The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| Pakistan’s “ghost schools” threaten next generation Posted: 12 Dec 2013 08:41 PM PST "I teach them lessons from the Quran, I teach them Sindhi, I teach them to count one-two, I teach them the alphabet A-B-C-D," said Bushra, wearing a traditional nose stud and a scarf around her head. She says she dreams of becoming a doctor and learning about computers. But her academic ambitions risk being scuppered after her own teacher fled. Authorities have not appointed a new one, making Bushra's situation typical for a student at one of Pakistan's 7,000 so-called "ghost schools", where no formal classes can be taught. These abandoned pupils are part of a growing education crisis in the country where, according to the United Nations, over five million children do not attend primary school. "The last teacher told us she would stop coming if we did not pay for her transportation to the village," said Salim Samoon, who has seven granddaughters at the school catering for the roughly 600 residents of Chancher Redhar, a village two hours drive from Karachi in the south of Pakistan. "But we have no money and the authorities have not appointed a new teacher," he said. The southern village is far from the notoriously conservative parts of northwest Pakistan near the Afghan border, where Taliban attacks against public schools are commonplace. Schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai become an international symbol of the right to education for all after surviving a 2012 Taliban attack in which she was shot in the head. But the damage caused by "ghost schools" across Pakistan, such as the one in Chancher Redhar, is self-inflicted and potentially greater: a new generation of children growing up without an education, either because the schools have been abandoned, destroyed, or because teachers are not turning up. "Maybe the media highlights the bombings of schools more because it is visible. But this is a more dangerous problem," said Rahmatullah Balal of the NGO Ailaan Alif, who has published a ranking of districts in terms of the quality of education available. According to his ranking, the district of Thatta, home to Bushra and her classmates, lies in 140th position out of a total of 144, behind Taliban hideouts in the northwest. Alerted last year to the problem of "ghost schools", the Supreme Court of Pakistan asked provinces to scrutinise institutions that took students and were officially regarded as schools. The results, released in late November, where shocking. "In most of the basic teaching units of the district, the situation is very alarming," the report said. "Most of these schools are teaching institutions only in name, but virtually no student is being admitted there to seek education and the teaching staff is taking salary at home." Along with teachers who received salary but did not teach, other schools failed to appoint teachers, were appropriated by wealthy landowners, or had budget irregularities, such as "paid-for" computers which never arrived. "The government and bureaucrats have no willingness to solve the problem," said Balal. "The money that the government gives to the school is consumed by bureaucrats. The budget might tell you what the money has been used for in the schools, but you don't see it get spent and then the money is gone." He says school funds are split "50-50" between feudal lords and bureaucrats, partly to ensure that there is no threat to the feudal lords' power base by seeing the poor receive education. Those politicians who are actively trying to raise the issue say that it is not a priority for the government. "We have to invest in our education because it is the only way to get progress," said Humera Alwani of the Pakistan Peoples Party. "You have to admit to a problem before you can correct it," she said. The existence of "ghost schools" also removes incentive for poor families to ensure their children get an education. Instead, many see more value in sending them to work in the fields or bazaars. "I do not like this school, this is why I do not go," said Arbab, not yet a teenager. "I go to fetch and buy water, and then I sell it." Local residents worry another generation will grow up without the skills they need. "These kids of ours, they don't know anything. They don't know the meaning of their names, they don't know the basics, they know nothing," said Kazoo Samoon, a villager in Chancher Redhar. "My other daughter grew up without an education and now these children will grow up without any education." In the cramped class, Bushra's attempted lesson is over in just a few minutes, ending with a rendition of the national anthem. Then the girls continue to play as they have done every day since their teacher left, waiting for the arrival of another who may never come. - AFP, December 13, 2013. |
| Indian infant deaths – high but falling steadily Posted: 12 Dec 2013 06:43 PM PST Hours earlier, Chandel gave birth to her fourth child, a seemingly healthy baby boy weighing three kilograms, and is optimistic that this time the chances of survival are good. "I was very worried beforehand. I was having more and more problems with each delivery, but he seems fine and I'm happy," says Chandel as she tries to breastfeed her newborn wrapped in a blanket. Married at 15 and pregnant three years later, Chandel's struggles to keep her babies alive are a familiar story for millions of women battling disease, caste discrimination, powerlessness and poverty in rural India. India has long had a dismal record of deaths from preventable illness; the nation accounts for 29% of global first-day deaths, for example — or 309,000 newborn deaths a year, says nonprofit group Save the Children. But figures from the census office published in October suggests that after 15 years of booming economic growth and explosive modernisation, India may finally be turning the corner. "There's a long way to go and traditional practices are still there," says Karin Hulshof, regional director for Unicef, the United Nation's children's fund. "But there has been great progress, a great call to action, with heavenly investment (at the government and NGO levels)," she tells AFP. Initiatives have focused on health issues such as encouraging women to give birth in hospitals instead of home, and increasing health centres and immunisation drives. Education has also been a priority, including on the importance of breastfeeding, improved nutrition and using clean water for hand washing and toilets to prevent episodes of life-threatening diarrhoea. Paul Vinod, head of paediatrics at one of India's most prestigious teaching hospitals, says the figures speak for themselves - infant mortality rates have dropped from 80 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 42 deaths in 2012. Despite the improvements, India still accounts for 22% of the world's deaths of children under five, and more than one quarter of all newborn deaths, the UN, WHO and World Bank estimate in a joint 2013 report. And public expenditure on health remains woeful, accounting for just 1.2% of gross domestic product, according to Vinod from AIIMS hospital in New Delhi, citing government figures. "Some developed countries spend 8% to 10%," he tells AFP. "We should be close to 3% or 5%. Anything less than 3% is poor." A child's chances of survival are also skewed depending on where a family resides. So the mortality rate in southern Kerala state is 12 per 1,000, the new figures show, but jumps to 56 in Madhya Pradesh — where Chandel lives. This postcode lottery is blamed by experts on population density and the priority successive state governments have placed on child health, among other reasons. Deep cultural issues, including the powerlessness of women and accepted attitudes about their role in society, also remain a huge battle. "These girls are unable to make independent decisions about their own reproductive choices or fertility," says Anuradha Gupta, a senior official from the Indian health ministry. "We have a huge battle ahead to change societal attitudes and norms towards adolescents, particularly girls," says Gupta in a November interview with Jhpiego, a nonprofit group attached to Johns Hopkins University. Pale with anemia, Radha Bagnele, 20, lies in a bed in Shivpuri District Hospital in Madhya Pradesh and listens to her mother-in-law despair about Bagnele's newborn twin daughters. "We wanted boys, so we are not happy, we are just okay," says Ramkunar Bagnele sitting on the bed. "Of course she will keep trying until we get them," she adds. Married at 13, Radha already has two daughters and worries her husband does not earn enough as a farm labourer to feed and care for their expanding family, who live in a nearby village. "I'm worried, but we need a boy," she says softly. Shivpuri hospital, together with Unicef, have developed a 24/7 call centre and a fleet of 35 ambulances so that women throughout the district can reach a hospital or clinic in time for a safer delivery. The number of infant deaths has fallen dramatically since its introduction but problems still exist. In the delivery room, a blanket covers a woman not moving and barely conscious. Her baby died shortly after delivery at home two days earlier, and the woman later collapsed from complications. "It could be a brain haemorrhage," a doctor says. "She will need to go to Gwalior (a nearby city), we don't have the facilities here." Down the hall, Sunil Gautam hovers over rake-thin babies in the special newborn care unit also funded by Unicef. He points to a boy in an incubator born days earlier weighing 600 grams — less than a half of the minimum healthy weight of a newborn. "Eight hundred grams today!" the paediatrician says. Asked why the 17 babies in the unit were born underweight, premature or sick, he reels off problems that have improved steadily in the five years he has worked there. "Poverty, illiteracy, nutrition deficiency, early marriage and no spacing between births," he says of the mothers. "Things are working, are improving," he adds. "But it's slow." - AFP, December 13, 2013. |
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