Paragraphe II
:
To offer to the children an adapted education
One of the current characteristics of education in the
developing countries is the very short time which spends the children to the
school. Indeed, even when the inscription at the primary school reached of the
honourable levels, one notes that many children give up their studies :
150 million children left the school before to have finished their fifth year
of primary studies46(*).
One can advance two causes with this phenomenon. First of all the schooling is
not free and to pay the books and the lunches represent sometimes a heavy
sacrifice for a poor family, the more so as while it is at the school, the
child does not earn money while working. A basic education aiming at
eliminating work from the children must save this expenditure with the stripped
families. It is necessary thus that the financial resources make it possible to
cover much more than the treatment of the teachers, the installation and the
maintenance of the school buildings. The chronic insufficiency of the financing
of basic education in the developing countries is a problem which requires a
solution, and this one is responsibility for the whole world, in particular
because of the heavy burden of the debt which crushes such an amount of
developing country.
The debt of the Third World reaches tops today :
according to the World Bank, the debt of sub-Saharan Africa was into 1996 of
227 billion dollars, that of the South Asia of 152 billion dollars. The debt of
many countries of Africa east two to three times higher than their gross
national product, and the refunding of this one absorbs most of their
resources. Moreover, during this time, the government aid with the development
provided by the rich countries reduced considerably. UNO had fixed for
objective which this help would achieve 0.7% of the gross national product
industrialized countries of G7, but in 1998, it only accounted for 0.19%. With
an enormous debt to refund and resources which do not increase, without
counting a population in constant increase, the developing countries have great
difficulties in make education a national priority. Moreover, of these
financial difficulties, the International Monetary International Monetary Funds
imposed on these developing countries plans of financial cleansing which force
to strongly compress the public expenditure. It appears obvious that if the
rich countries want to keep to their commitments of fight against the child
work, they will have to agree of the efforts of a financial nature against the
poor countries. Indeed, those will not be able to set up a system of basic
education free and accessible to all without this help.
Then, much of rural zones do not have any school system and
one needs an unquestionable courage then to traverse the every day of the
kilometers to feet to go to the school. In order to rectify this situation of
school abandonment, it would be necessary that in rural zone the school goes
ahead of of the child, for example by creating small classes of several levels,
to provide education for the children with reasonable distances from on their
premises. A school accessible to all the children from a small rural zone would
encourage, without any doubt, the parents to send their children in class, in
particular owing to the fact that the teacher could make to explain pressure on
them and them the need for educating their children. So much of children of the
same zone find themselves in class, the forsaken children will be able to also
ask their parents to join them.
However, if one wants truly to incite the children, and their
parents, to benefit from the school, should especially be improved the taught
programs. Indeed, so that the schools attract and retain the children, it is
necessary that teaching is considered to be relevant by the pupils and their
parents. One of the first conditions of success will be thus to bind the
lessons to the Community life. In the places where the majority of the children
are with work, one could not logically continue to teach as if they did not
work. It is necessary to let know, consequently occasion, which types of
activities are particularly dangerous, thus supporting a better knowledge of
their rights in their in particular explaining the laws on work of the
children. One must also give them practical competences for the everyday life.
Indeed, the programs should not especially be rigid, but on the contrary to be
centered on waitings of the children. Exempted teaching must be able to be
flexible and to adapt to the category of population to which it is addressed.
Nevertheless, some is the area where it is exempted, teaching
must at least allow all the children of knowing to read, write and count. The
children of the rural zones should not be to have programs privileging the
recitation, but rather those giving of the practical solutions to their daily
problems. Finally and especially, the school must be able to adapt to the
Community rate/rhythm of life. The poor families require for all labor
available in times of harvests for example, and it is imperative that they can
if they wish it to be able to count on the assistance of their children for
these periods. It is thus necessary that the school timetable can be modulated,
according to the areas and of the periods. Indeed, a family which cannot
request from her children a help during harvests, will be very reticent to send
them the year according to to the school.
The schools present in Africa see a very high school absentee
rate in period of harvest, but it is necessary that this absenteeism is made
possible by the school itself. It is the strategy adopted by the Indian State
of Kerala where the child work is almost non-existent and the rate of
elimination of illiteracy of 91%.L' inscription at the school is free there and
a meal is offered to all the schoolboys who can go away easily for the periods
when the parents need assistance47(*). However, the success of this province is not solely
with these flexibilities, but also with a real political good-will to support
teaching.
Moreover, exemption from payment, accessibility and
flexibility, teaching will also have, to be able to develop suitably, to be
practiced by qualified people. Indeed, the financial crisis which struck the
education of the developing countries, contributed to degrade the remuneration
and the situation of the teachers, especially at the primary education level
which is however most important. So the quality of the professors who return in
the system dropped it too : many teachers had to give up teaching or to
take a second, to see the third employment. It is obvious that in these
circumstances, of many children cannot consider the school as a place which
will widen their horizon and will offer new possibilities to them. So even the
professors are obliged to follow several occupations, how the school could it
offer an education to them enabling them to obtain a stable employment ?
It is thus necessary to privilege the training and the wages of these teachers
so that they can do their work under the best possible conditions. Moreover, it
will be necessary to replace teachers who have negative ideas towards the poor
children, basic caste or who work. Indeed, these children are often victims of
important prejudices and can undergo ill treatments during the school, which
can only encourage them to leave it. It would thus be necessary to support the
use of teachers of the same community as their pupils and to sensitize them
with the situation of the children. The use of young teachers, belonging to the
same community that that their pupils, could only prove to the children whom
education allows a social and economic life more prosperous, and to incite them
to benefit from the school.
The resources allotted to education must imperatively be found
quickly, so that the objectives of universal schooling are achieved. The
industrialized countries will have obviously to make a consequent effort in
this direction. The international institutions and the development banks must
support the national efforts as well as possible aiming at giving again the
absolute priority with primary education teaching. Basic education for all is
realizable, if one gives to him the priority required by the Convention on the
rights of the child. It is not only one question of resources, but also of
political choices. It was estimated that the additional expenditure necessary
so that all the children can be provided education for from here the year 2000
was six billion dollars per annum, is less than 1% of what the world spends
each year in armaments.
However, the key of the elimination of the child work does not
reside solely in the development of a system of education.
* 46 Report/ratio UNICEF
: « The situation of the children in the world »
1997 préc.
* 47 « The
receipt of Kerala » by Samuel Grumiau, January 1, 1999 (
http://www.icftu.org)
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