Christina lives in a small village in Singida province, Tanzania. She is sixteen years old, and about to complete her high school education. "Being able to read is most important to me, because if you cannot read you cannot learn, and if you cannot learn you cannot live." Christina is the only … [Read more...]
Haiti is one of the member countries of the Global Partnership for Education. It is also one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere ranking 158th out of 187 countries in the 2011 Human Development Index. The 7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti in 2010 compounded Haiti’s development … [Read more...]
When I worked at the Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank, I evaluated the outcomes of completed Bank-financed projects in an FTI partner country in Francophone Africa. Around 2004 the country could be considered the testing capital of Africa. Students had been assessed through a … [Read more...]
Imagine spending 16 years in school watching your teacher writing long texts on the blackboard and then copying them. How much knowledge do you think you would have acquired if your classroom time was spent in this way? In many FTI Partner countries, textbooks are conspicuously absent from … [Read more...]
Books are essential to children's learning. Without books, the promise of Education for All will be only half met, as the learning side of the access-learning equation will be compromised. Furthermore, charging for books is inequitable, especially if merchants are making a profit on the re-sale … [Read more...]
