Education in Mali: A child belongs at school

Education shapes children to become articulate citizens, fighting for their own rights. And that is the beginning of a better life. Yet worldwide more than 80 million children are not going to school. Most of them are girls. In April Oxfam Novib will campaign to make the Dutch people aware of the higher purpose of education.

At the center of the campaign is Oxfam Novib's Mali counterpart IEP (Institute for Popular Education). What was once a small-scale initiative to teach youth school dropouts how to read and write, has grown into a professional organisation training teachers, supporting village councils, and advising the authorities on education reforms.Alternative teaching methodsTraditionally education in Mali is in French, a language the children do not speak at home. Lessons very much consist of repeating what the teacher had just pre-digested. Children neither understand what they are saying, nor are they learning to find their own solutions to problems. This is why IEP has developed an alternative teaching method to teach children in the local language something that will serve them later. The method is implemented on a project-basis. The children learn to think for themselves and know their rights.Second chanceOne of the eight Millennium Goals deals specifically with education for girls. In 2005 worldwide as many girls as boys should have been going to school. That promise was not kept. World leaders get a last chance to see to it that all children go to school by 2015.Class picture requestedTo increase the pressure on world leaders Oxfam Novib is calling on all Dutch women and men to send in their class pictures. After all 80 million children would prefer nothing less than be in their own picture with their entire class. You too can help Oxfam Novib. Send your own class picture to:jacqueline.persson@oxfamnovib.nl.