Project updates
Nepalese students received Little Doctors Training in program inaugurated by Nepalese president
Sano Sansar Nepal (SSN), an NGO in Nepal organized a three-day Little Doctor Program on January 30 – February 1, 2009 in Kathmandu, Nepal. On January 30, Nepalese President Dr. Ram Baran Yadav inaugurated the nationwide program in the special hall at his office in Kathmandu. The goal is to extend the program to every village of the country. The program aims to provide basic health education training for secondary school students from classes 6, 7, and 8 of government and local community schools from all over the country. From 342 applications, 30 participants were selected from several districts including Humla, Illam, Dhading, Sindhupalchock, Kavre, Syanjha, Gorkha, Kathmandu, Lalitpur, and Bhaktapur. The participants received an apron and a first aid bag including medicines, and were trained in personal hygiene including oral hygiene, eye care, environmental sanitation, water purifying methods as well as on the use of Ayurvedic medicines in their daily lives. Nurses from Star Hospital informed the students about diseases, vaccines and their prevention and treatments, as well as about first aid. Natural medications were also covered by the program.
Sano Sansar Nepal is the only children’s club promoting, among others, education for sustainable development, children’s’ rights, improving children’s environment.
The Open Society Institute – Education Support Program supported the program; support was also provided by the Laboratory Secondary School, Star Hospital, Chaudhary Group and the Government of Nepal.
For more information, please contact Sagar Aryal of Sano Sansar Nepal ssrcn@live.com
Georgian curriculum development project seeks to provide vocational training for students who fail to complete compulsory education
Georgian secondary education strategy provides for start of vocational education from 9th grade (after completing compulsory education). As a result, those who do not complete the 8th grade miss the opportunity to get vocational education and have more difficulties in finding a satisfying job. With the support of the Open Society Institute, the Civic Development Institute (CDI) in Tbilisi, Georgia is undertaking a two-year project, Second Chance Educational Opportunities Framework, with the goal of stemming the marginalization of vulnerable youth by giving them the opportunity to acquire basic vocational skills and thus a better chance to join the job market, and by raising their self-confidence and motivation through knowledge.
CDI generalizes specific experiences with the purpose to identify specific niches and develop typical curricular pieces adapted to different groups of students. The project emphasizes a mathematics-driven model: to help foster a student-centered environment, mathematical (G. Perelman) games were introduced in math classes; the results showed strong correlations between math, life skills, and the dynamics of vocational lessons.
Under preparation is a study to gauge the applicability of the project for adults.
For more information on project results, please contact Dr. Natela Giunashvili at giunashvili@cdi.org.ge
South Africa Reflect Network preparing a cross-country synthesis report on youth and adult education in six southern African countries
The South Africa Reflect Network (SARN), with the support of the Open Society Institute Southern Africa (OSISA), is coordinating the multi-country Southern African Policy Review Project in order to develop an effective advocacy document in support of youth and adult education in southern Africa. The initiative builds on a similar strategy undertaken by Pamoja West Africa in late 2008 and aims ultimately to complement it, in preparation for CONFINTEA VI.
Four key, multi-sector actors and practitioners in the field of youth and adult education in six southern African countries have been invited to synergize and form teams to analyze national PRSP and relevant youth and adult education policies and strategies. The resulting six country reports from Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia have contributed to the development of a regional-level report at a Synthesis Workshop held on April 28-30 2009 in Johannesburg, South Africa. The report, including recommendations and best practices, is intended ultimately be part of a series of four sub-regional reports, including francophone West Africa, anglophone West Africa, and East Africa. The overall project aims to mobilize actors in the global youth and adult education sector and build momentum for the African continental version of the Pamoja West African and this southern African project.
For more information contact the SARN Policy Review Project Facilitator Andrea Diaz Varela at adiazvarela@gmail.com, or phone SARN at +27 (0)11 403 7321/7850.
The African Platform for Adult Education develops actions for CONFINTEA meetings
The African Platform for Adult Education was created in March 2008 and is viewed as one of the key solutions from African civil society in response to the crisis that the continent has been experiencing for decades. The right to education is the foundation for respecting human rights. In times when the general tendency seems to be resignation, ANCEFA, FEMNET PAALAE and PAMOJA, in partnership with DVV International, OSI, OSISA and ICAE, have decided to express themselves with one single voice: quality education for all youth and adults in Africa.
The platform has developed a document, Forging New Partnerships towards a Renewed Vision of Adult Education in Africa. This document was the African civil sector’s contribution to the CONFINTEA VI preparatory meeting held in Nairobi, Kenya in November 2008. Since then, the platform has developed actions to be carried out during the upcoming CONFINTEA VI scheduled for May 19-22, 2009 in Bélem:
- Mobilize both decision makers and platform members for the quality representation of Africa at this world meeting;
- Prepare advocacy activities and also participate in similar ones that will be presented by the other world regions and by international networks such as ICAE, GCE in order to reach and maintain harmony and coherence across worldwide civil society;
- Collaborate closely with UNESCO, UIL (UNESCO’s Institute for Lifelong Learning) and other partners for a successful FISC (International Forum of the Civil Society) on May 16-18, 2009 hence establishing a quality Adult Learning and Education for all starting from CONFINTEA VI
Moving forward, the platform will focus on developing mechanisms to monitor national and international commitments and declarations to move “from rhetoric to action.”
For further information, please contact: DIARRA Mahamadou Cheick, Coordinator African Platform for Adult Education, at diarra_sama@yahoo.fr
Announcement
Call for participation in 2nd NEPC Summer School
Network of Education Policy Centers NEPC announces its second Summer School – Curriculum Policies: Making Education Respond to Society and the Labor Market – to be held in Croatia on July 13-17, 2009. The event is supported by the Education Support Program of the Open Society Institute.
The school will consist of a 2.5-day core course with the instruction of a team of lecturers, and will be followed by four elective module courses on specific aspects of curriculum policies: curriculum, migration and social cohesion; the economics of curriculum; the politics of civics curriculum; outcome-oriented education and principles of curricular design.
The school has been designed for ambitious policy-makers and implementers at local, national and regional level from Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, former Soviet Union, Turkey, and Mongolia, and graduate students in education policy from around the globe.
The core course will include:
- Curriculum and political ideology
- Curriculum and knowledge
- Linkages between curriculum and economy
- Who decides what to teach? (Participation and decision making)
- Curriculum: raising the big issues (does curriculum articulate society’s problems?)
Faculty: Stephen P. Heyneman, Maria Golubeva, Doyle Stevick, Iris Marušić, Mladen Domazet.
Online application form and other relevant information is available on the redesigned website.
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