02.12.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 7:38 pm by nadia
On the supply side, governments may find it more difficult to supply quality education services in rural areas. Three factors combine to weaken the quality of teaching in rural areas. First, in many African countries, teachers prefer to teach in urban areas. As a result, rural schools may be left with empty posts, or have longer delays in filling posts. Even if posts are filled, rural schools may have fewer qualified teachers, if the better qualified teachers have a greater choice of jobs. Sometimes the rural schools have less experienced teachers, as the more experienced teachers find ways to move to the more desired schools.
Second, teachers in rural schools may teach less than their counterparts in urban areas. Any trip away from the rural area, to visit a doctor, to collect pay, to engage in in-service training, or to visit family may involve long journeys and involve missed school days. In addition, where teachers walk long distances to school, they may tend to start late, and finish early. As transport difficulties often make supervision visits from inspectors less frequent in isolated schools, there is little to prevent a gradual erosion of the school year.
Third, even when teachers are teaching, the quality of their work may be lower. Rural teachers often have less access to support services than their urban counterparts, and fewer opportunities to attend in-service courses. In some cases they also have difficulty in accessing books and materials. In addition, because the parents tend, in general, to be less educated, they are less likely to monitor the quality of teaching, or to take action if the teaching is of poor quality.
The combination of these demand-side and supply-side factors means that those children in rural areas are the most difficult to engage in education and also have lower quality educational provision. It is hardly surprising then, that rural areas show lower participation in education, and lower attainment. Addressing this disparity is a major challenge for education policy makers. Some action may be taken to address the demand-side issues. Parent perception of education might be enhanced through awareness-raising activities, and curricula could be modified and made more appropriate. However, it is clear that much of the solution lies in the supply-side, that is, in ensuring adequate numbers of appropriately trained, motivated and engaged teachers in rural schools.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 7:37 pm by nadia
African countries have made substantial progress towards widening access to primary education over the last decade. Regionally, the Gross Enrollment Rate (GER) increased from 78% in 1998, to 91% in 2002. However, enrollment has increased more rapidly in urban areas than in rural areas, and increasingly the majority of African children out of school are rural children.
Many factors contribute to lower educational participation in rural areas. On the demand side, rural children may be less interested in attending school. First, the opportunity costs of attending schools are often higher in rural areas (Lockheed and Verspoor, 1991, p158). Many rural households are dependent on their children for help at busy times of the agricultural year such as harvest time. Schools are usually designed to follow rigid schedule both in terms of time of the day and term dates, and often expect children to be in school during busy periods in the agricultural calendar (Taylor and Mulhall, 2001, p136).
Second, parents in rural areas often have a lower level of education, and may attach a lower value to schooling. The perceived lack of relevance of schooling may be enhanced by a rigid curriculum, often designed for a context (and sometimes culture) removed from that in rural areas. Rural schools rarely adapt the curriculum to make use of local examples, or to link the curriculum to local needs (Taylor and Mulhall, 2001).
Third, even where parents place a value on schooling, they may be less able to help their children learning. Parents in rural areas are less likely to be educated themselves, and so have less ability to provide support for their children. Some report that they are embarrassed to discuss school topics with their children, because of their own lack of knowledge. Further, homes in rural areas are often ill-equipped to meet the needs of children to study, and often lack facilities like electricity (Taylor and Mulhall, 2001).
In summary, children in rural areas may be considered more difficult to educate. They are likely to have less parental encouragement to go to school, and more alternative demands on their time, such as helping with agricultural tasks. When they attend school, they may find the curriculum less relevant to their lives, and find less support for their learning from the home environment.
SOURCE:
http://www.fao.org/SD/ERP/addisababa/Papers/Rural%20Teacher%20issues%20paper%20(A.Mulkeen)_ENG.doc
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02.09.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 8:08 pm by fayoubi
GRRRR. On grelotte dans les salles de classe du tristement célèbre village d’Anfgou. Pourtant, les 130 écoles de la région de Khénifra à laquelle appartient ce petit village reçoivent chacune une tonne et demie de bois, assure Mohammed Aderdour, directeur de l’académie de Meknès. Le budget 2007 alloué à cette académie pour sa rubrique combustibles, dont une partie de bois pour chauffer les classes, s’élève à 2,365 millions de DH, contre 2 millions en 2006.
La région de Khénifra accapare à elle seule le 1/5 de cette enveloppe, affirme la même source. Celle-ci souligne que les quantités de bois allouées sont «largement suffisantes», répondant ainsi aux allégations d’instituteurs d’Anfgou qui ne sont pas du même avis. Les quantités disponibles sont en effet jugées dérisoires, vu le froid de canard qui empêche tout le monde de travailler. De quoi démotiver élèves et instituteurs dont certains se plaignent aussi de la surcharge des classes (jusqu’à 50 élèves) et de plusieurs niveaux à enseigner à la fois… et dans le même espace. «Je vous avoue que je ne pense qu’au beau jour de ma mutation», déclare, dégoûté, un instituteur. Les derniers événements l’ont beaucoup secoué comme tout le reste de la population du village.
Anfgou aurait tant aimé sortir de l’anonymat moins tragiquement. Depuis la vague de froid qui a endeuillé des familles, le voile est donc levé sur le quotidien de ce douar qui réclame que l’on s’occupe de lui sérieusement. Ses habitants n’ont pas manqué de manifesté leur colère pour un peu plus de sollicitude. Beaucoup sont pauvres, mais aucune donnée n’est disponible pour mesurer l’ampleur du phénomène. Les conditions de vie et de travail y sont intenables, tant les infrastructures de base font cruellement défaut. Et quand elles existent, elles sont inopérantes comme cette structure de soins construite par des Asiatiques, selon une institutrice. Suite au décès de dizaines d’enfants et d’adultes (www.leconomiste.com), la région est donc sous les feux des projecteurs. Des associations humanitaires se sont mobilisées afin de convoyer à Anfgou des biens de première nécessité: denrées alimentaires, médicaments, vêtements… La Banque alimentaire avec ses 33,5 tonnes d’aliments, dont 4,5 tonnes de lait en poudre, 1.196 paires de bottes, 1.500 paires de chaussettes et 3 tonnes de vêtements neufs, a rendu le sourire aux 280 familles du douar. (www.leconomiste.com). Le Croissant Rouge a également acheminé, lundi 5 février, une aide d’une valeur de 200.000 DH composée essentiellement d’effets vestimentaires, de fauteuils roulants et de béquilles. En tout cas, ce qui est sûr pour les ONG qui distribuent elles-mêmes les vivres collectés, c’est que ces derniers arrivent à bon port. Dans la région, il se raconte que beaucoup d’autres se perdraient en cours de route.
Au-delà de ces initiatives bienfaitrices, la population d’Anfgou attend de réelles mesures pour désenclaver le village. «Les habitants se disent coupés du monde», lance Mohamed Moussaoui, délégué de l’Entraide nationale de la province de Khénifra. Les routes restent en effet impraticables, voire inaccessibles. D’ailleurs, des camions transportant les aides de la Banque alimentaire se sont embourbés plusieurs fois avant d’arriver à destination.
Les instituteurs d’Anfgou et leurs élèves auraient tant aimé voir arriver plus de bois pour chauffer les classes.
Taux de pauvreté
Quel est le taux de pauvreté à Anfgou? Difficile à savoir. A Tounfit, commune dont relève ce village et distante de 70 km, le taux de pauvreté avoisine les 40% contre une moyenne nationale de 14,2%, selon le Haut-Commissariat au plan (HCP). Rappelons que le taux de pauvreté représente le pourcentage des individus dont le niveau de vie est inférieur au seuil de pauvreté relative. En 2004, ce seuil était de 1.687 DH par mois pour un ménage moyen en milieu urbain (5,6 membres) et de 1.745 DH pour un ménage moyen en milieu rural (6,4 membres).
Loubna Moussali
Source: L’Economiste
http://www.yabiladi.com/article-societe-1706.html
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02.08.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 8:48 pm by nadia
Selon une étude européenne, les élèves des établissements scolaires situés à proximité d’un grand aéroport ont davantage de difficultés d’apprentissage, en particulier dans l’acquisition de la compréhension du langage écrit.
Plus de 2.800 enfants, âgés de 9 ou 10 ans et scolarisés dans un établissement scolaire situé à proximité d’un aéroport international, ont été évalués. Ils ont passé des tests cognitifs et répondu à un questionnaire visant à déterminer leur état de santé général. La pollution scolaire sonore a également été mesurée.
Les auteurs observent une relation inverse entre l’intensité du bruit et les performances des élèves. La pollution sonore entraîne notamment des troubles de l’apprentissage de la lecture. Là où elle est la plus intense, les enfants savent lire, mais ne comprennent pas ce qu’ils lisent.
Parallèlement, les élèves signalent que le bruit environnant tend à les énerver. En revanche, il ne semble pas affecter leur niveau d’attention, ni leur santé générale.
Comment expliquer ce phénomène ?
Il est fort probable que les enfants se protègent du bruit environnant en s’isolant mentalement de cette nuisance. Ils réussissent ainsi à ignorer les bruits des avions venant de l’extérieur, mais également de ceux venant de l’intérieur. Ils seraient alors moins attentifs à ce qui se passe dans leur classe, et en particulier à la voix de leur instituteur.
On considère qu, pour être bien audible, la voie de l’instituteur doit dépasser de 10db le bruit de fond. Dans certaines écoles, le bruit de la ventilation ou celui produit par les élèves eux-mêmes, suffit à masquer les paroles de l’instituteur, notamment depuis les places situées au fond de la classe. Un secteur bruyant, comme à proximité d’un aéroport, rend également caduque la règle des 10db, à moins d’installer des systèmes d’isolation sonore spécifiques.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 8:45 pm by nadia
Libération (Casablanca)
29 Janvier 2007
Publié sur le web le 29 Janvier 2007
Pour de nombreux enfants, l’attrait de l’informatique l’emporte de loin sur celui des cours.
Mais pour les “cancres” les plus dépendants à l’ordinateur, peut-être que le e-learning sera une solution. En quelques clics de souris, il est désormais possible de réviser : ” Bonjour, nous allons revoir la définition d’une fonction. Pour comprendre une fonction affine, je vous propose cet exemple “, explique par exemple un professeur de mathématiques, sur une vidéo disponible sur un site de soutien scolaire.
Le procédé est nouveau au Maroc. Apparu dès ce mois de janvier, le site payant innovacours.ma tente d’appliquer au Maroc une formule qui a fait recette en France. Avec une banque de données comprenant 9000 fiches de cours, 1300 vidéos, et 42000 exercices Le tout allant du niveau CP au niveau Terminale. Maxime Ittah, le PDG du groupe Innova Conseil, société de formation professionnelle, explique : ” Le e-learning est un outil de développement précieux, pour le Maroc comme pour les autres pays. Il intéresse les entreprises, mais aussi désormais le grand public. ” Car c’est bien là l’innovation : le e-learning grand public au Maroc est une nouveauté largement inspirée du modèle français. Ainsi, le site renvoie-t-il en fait au contenu des cours prévus pour les élèves français. Intégralement en langue française, le site se contente d’adaptations comme convertir les sommes en dirhams. Mais les enseignements, à part l’histoire, coïncident suffisamment pour que les créateurs du site croient à leur développement.
Jilaly Drif, PDG de Math Elan, société française distributrice des contenus, est enthousiaste : ” Auparavant, personne n’avait de téléphone portable, et aujourd’hui on ne peut plus s’en passer. Pour le e-learning, ce sera la même évolution. ” Demain donc, les enfants marocains pourraient adopter le réflexe informatique : sans crayon, simplement connecté, l’enfant répond aux questions posées par le site, ou bien écoute les explications filmées du professeur. Avec l’intérêt de pouvoir faire pause, ou de faire répéter indéfiniment le professeur sans l’énerver
L’expérience française révèle que les enfants se connectent surtout le week-end et à l’approche des examens pour ceux qui en ont, aux mois d’avril/mai. Les statistiques nous apprennent également que les enfants restent connectés en moyenne 27 minutes par séance de travail. Reste donc à savoir si les parents seront séduits, par la qualité comme par le coût (150 dh par mois, pour avoir accès au site, toutes matières confondues) et si les enfants munis d’Internet adopteront cette nouvelle forme de soutien scolaire.
http://fr.allafrica.com/stories/200701291178.html
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Posted in Uncategorized at 5:21 pm by nadia
The Millennium Development Goals
Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
Goal 5: Improve maternal health
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
Goal 8: Develop global partnerships for development
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Posted in Uncategorized at 4:55 pm by nadia
About two-thirds of the world’s adult illiterate population are women, and in some regions
nearly half of all women are reported to be illiterate, according to the UNESCO Institute for
Statistics’ latest literacy estimates. Youth literacy levels, though more favorable for
women, still reflect an on-going disadvantage for women in acquiring basic literacy skills.
These estimates also reveal that:
• There are an estimated 771 million illiterate adults in the world, about two-thirds of
whom are women.
• Nearly two-thirds of the world’s illiterate adults are found in only 9 countries, and
45% of the world’s 771 million illiterate adults live in India and China (34% and 11%
respectively).
• Globally, 82% of the world’s population are reported as literate: 87% of men and
77% of all women. However, these figures mask great differences between and within
the world’s regions.
• Extremely low literacy rates are concentrated in three regions, South and West Asia,
sub-Saharan Africa and the Arab States, where only about six in ten adults are
considered literate: around two-thirds of men and only half of women.
• In contrast, Latin America and the Caribbean and East Asia and the Pacific have
literacy rates around the 90% mark, for both men and women. These regions
combined however, still account for 22% of the world’s illiterate population.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 4:34 pm by nadia
20-06-2006 5:00 am Literacy projects in Cuba, Morocco, Pakistan, Rajastan (India) and Turkey are the winners of the five UNESCO Literacy prizes* this year. The laureates were proclaimed by the Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, on the recommendation of an international jury. A project in China was also awarded an Honourable Mention. The UNESCO International Reading Association Literacy Prize is awarded to the National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) of Pakistan, for its National Literacy Programme which aims to increase the literacy ratio by the year 2015 to meet the Education for All goals. It provides literacy classes to adults and to out-of-school children, collects data through door-to-door surveys, as well as recruiting village volunteers and schoolteachers to ensure wide community participation in the enrolment of children in school. It has formed and trained a team of social organizers to take charge of enrolment and drop-out prevention, ensuring their capacity building to enable them to take full responsibility of the programme in the future. Quality education is provided thanks to rigorous teacher training and intensive monitoring of literacy and learning achievements. A flexible curriculum has been designed for the programme to meet the literacy and numeracy needs of all learners, including men, in diversified geographical, economic and employment situations.
One of the two UNESCO Confucius Prizes for Literacy is attributed to the Ministry of National Education of the Kingdom of Morocco for its Non-formal Education Programme, an innovative national literacy initiative designed specifically for marginalized adolescents in rural areas. The programme’s objectives include ensuring the right to education for all, democratizing education and promoting good governance. It provides short training cycle to permit recent drop-out adolescents to return to school and identifies students facing a high risk of dropping out of school.
http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=33384&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
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Posted in Uncategorized at 4:22 pm by nadia
Inter Press Service (Johannesburg)
January 24, 2007
Posted to the web January 24, 2007
Abderrahim El Ouali
Casablanca
Morocco’s “march towards light” as its literacy programme is called is brightening up as official figures go, but with far too many shady areas still.
Two years after the launch of the programme intended to eradicate illiteracy by 2015 in line with the Millennium Development Goals, officials claim that illiteracy has diminished to 38 percent of the population of 30 million, from 80 percent in 1960 and 48 percent in 1999.
The “march towards light”, the “massiarat al nour” in Arabic, aims to take literacy to a million illiterate people every year. The state aims to reach 570,000 of these, non-governmental organisations another 269,000 and public sector companies 146,000. Private sector companies aim to reach about 15,000 a year.
Impressive numbers, but Abdessamad Hassad, a researcher studying the impact of literacy on democracy and development says the programme is “poor in content and means.”
“What is being shown as a policy to eradicate illiteracy is only really speeches for internal and external consumption,” he told IPS.
Hassad points to indicators other than the official figures. About 700 newspapers and magazines in Morocco have between them a readership of only 300,000, he says.
This indicator is contentious, too. Sixty-eight-year-old Hajja Fatima is now literate thanks to the “massiarat al nour” programme, but she just does not like newspapers.
“I can read and write now,” she told IPS. “This has helped me understand the news on radio and tv. But I do not like newspapers. Politicians do not care about what we say, so I do not care about what they say in newspapers.”
Not everyone has Hajja’s choice. While the figures show 38 percent illiteracy in the population, they point to 68 percent illiteracy among voters - indicating far greater illiteracy among older people.
“Illiteracy is a big hindrance in democracy and development,” Hassad says. “If more than two-thirds of the electorate is illiterate, they are not able to distinguish between the different political parties’ programmes,” he said. “So voters become easy to trick and corrupt. This leads to false elections, false results and false representative institutions.”
The illiteracy is leading to a split between these people and the elite, Hassad said. “Twelve million Moroccans are illiterate. This means they have no access to what the elite produces. Communication between these people and the political elite is limited to electoral campaigns.”
But the political elite are not all literate either. Moroccan law requires that members of parliament and municipality leaders must have at least a primary school certificate. After the last elections in 2002 and 2003, many such certificates presented by winning candidates were found to have been forged.
While such concerns are raised, there is no denying the half full part of the glass û or that it is getting fuller, with or without official support.
Abdelkader Faydi, a 34-year-old electrician who had to leave school because his family could not afford the fee, did not wait for any programme; he simply learnt to read Arabic and French on his own. “Now I can read about electricity, and I’m becoming more skilful every day,” he said.
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Much of his technical learning now comes off the Internet. He has used this knowledge to learn to install wire connections for large local electricity networks.
“I have extra sources of income now, and that is a good thing,” he told IPS. “I will carry on learning. I will never stop.”
Hassad says Morocco needs more people like Faydi. “People with such will are rare, but illiteracy must be eradicated, and we should encourage everyone to get involved to fight it,” he said.
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02.01.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 6:28 pm by nadia
The area of Amesgou lies in the north of Morocco in the district of Tounfite. This quiet region has reached the national Moroccan newspapers for macabre reasons as temperatures have reached polar levels, dropping to 16°C below zero.
As a result of such extreme conditions, 12 people, including two women and 10 children not exceeding one year old, have perished due to acute pneumopathy.
Hence, last Thursday, the state of emergency was declared and a medical team has been sent to Amesgou in order to hand out treatments to those in need. More than 250 inhabitants have already been provided with medical assistance. Special care is dedicated to the babies and older persons who are more vulnerable.
This situation points out to the poor conditions of the various isolated cities in Morocco and the necessity of building adequate facilities and infrastructure. Indeed, Amesgou closest healthcare center is more than 30 kilometers away and almost unreachable because of the snow and the bad condition of the roads.
The local health authorities are worried about the current situation of Amesgou and even though it is not the first time that the winter is fatal for people in this area, nobody has forgotten the deadly winter of 1980 when 80 people died because of a temperature drop. Hence, the worst might be yet to come…
© 2007 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
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