Resource: Child protection project in Europe website

This website offers access to a variety of resources, including a very useful documentary library with reports and documents on topics related with education, child protection and living conditions of disadvantage children (For instances see the 2008 report Last in Line, Last in School)

The Child protection project in Europe website is a product of the Regional Child Protection Project, located in Budapest, Hungary.

This project is implemented by Terre des hommes - Child Relief, based in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Terre des hommes - Child Relief launched in mid 2005 the Regional Child Protection Project (RCPP) for South Eastern Europe. At the end of the pilot phase, in January 2007, Tdh decided to concentrate the efforts of the RCPP to contribute to the common goal: children in migration are better protected against exploitation.

Links:

• Child protection project in Europe
• Terre des hommes

 

Changing IMF Policies: Is the IMF responsible for the shortage of doctors, nurses and teachers in developing countries?

From Eldis:
Title: Changing IMF policies
Authors: R. Rowden
Publisher: IFIwatchnet, 2008

Full text of document

This paper highlights the shortage of doctors, nurses and teachers hired in developing countries. It critically addresses current International Monetary Fund (IMF) policies with a focus on the need to change its practices in order to improve the situation.

The authors argue that 57 countries, most of them in Africa and Asia, face a severe health workforce crisis. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that at least 2.4 million health professionals and 1.9 million health workers, or a total of 4.3 million health workers, are needed to fill the gap. Without prompt action, the shortage will worsen. Mounting evidence suggests policies promoted and enforced by the IMF may be preventing developing countries from spending more in their national budgets. This has important consequences for health and education budgets being constrained at unnecessarily low levels when major increases are needed. Although rich countries have provided some debt cancellation, too little has been made available for too few countries in need.

The paper calls for four key courses of action:

• to demand that the IMF change and widely publicise revised macroeconomic restraint policies
• to demand that other policy options for increased public spending be fully vetted and explored
• to demand greater public stakeholder involvement in such explorations of alternative spending options
• to call on governments to raise this issue of changing IMF policies through the Executive Board of the IMF, which approves the IMF loan programs for borrowing countries.

 

Report: “Education expenditures and school enrollment in Africa: illustrations from Nigeria and other SANE countries”[ African Development Bank (ADB / AfDB)]

This is a recent report on the effects of increasing government expenditure on education in the SANE countries. Published by the African Development Bank in 2007.

From Eldis:

Title: “Education expenditures and school enrollment in Africa: illustrations from Nigeria and other SANE countries”

Authors: J. C. Anyanwu; A. E. O. Erhijakpor

Publisher: African Development Bank , 2007

Though greater government expenditure on primary and secondary education is being advocated by many, little empirical evidence exists on the beneficial impact of such expenditure on education attainment. Using panel data of African countries from 1990 to 2002, this paper studies the relationship between government expenditure on education enrolments, with illustration from Nigeria and other SANE (South Africa, Algeria, Nigeria, and Egypt) countries at the primary and secondary school levels.

The results show that government expenditure on education has a positive and significant direct impact on primary and secondary education enrolment rates. The evidence is even stronger for secondary education. Among the SANE, Nigeria has the greatest positive influence on increasing both primary and secondary education enrolment rates.

However, with increasing enrolment rates, government resources alone may not suffice to pay both for the expansion of education systems and for improvements in educational quality. The paper recommends that these governments forge new partnerships with the providers and beneficiaries of education in order to mobilise the necessary resources, to encourage efficiency and to introduce flexibility in order to permit everyone to pursue the pathways and learning opportunities which best meet their needs. For example, non-public institutions, such as private businesses, can provide resources to educational institutions either through partnership arrangements or through more general support for the education system.

The paper also finds that democracy matters for primary and secondary education enrolment. Thus, there is the need for African countries to consolidate and sustain democracy while making efforts to resolve existing conflicts in the continent. Furthermore the findings presented in this paper also have major implications for international assistance policy for African countries, as the international community needs to fulfill its aid promises to Africa, in order to help African countries (including the SANE) achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Lastly, the paper points out that higher expenditure alone are not sufficient to achieve the MDGs or attain higher quantum and quality of human capital.

Link: Full text of document

Publisher details

 

Report: The Road Not Traveled_ Education Reform in the Middle East and North Africa [World Bank-2008]

From Development Gateway:

This report, released by the World Bank in February 2008, traces the successes and the challenges facing the development of education in the Middle East and North Africa and identifies promising education reform options for the future. Most reforms in the region have attempted to engineer changes in the education system: building schools, hiring teachers, and writing curricula. The success of future reforms, however, will require instead changes in the behavior of key education actors—teachers, administrators, and educational authorities. This is the road not traveled in the education sector.

[From World Bank]

Education is at the crossroads for the future of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). It plays a crucial role in promoting poverty alleviation and economic growth, both at national and at household levels. It reflects the aspirations of the people for a successful integration into the global economy in an ever changing world.
Education is also a strategic priority for the World Bank in the MENA region and worldwide. The preparation of this report has benefited from the experience accumulated from Bank collaboration with the region in education—a relationship that has lasted for more than 40 years. This report traces the successes and the challenges facing the development of education to identify promising education reform options for the future.

Link: Complete Report(3.4 mb pdf)

 

“Open content: Towards equal learning opportunities?”[UNESCO Bureau of Public Information Memo.]

 ”Open content: Towards equal learning opportunities? The number of open collaborative technologies has exploded
over the last years. What impact have they had on access to and
quality of education worldwide? Can developing countries afford these expensive technologies and thus avoid remaining on the
sidelines of the digital revolution? What about copyright issues? What role for UNESCO?

…..The latest and most promising applications and tools are defined as “Web 2.0”: strictly Web-based, they are open/free,
support collaboration, interactivity and are responsive to theuser/learner. ‘Open content’: examples from international practice The term ‘open content’,coined by analogy with ‘open source’, describes any kind of creative work (including articles, pictures, audio) or engineering work (open machine design) that is published in a format that explicitly allows the copying and the modifying of the information by anyone.” [UNESCO Bureau of Public Information Memo]

Read full memo here

 

Report: EDUCATION FOR ALL BY 2015_ WILL WE MAKE IT? (UNESCO)

Last month, Unesco released the sixth edition of the Education for All Global Monitoring Report.

A mid-term assessment of where the world stands on its commitment to provide basic education for all children, youth and adults by 2015. What education policies and programmes have been successful? What are the main challenges? How much aid is needed? Is aid being properly targeted?

“…The report regrets that national governments and donors have emphasized formal primary schooling at the expense of early childhood and adult literacy programmes. These programmes have a direct impact on achieving universal primary education and gender parity, and more broadly on poverty reduction. Children from the poorest backgrounds are those who stand to benefit most from early childhood care and education programmes. Despite measures in many countries to expand access to pre-primary education, participation levels remain below 20% in the Arab States and sub-Saharan Africa, and under 40% in South and West Asia on average.

Governments, the report finds, are also neglecting adult literacy: worldwide 774 million adults – nearly 1 in 5 - lack basic literacy skills. More than three-quarters live in only 15 countries. Women’s literacy in particular has a strong influence on a child’s education and health yet they still account for 64% of adults who are not literate worldwide. On current trends 72 out of 101 countries for which projections were calculated will not succeed in halving adult illiteracy rates by 2015.

External financing for basic education remains far short of the US$11 billion required annually to reach EFA in low-income countries. It is insufficiently targeted to countries of sub-Saharan Africa and to countries facing conditions of fragility. France, Germany, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom are the five largest donors to education but the first three allocate less than one-third of their education aid to the basic level. The report states that too many donors are putting excessive priority on post-secondary.

Most countries that have achieved EFA or are close to doing so are in North America and Europe but this category also includes Argentina, Brunei Darussalam, Bahrain, Mexico and the Republic of Korea. Norway tops the Education for All Development Index followed by United Kingdom, Slovenia, Sweden, the Republic of Korea and Italy.” [Press release]

Links:

Full report - The Report by Chapter

Summary Report FRE - SPA - RUS - ARA - CHI

PowerPoint

Regional overviews

 

Report: “Policy Coherence for Development 2007: Migration and Developing Countries” (OECD)

Migration can help fight global poverty, according to new OECD report. Better and more coherent migration policies can contribute to the fight against global poverty. This is the main conclusion of “Migration and Developing Countries”, a new report by the OECD Development Centre.

From OECD:

What are the costs and benefits of migration for developing countries? How can migration flows be better organised to yield greater benefits for all parties concerned—migrant-sending countries, migrant-receiving countries, and the migrants themselves?

This book seeks to answer these questions, taking stock of what we know about the effects of migration on development, and distilling from that knowledge a set of policy recommendations for sending and receiving countries. It draws on a large number of country and regional case studies co-ordinated by the OECD Development Centre to illustrate the mechanisms that link migration and development: labour-market effects, the brain drain, remittances, diaspora networks and return migration.

Migrant-receiving countries are encouraged to look at their migration policies through a development lens; migrant-sending countries, conversely, should look at their national development policies through a migration lens. Interlinking migration and development policies promises a more effective pursuit of the objectives of both sets of policies. This volume provides the basis for a productive debate surrounding policy innovations maximising the overall benefits of international migration.

Links:

• Press Information Kit (pdf)

• Executive Summary (pdf)

• Introduction and Overview (pdf)

• Table of Contents (pdf)

• Preface (pdf)

 

Booklet: Using ICT to develop literacy_UNESCO

From Eldis:How can ICT help increase literacy levels?

Wachholz, C.; Meleisea, E. / UNESCO Bangkok ICT in Education , 2006

This document provides a concise overview of the issue of literacy and explains how Internet and Communication Technology (ICT) can be used to improve literacy education. It specifically focuses on discussing five areas in which ICT can improve literacy - enhancing learning, raising access to literacy education, training of teachers, localising content, and creating a literacy-conducive environment.The authors argue that ICT can be used as a tool for acquisition of literacy skills for example, the use of radio in combination with printed course material. Case studies on seven countries from the 2004 UNESCO Islamabad study on the best practices in ICT-based education are drawn upon. A number of lessons learned from practices in these seven countries are recommended. These include: technology does not need to be high-tech to be useful there is a need to understand the needs of learners literacy materials should be locally appropriate integrated approaches are successful community participation should be encouraged monitoring and evaluation is essential. Read full text

 

Resource: The Commonwealth of Learning (COL)

The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) is an intergovernmental organisation created by Commonwealth Heads of Government to encourage the development and sharing of open learning/distance education knowledge, resources and technologies. COL is helping developing nations improve access to quality education and training.

The COL website provides access to a great number of resources, including videos and publications.

 

UNESCO-APQN Toolkit: regulating the quality of cross-border education

The document refer to the guidelines for monitoring education efficiency across borders. I was published by the Unesco Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for Education.

(From Eldis, 12.14.06)

This toolkit is intended to act as an aid in regulating quality assurance for countries that are involved in providing and receiving cross-border education. The toolkit examines cross-border education generally, highlights regulatory frameworks for receiver and provider countries and gives examples of various country regulatory frameworks.

Particular quality issues and implications for cross-border education include:

• programme quality related to low standards and inadequate teaching resources
• misleading or dishonest information including false claims about the programme and its certification
• financial issues including default on fees, cessation of programmes due to the financial difficulty of providers, or even complete provider collapse
• national interest concerns such as programmes that do not cater well to national, cultural or economic needs.

To address these issues, the toolkit highlights different models of regulatory frameworks and practical steps in setting one up. It also outlines possible pitfalls drawn from the experience of some systems to date.

Full Text