67 million children are out of school worldwide, 43 percent are in Sub-Saharan Africa alone.
“Schools for Africa" proves that it is possible to give even the poorest children in post-war regions and the most remote villages a chance to go to school and stay in school.
By December 2010 over 5.5 million children are benefiting from improved physical and learning environments in schools and from better teaching and learning processes and activities.
Between 2005 and 2010
- 1,169 schools benefited from newly constructed and/or rehabilitated classrooms (average of 4-5 per school) with good lighting and ventilation for conducive teaching and learning environment, often also made friendly to children with physical disabilities, and equipped with sports ground.
- 969 schools and surrounding communities benefited from safe drinking water which improves health status of children while also reducing burdens of domestic works, saving time and promoting security especially for girls and women (e.g. long walk to fetch water).
- 944 schools were provided with separate toilets for girls and boys and other sanitation facilities (e.g. hand-washing) which improve children’s health status as well as school attendance especially for adolescent girls.
- 2,805 schools received classroom furniture to improve teaching and learning processes.
- 115,922 teachers were trained in various areas such as child rights, child-centred pedagogy and learning approach, participatory school management, life skills based education, HIV/AIDS prevention, psychosocial care and support, guidance and counselling etc.
- Also, all the 11 countries have continued to support a variety of innovative interventions to make schools more “child-friendly”. They include:
- school health and nutrition services (vaccination, de-worming, hygiene education, hand-washing campaign, support to school feeding programme)
- life skills education (HIV prevention, sports for development, school clubs and camps)
- special care, support and protection of OVC (incl. scholarships, uniforms, learning materials, emergency call centre)
- communication activities (mobile theatre, local radio programmes led by the children themselves and aimed at community sensitisation to achieve positive behaviour change)
- community-school partnerships (school management committee, parent-teacher association, student government, financial management of school grants for quality improvement)
- support to life-cycle approach to education (early childhood development, post-primary education, alternative basic education etc.)
- capacity development of education officials (educational planning, data collection/analysis, budgeting, supervision and pedagogical support, monitoring and evaluation)
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national policy and strategy development, i.e. upstream support, to mainstream CFS principles into national education systems (establishment of quality education standards, support to teacher education systems, curriculum revision, inspection and quality assurance)
"No child in Africa, and in fact anywhere in the world, should be denied education."
Nelson Mandela
