Weekly Global Education News | October 29, 2017
Update on issues affecting teachers, children, and schools around the world
Countdown to World Children’s Day (November 20th)
Ending child marriage in West and Central Africa could take 100 years, warns UNICEF
Unless progress is accelerated, ending child marriage in West and Central Africa will take more than 100 years, with far-reaching, life-altering consequences for millions of child brides and crippling impact on the region’s prosperity, the United Nations children’s agency has said.
A new report released Monday from the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Achieving a future without child marriage: Focus on West and Central Africa, reveals that, due to rapid population growth and high prevalence of child marriage, even if the current decline rate was doubled, it would not suffice to reduce the annual number of girls married.
RohingyaCrisis: Munjurali’s story in pictures
New GEM Report says ‘Don’t just blame the teacher when the system is at fault’
The second report in the GEM Report series, Accountability in education: meeting our commitments, shows that achieving SDG 4 is a shared responsibility between us all — governments, schools, teachers, parents, students, private actors and the international community. But the type of accountability countries choose to set up for these responsibilities must be designed carefully.
See also: Don’t just blame teachers when system is at fault, says UNESCO and New Global Education Monitoring Report focuses on accountability in education
‘Imagine the potential of one billion children;’ UNICEF urges investment as Africa’s youth population surges
“We are at the most critical juncture for Africa’s children,” […] “Get it right, and we set the foundation for a demographic dividend, which could lift hundreds of millions out of extreme poverty, and contribute to enhanced prosperity, stability, and peace.”
The report identifies three key issues for investment: health care, education and the protection and empowerment of women and girls.
Supporting Students With Interrupted Educations
Almost a quarter of all students enrolled in San Francisco Unified School District last school year were English learners. Many of them were students with limited or interrupted formal education, or SLIFEs (the exact number is unknown because the district doesn’t track this) [ …] they had missed two or more years of formal education for reasons including poverty, war, gang violence, or different cultural expectations of schooling.
These are some of our most high-risk students because they face language and cultural barriers in addition to needing basic school skills, yet there’s not a lot of easily accessible information to help teachers support SLIFEs.
