign for Education (GCE) stresses that, without a systematic strategy for mitigating its impact, AIDS will undermine the provision of education, slowing or even reversing progress towards universal education. Further, children who most need the protection and skills afforded by education - those affected or infected by the disease - will not be able to attend school unless their special needs are addressed.

4. Ethiopian Teenagers' Forum Recommendations and Action Plan on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

In October 2004, 200 young people and children from 40 Addis Ababa elementary and high schools gathered to suggest action relating to the MDGs. To achieve universal primary education, they recommend that the Government build new schools, especially in rural areas. They stress that awareness needs to be created within Ethiopian society, especially on the part of parents (so that they send their children to school). Finally, to ensure quality education, the Government needs to give special attention to training teachers...

MOBILISING FOR QUALITY: SUPPORTING SYSTEMS, TEACHERS & PUPILS

5. Every Child Needs a Teacher - Global

According to the Global Campaign for Education (GCE), the United Nations estimates that at least 15 million more teachers are needed to meet MDG #2...yet in Zambia, there are an average of 64 pupils to every primary teacher, and in Uganda, 50% of primary teachers have no formal training. This April 2006 GCE Action Week seeks to mobilise the global public in advocating for increased awareness about and support for the crucial role that teachers play in helping to achieve Education for All (EFA) and MDG #2. To build pressure on politicians to provide more money and leadership, GCE asks students, teachers and campaigners to make the case for teachers by gathering evidence in the form of paper cut-out "teachers" with messages such as "please send a teacher to school", pictures of children who are out of school, or personal testimonials that use drama, stories, songs or pictures. This effort will culminate in various national "big hearings" in which officials will be pressed to take action.

Contact Alex Kent alex@campaignforeducation.org

6. Education for Empowerment (EfE) - Ghana

In Ghana's rural areas only 8.7% of children within public schools at Primary Six level can read and write and 4.0% of children are numerate. In response, Ibis is undertaking this 6-year (2004-2009) programme to protect the right to and quality of education on the part of children, particularly girls, between the ages of 6 and 15 living in refugee camps and in rural communities. EfE reaches out to teachers and volunteers in an effort to improve performance and good governance in local and national education systems - as well as to sustain motivation and accountability through partnership. This cooperation is intended to support the introduction of simple literacy methodologies, as well as to build the skills of female teachers as role models at district level and increase the number of girls willing to serve as volunteer teachers in rural areas.

Contact ibis@ibisghana.com

7. Early Childhood Initiative (ECI) - Pittsburgh, PA, USA

This effort on the part of the Heinz Endowments, in collaboration with business, corporate, agency, and foundation sectors, aims to extend diverse, high-quality early care and education programmes and options to unserved children in high-risk neighbourhoods of one USA community. ECI's mission is to foster preschool and school success for children living in poverty, whose typical retention and special education placement rates in kindergarten have ranged between 18% and 40%. ECI's hallmark is community-driven change, as illustrated by the School Readiness Group, a nonprofit early childhood consortium that harnesses the influence of cross-community partners to advocate for educational funding.

Contact Stephen J. Bagnato, Ed.D. Steve.Bagnato@chp.edu

8. Education and HIV/AIDS: Ensuring Education Access for Orphans and Vulnerable Children

This training module highlights the magnitude of the orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) crisis, largely due to the spread of HIV/AIDS. It includes a section exploring the factors that influence access to education and surveying the impact of parents' HIV/AIDS-related illness and death on their children's enrolment, attendance, and performance at school. The module also describes several types of interventions that have been implemented in developing countries to improve these children's access to basic education. The main goals of the module include increasing awareness of and training policymakers, as well as facilitating the development of national plans of action for the education sector to respond to HIV/AIDS.

9. Education Makes News: An EFA News Media Training Resource Kit

UNESCO has created a workshop-ready training kit for writing and reporting on Education for All (EFA), an international initiative to achieve education for all by 2015. "[P]roduced and revised with the objective of encouraging the communication media to highlight EFA goals locally, regionally and globally", the kit "consists of an interactive CD-ROM with a printed handbook and will help journalists to acquire better understanding of international EFA initiatives."

SOUTH ASIA SNAPSHOT: RE-THINKING "SCHOOL" FOR BROADER REACH

10. Pratham - India

"There are an estimated 140 million children in the age group 6 to 14 years in primary schools....Over 55 million of these children will not complete four years of school, eventually adding to the illiterate population of India." Operating in 13 states, Pratham has found that universal pre-school education is an important strategy for achieving universal primary education. Located either at a municipal school, community space, place of worship or a teacher's home, Pratham's Balwadi programme aims to expose unreached children (ages 3-5 years) from low-income families to early childhood education. Another Pratham programme uses informal methods of education to create a "bridge" to prepare and support out-of-school children of primary school age to enter or re-enter formal school.

Contact Madhav Chavan madhavchavan@vsnl.com

11. VOICE - Mumbai, India

VOICE brings primary education to wherever street children are - such as a railway platform. In addition to teaching the basics of the three Rs (reading, writing, and arithmetic), values such as regularity, punctuality, cleanliness, responsibility, perseverance and a sense of duty and service are emphasised. VOICE representatives work to stay constant touch with the children in an effort to earn their trust and at the same time help them understand how imperative education is. As of early 2006, 250 children participate in VOICE's programmes, 153 of whom VOICE has enrolled in local schools; 4 of these students topped their respective classes in 2005.

Contact Rajashri Bansiwar voice@voiceofchildren.org OR voice@bom5.vsnl.net.in

12. Project WHY - Delhi, India

This initiative works to educate disadvantaged children in the Giri Nagar slums of Delhi, India. What began in 2001 as a one-woman mission has turned into an initiative with 35 teachers addressing the problems of over 500 slum children. Organisers believe that solutions lie in involving the community and parents and making them aware of the role they can play in their children's education. Teachers are mostly from the slum itself; many are graduates of Project WHY. Education is imparted in simple yet creative ways: A "whyWALL" (the slum locality painted on a wall with salient areas marked) includes a space where children can write their findings and comments; teachers plan a series of activities prompted by what the children see. All of Project WHY's children have been admitted to schools, and none has dropped out (Delhi drop out rates are approximately 58%). In March 2004, all Project WHY children passed their examinations.

Contact Anuradha Goburdhan Bakshi anouradha.bakshi@gmail.com

13. Radio-based Teacher Training in Response to Acute Educational Needs in Afghanistan

by Gordon Adam

Funded by USAID and implemented by Creative Associates International, the Afghan Primary Education Programme has developed an accelerated radio-based learning programme for those who missed schooling during 25 years of war under the Taliban regime. By using the radio as the teacher (not a teaching aid, as in traditional distance education) this 30-minute programme, broadcast daily in two local languages, works toward a shift from rote to child-centred learning practices. This presentation explores such issues as topic selection (syllabi for Grades 1 - 6) and the use of drama, oral testimony and interviews to create an effective entertainment-education mix.

14. The Educational Impact of Sisimpur: Results of an Experimental Study of Children's Learning

This document summarises a study carried out to examine the impact of the edutainment television programme Sisimpur, the Bangladeshi co-production of Sesame Street, on the skills and knowledge of children 4 to 6 years of age in Bangladesh. For example, children who watched Sisimpur outperformed nonviewers in tests of vocabulary, and had better cognitive skills. Girls who viewed were almost 5 times more likely to know how to count than were girls who did not view. Among 5-year-olds, viewers were over 5½ times more likely to be able to count than nonviewers. Watching Sisimpur was associated with better cognitive skills, both among the sample as a whole, and among 5-year-olds and boys.

STRATEGIES FOR SHARING RESOURCES

15. Computers to Educate - Colombia

This initiative collects computers that private or public organisations, or Colombian citizens, no longer use for reconditioning and delivery without cost to schools. Computers to Educate has carried out communication campaigns in an effort to make students and teachers aware of and interested in learning with computers, such as television announcements and a colourful and interactive website. In an effort to ensure that the technology will have a positive impact on education, organisers have developed a process to train and advise the institutions' beneficiaries - with a focus on curricula that integrate the use of computers with academic programmes and everyday life.

Contact fcamargo@mincomunicaciones.gov.co

16. Ghana Book Trust (GBT) - Ghana

Identifying shortage of books as a major weakness in Ghana's educational system, GBT supplies locally published and imported books to rural schools and libraries and needy urban institutions. GBT supports various rural library development projects, supplies suitable donated books to primary schools and community libraries, and trains librarians and teachers. In 2001, GBT established a children's library on its premises, including an electronic component.

17. Books for Asia - Asia-Pacific Region

This programme is premised on the notion educational resources are central to learning and rehabilitation in areas impacted by war, unrest, or emergencies/disasters. In the conflict-affected southern Philippines, the Asia Foundation has donated approximately 12,525 children's books to 167 day-care centres, as well as reference materials for volunteer teachers to support the ongoing Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) programme on Early Childhood Care and Development.

Contact Gavin Tritt gtritt@asiafound.org OR booksforasia@asiafound.org

18. Lend Your Hand to Educating Jamaica's Children - Jamaica

This non-profit organisation is geared toward helping provide pencils, crayons, paper and other school supplies to children in Jamaica. In addition, Lend Your Hand works to facilitate school visits in Jamaica by book authors and poets with a desire to help educate and inspire youth through literacy.

Contact Terry A. O'Neal Contact@LendYourHand.org

19. School to School (S2S) - India

By matching up an individual urban school with a rural school, this nationwide programme seeks to generate awareness of the detrimental impact that economic deprivation can have on motivation to attend school. The process centres around a drive in which schoolchildren collect, sort, and pack old or excess material (e.g., books and school uniforms) for their counterparts in remote villages. The strategy for motivating students to support the education of their rural peers involves interpersonal, information-sharing approaches and the use of photographs to build connections between students living and learning in very different circumstances.

Contact Mr. Anshu K. Gupta, Ashoka Fellow anshu_goonj1@yahoo.co.in

This issue was written by Kier Olsen DeVries.

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