The present study on the links between formal and non-formal education has been undertaken on behalf o the Secretary General of the Council of Europe/Directorate of Youth and Sport. The purpose of the study is to provide both material and arguments for further discussion within and between European bodies dealing with educational problems.
The study is available here: http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/youth/Source/Resources/Documents/2003_links_formal_NFE_en.pdf
A number of world education organisations have expressed discontent with the World Bank President’s support for “Bridge International Academies,” a private multinational profit-oriented basic school chain, as a means of reducing poverty.
In the face of global poverty reduction efforts and attempts to make basic education free and accessible to all, the organisations are concerned about the show of support for the private school chain prominent in Kenya and Uganda, by World Bank President, Dr Jim Yong Kim, during a speech he delivered in April.
The group of 116 national and international civil society groups, including the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC), 30 CSOs from Kenya and Uganda, and others from Africa, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, the Americas and the Pacific, expressed their worries in a joint statement and open letter to Dr Jim Yong Kim on Thursday.
Other signatories are Action Aid International, Education for All and the Global Campaign for Education.
The letter said Dr Jim Yong Kim’s praise of Bridge International Academies (BIA) suggested that the World Bank Group believed in that model of education and also believed that it was “acceptable and desirable” for poor people and communities to pay for basic education.
“The international community has fought to abolish school fees over the last two decades due to their negative impact on the poor, and their role in entrenching inequality. We are deeply troubled that this fee-based model is now being promoted as a means of ending poverty,” the letter said.
It also countered the president’s claim that the system was achieving results at a fee of “just $6 a month,” saying that BIA’s efficiency in education was being based on a questionable and non-objective study conducted by BIA themselves.
The group argued that the true cost of BIA’s education was between nine dollars and 13 dollars a month, considering uniforms, exam fees, textbooks and other expenses.
They said the cost of education for three children in Bridge Academy could take up at least a quarter or even more than half of the monthly income of the poorest Kenyan and Ugandan households who earned 75 dollars or less per month.
The group, therefore, called on the World Bank to cease investment and promotion of BIA and other fee-charging private basic education providers, and to publicly recommit the World Bank to universal, free and compulsory basic education by strengthening Kenya and Uganda’s public education systems.
They have also asked the World Bank to avoid basing its views on self-produced evidence from private providers of education and to listen and respond to the concerns of civil society.
opinion
By Moses Talemwa
Early this year, Munaihe (name changed to protect his identity) received the news that he had passed his primary leaving examinations with aggregate-5. Unfortunately, Munaihe’s mother was not as excited as her son.
The poor family from Namutumba could not pay for him to join senior one at the local seed school.
“They told me that they had to take care of my two other brothers and so I had to wait until the money became available,” says Munaihe, who is now into sugar cane vending.
Munaihe could easily have been admitted for senior one at Bukonte Seed SS, however, his family is too poor to afford the Shs 65,000 tuition, per term required there. He could also have made the admission list at Kisiki College Namutumba, the district’s best-performing school, according to last year’s O-level results. But, being a private school, it is even more expensive.
Munaihe is part of a large family of nine children, all surviving on the best efforts of their mother. He is also the victim of what 100 organisations around the world are calling a flawed support system by the World Bank.
The NGOs, which include Uganda’s Initiative for Socio-Economic Rights (Iser), argue that the World Bank should end its support of education for the privileged and instead look at seed schools like Bukonte, and take more out of poverty.
REVISIT PRIORITIES
The executive director at Iser, Salima Namusobya, believes the World Bank should revisit its priorities on education.
Children study at a private non-formal school, one of about 120 in the in Mathare slum, in Nairobi, Kenya, June 2, 2015. (Hilary Heuler / VOA)The walls are made of rusty corrugated metal, the roof lets in the rain and the muddy alley outside is strewn with trash. The 20 or so children packed into the small room, however, do not seem to mind, as they are focused on learning English.
Although this non-formal school blends in with its physical surroundings here in Mathare, a Nairobi slum of about a half-million people, it is utterly unique from the four public schools historically responsible for educating all potential students in the community. And even for those who do gain admission to those preciously few public schools, says head teacher Richards Olare, the education is poor.
Conditions in many schools are basic and poverty in the slum means that many parents cannot afford even low school fees for their children, Nairobi, Kenya, June 2, 2015. (Hilary Heuler / VOA)“They don’t have enough rooms, and then even the teacher-pupil ratio is actually very imbalanced,” said Olare. “Having more than 100 children in a class makes it so hard for a teacher to have close relationships with the kids.”
Providing education
Olare’s school is not free – children pay around $5 a month to attend. But the slum has around 120 non-formal schools like his. They serve an important role, he said, stepping in to teach the thousands of children who otherwise would not be in school at all.
“We teach, we use the same syllabus, the same curriculum, but we are non-formal in the physical structures,” Olare said. “Otherwise we do exactly what is done in the public schools.”
Such for-profit schools came to attention recently when the International Finance Corporation, which is part of the World Bank group, invested $10 million in Bridge International Academies, a multinational chain of low-fee private schools. Bridge also is backed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg.
Bridge says its for-profit model not only provides an opportunity for children who otherwise would be left out of school, but also gets better results. Such schools complement the public system, the company says, and it hopes to eventually be considered for public funding itself.
But Sylvia Mbataru of Hakijamii, one of a group of civil society organizations critical of Bridge, is bothered by the idea of a separate schooling system for the poor. She said this funding should instead go into making sure everyone can be educated at the same schools, for free.
“They have all this money to go and invest in a private education system where kids and poor parents are forced to dig in their pockets to access education. Why is it that this money cannot be channeled to governments and support them to make education freely accessible to everyone?” she asked.
If you are living in the slums, Mbataru said, even a few dollars a month can be a lot of money.Janet Awor spends her days selling fried chapatis on the roadside in Mathare. She has four children in school.
“Me, I am working outside there. I am working very hard to get that money. I’m struggling for school fees, rent, food,” said Awor.
School fees
Nearly all her income goes into school fees, she said, and she often has to borrow money for food.
But two of Awor’s children are in a public school, and despite a 2003 law making primary education free, she said she has to pay for that, too.
Community organizer Bernard Ochieng said that in Mathare, public schools often charge even higher fees than private ones.
“Government are saying the school is free, but in the real sense school is not free. School is free in the TV or in the media, but when you go in the school, you will realize that there is no free education there,” said Ochieng.
As long as the government fails to educate all Kenyan children for free, private schools will continue to exist, said Ochieng. But whether the World Bank should be pouring money into them, he added, is another matter entirely.
Dans le cadre des élections européennes, EucisLLL propose un manifeste afin que l’éducation soit un pilier de notre modèle social.
Voici les 12 propositions constituées autour de 3 thématiques
1. Garantir l’accès de tous à une éducation de qualité par :
L’innovation pédagogique.
L’évaluation de la qualité afin de rendre compte des compétences acquises au cours du processus d’apprentissage.
L’évaluation des conditions de travail des acteurs éducatifs pour permettre une meilleure reconnaissance sociétale de leur rôle.
Le développement des filières flexibles telles que des mécanismes nationaux de validation de l’apprentissage non formel.
2. Investir dans la dimension sociale de l’éducation et de la formation tout au long de la vie :
La fin de la ségrégation entre l’éducation formelle et non formelle.
La mobilité apprenante : ouvrir la mobilité à tous.
Les compétences clés et compétences de base en particulier dans les langues étrangères.
L’orientation tout au long de la vie.
3. Rapprocher l’Union Européenne de ses citoyens :
Donner la priorité à l’éducation civique européenne.
Promouvoir la bonne gouvernance en renforçant la place et l’engagement de la société civile.
Développer le dialogue civil par la mise en place d’un intergroupe sur l’éducation tout au long de la vie.
Un intergroupe propose des réunions de députés de diverses tendances politiques et de commissions parlementaires différentes. L’objectif est d’étudier une question de manière informelle sur des thèmes particuliers et de promouvoir les contacts entre les députés et les sociétés civiles.
Promouvoir le statut d’association au niveau européen.
Pour plus d’informations consulter le site :
http://www.eucis-lll.eu/eucis-lll/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/EUCIS-LLL-Manifesto-FutureofLearning_FR.pdf
The ambition of the FICEMEA is to federate the action of its associate members in order to promote active education methods, new education as widely as possible and to contribute to the transformation of educative and social practices throughout the world. To do so, the federation takes certain guiding principles as its own.
The FICEMEA assembles national associations :
Citizens, youth associations and people’s education, educations movements and other social actors, bear the responsibility to impulse, to support, and to concretize the right of every citizen to benefit, all along his/her life, an education that puts into practice these principles.
To this end, FICEMEA prioritizes :
