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Introduction
This is a practical booklet for people who work to increase
children's educational chances. It may help you to use it if we
explain what we have chosen to include, and not include, and
why.
Who is it for?
It was written for staff of the International Save the Children
Alliance, but their efforts are part of a wider movement and we
hope that others with similar aims will find the booklet useftil. The
Alliance consists of 25 national organisations, who work
independently, but share a common set of principles based on
the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Most work within their
own country and the larger ones support activities in many other
countries, employing local staff or working with local
organisations. The Alliance thus combines an international
perspective with local experience in over 70 countries,
The people for whom this booklet is intended are, therefore,
nationals of many countries, each with a different base of
experience. Many work in remote places where it is difficult to find
out what is happening elsewhere. Although they are not
necessarily educationalists and are unlikely to read academic
books on the subject, they have a detailed knowledge of their
own context and experience of many issues that affect children's
educational chances: their safety in times of conflict, whether
they have food and shelter, or if there is adequate care to enable
them to grow and develop naturally. This gives them a breadth of
view which professional educationalists often lack, but anyone
working in isolation can get stuck in particular ways of thinking
about what they are doing which are not necessarily helpful. By
bringing together experience from many different contexts, we
have drawn out a few general principles that we hope will help
each of us look more critically at our own practice, and so be
better able to bring about real improvements in children's
chances of education.
A dialogue across countries
Our aim has been to facilitate a dialogue between people in
different countries who have similar tasks, but who do not have
the chance to meet and learn from each other. We imagine you
as the reader testing the ideas and experiences described here
against your own, and where you disagree, arguing with us. To
make clear this sense of a conversation, the booklet uses the
word 'we' to include all of us - writers, readers, anyone who
works to improve children's chances of education. A Training
Handbook is available to go with this booklet, containing ideas to
help you run short workshops on these issues - among
colleagues, with partner organisations, with officials in ministries
of education, with members of the community, and in particular,
with children themselves. If you would like to contact us with your
responses, we will learn from your experience and the dialogue
will work both ways.
By writing the booklet we hope to bring together two bodies of
experience - on educational issues and international
development - that have historically been discussed separately.
Education is something which concerns everyone. Though there
are complex issues involved, we believe the essential principles
derive from common sense and can be worked out by thoughtful
people anywhere, regardless of educational level. For this reason
we have not quoted academic books and have avoided the
technical jargon of both educationalists and development
agencies. Where precise concepts are essential to the discussion
- for instance, the idea that education is a 'developmental'
process - we do not assume that readers across many countries
and many different life experiences will the same meaning to the
word, or even have encountered it before. We hope you will be
tolerant if this means that some sections seem - for you - to the
obvious. They may be the very points which other readers
needed to have spelled out.
Universal issues, specific contexts
There is a danger in today's international context of 'global
solutions' being imposed, whether or not they suit local contexts.
We have tried to work in the opposite way - to start from
practical experiences in many contexts and see what general
principles can b deduced from them. Staff in 50 countries were
invited to write case studies, selecting issues which they felt
markedly affect children's educational chances where they work,
and describing how they have tried to deal with them. A working
group from seven regions then spent two weeks analysing this
experience and drawn out general principles. The view of
education that emerged from this process links with the principles
o the international Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The gathering of material was undertaken by Save th Children
(UK), so most of the examples reflect its experience.
Representatives from three other Save the Children
organisations (Sweden, Norway and USA) contributed to the
process. The examples are quoted ideas of what people have
found possible to do in a range of situations. Most readers will
have their own examples and we do not mean to suggest that
the on quoted here are more worthy of attention. We are we
aware that they are modest contributions to large problems and
that there are better-known cases on many issues.
We hope the examples give a sense of the variety of social and
political contexts, but each reader is likely feel that the specific
features of the region he or she knows best have been
inadequately tackled. We woul welcome initiatives to produce
regional versions of th booklet, with the issues in that region
more strongly reflected in both analysis and examples, and
publishe in the appropriate language(s).
Owner: Kimberly Ogadhoh and Marion Molteno