Guest blog: Improving Education in the Global South
August 3, 2012 in MDG 2 (Education)
In this blog Steven Burrell exploes the challenges of improving education in the global South.
Education is a primary concern among many countries of the global South. This is mainly for two reasons: technological innovation and human resources. Without a progressive educational system in place, a nation’s youth cannot learn the skills and experiences they need to be successful and productive adults. In fact, education is the cornerstone of a country’s economic and social development.
There are several things that a southern country can do to improve education as a whole, to further enhance the abilities of a future workforce.
The educational experience of youth in the global South differs from those in the global North where education has been prioritized for several generations. While children in developed nations have comfortable classrooms, adequate teaching resources and well trained educators, those from poorer countries are often grouped into a single classroom under difficult conditions and lacking the very fundamental tools needed to educate. To improve education in countries of the global South, one must build schools and hire teachers to do the job well.
A study conducted in 2005 by Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies revealed the success of a strategic campaign by the Refugee Education Trust to educate the refugees in Eastern Sudan following conflicts there that forces 12,000 refugees into camps in Chad. Taking educational resources to students is often an effective approach to improving the circumstances of even war-torn nations trying to recover as they develop into stronger communities.
When it comes to teachers, a southern country may rely on local support from parents and clergy to help students learn collectively. However, to improve education, teachers can be brought in from other areas to teach cross-cultural concepts and increase awareness about other careers and lifestyles. There are often resources available through non-profit groups and volunteer teacher organizations to share a greater wealth of knowledge in this manner.
Additionally, education needs to be focused on the types of career opportunities that will enable young people to support themselves after completing educational goals. Otherwise, education loses its value to society. The community should look at the major industries and design educational experiences around the most promising career paths.
Providing young people the opportunity to intern or work as apprentices can offer much to the success of the region’s market economy.
A problem often also experienced is the disparity in the available educational opportunities for all youth. Many communities will not allow females to participate in educational experiences. In others, a strict social code prevents children from getting even the basic skills because of old values that no longer serve the community. To improve education all students should be given equal opportunity to attend school, safely and with the approval of their community leaders.
Because education is tied so closely with economic stability, countries of the global South must reach out to all available resources in order to establish a strong foundation of core programs. Reading, Mathematics, and Science are the key elements of successful economic development that can be introduced at all levels of education. By tapping into international resources and educational aid can be obtained to make sure that students have access to educational tools that address these core areas.
Lastly, the enhancement of education should not stop at the school yard. Communities also need support in order to allow students to focus on their studies, especially when many youth are forced to work instead of attending school. Therefore, public welfare programs such as nutrition and preventative healthcare should be made available to support the goals of the educational programs.
Steven Burrell writes and reports for a company that helps measure student success through aptitude and cognitive ability tests. He spends lots of his free time volunteering for different education-focused organizations.
This goal deals with an integral issue, which solution should involve concepts related to development from all its approaches; its accomplishment depends on many factors, like empowerment of the communities and implementation of entrepreneurship programs, along with financial assistance, in order to attack the issue from the root, rather than only diminishing its consequences. Furthermore, involvement from the civil society constitutes an essential factor in the quest for equality and social justice, along with the political will of government representatives of any kind and level; they should be encourage to build a reliable database using empirical evidence, that will allow those in charge of resources to properly allocate them. We strongly suggest the leaders throughout the world to become involved in the solution of this issue, taking into account that every person has dignity and is entitled to the right t food and development.
The following are actions taken around the globe, which can be more broadly utilized, to implement Goal 2 of the Millennium Development Goals; to ensure that by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling. Remove fees associated with attending school, including the cost of tuition, books, supplies, uniforms, and transportation. Provide amnesty for undocumented, migrant, and refugee children to attend school with out deportation or other consequences. Provide two meals a day to encourage families facing poverty to send their children to school. Address gender barriers, especially in rural areas. Provide feasible transportation to children, or adopt mobile schools.
It become evident in the group discusions that the 8 MDG is not recognised and the information around the issues that it affects is not well recognised. This goal deals with developing an open finance system and non discriminatory trading practices. After much delibaration some points were agreed upon as to how this MDG could be improved to suit a system based approach of how the MDG’s should be implemented. Overally the group felt the MDG was articulated on a top down approach and very much western centric.Thus not representing the real issues of all countries. Firstly the use of ‘partners’ in wording of the MDG should be replaced with ‘stakeholders’ as this word is more inclusive of all the actors in achieving this MDG. There was a consesus that debt problems is not only on developing countries thus it should change focus and include all countries and also include debt owing to international monetary organisations. Also that the issue of tarrifs should be reduced or removed as countries for example the UK places high tariifs on products from Africa of which the collect more money then the one the give aid to the African continent. Much needs to be done on this MDG in order to achieve its targets.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) are the world’s time bound and quantified targets for addressing extreme poverty, hunger, disease, lack of adequate shelter and exclusion while promoting gender equality, education and environmental sustainability. There are eight goals and this article focuses on MDG 6 which targets to combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases.
Bangladesh, being geographically positioned at the receiving end of perhaps the largest river system, and owing to other concomitant factors like the deltaic formation history and low-line coastal morphology has become the most disaster prone region on earth. Processes embedded in the nature, caused by multitudinous factors, constitute hazards to the environment of this region having severe aftermath on local lives, property and livelihoods of the population, and eventually, impeding the overall socio-economic development of Bangladesh. The (co)occurrence of these natural events are often coupled and multiplied with the high base vulnerabilities of the individuals, households and communities results in disasters that further drive the country towards greater environmental degradation, hunger, poverty, social deprivation and political conflicts, thereby impeding the development of Bangladesh. Therefore, over the last few decades, both national and international communities have been engaged in counteracting the negative developmental impacts of disasters as well as ensuring that development interventions do not exacerbate vulnerability to hazards.
It become evident in the group discusions that the 8 MDG is not recognised and the information around the issues that it affects is not well recognised. This goal deals with developing an open finance system and non discriminatory trading practices. After much delibaration some points were agreed upon as to how this MDG could be improved to suit a system based approach of how the MDG’s should be implemented. Overally the group felt the MDG was articulated on a top down approach and very much western centric.Thus not representing the real issues of all countries. Firstly the use of ‘partners’ in wording of the MDG should be replaced with ‘stakeholders’ as this word is more inclusive of all the actors in achieving this MDG. There was a consesus that debt problems is not only on developing countries thus it should change focus and include all countries and also include debt owing to international monetary organisations. Also that the issue of tarrifs should be reduced or removed as countries for example the UK places high tariifs on products from Africa of which the collect more money then the one the give aid to the African continent. Much needs to be done on this MDG in order to achive its targets.