Above: Children perform a dance in a preschool supported by Save the Children, Tach Lam, Vietnam.
Above: We work with parents and local communities to enable children from poor families to go to school in Andhra Pradesh, India
This is why education forms part of almost all of Save the Children programmes.
World leaders have pledged to bring about universal primary education by 2015, but around children are still missing out on school for unacceptable reasons, such as being a girl, coming from ethnic minorities, having a disability or needing to work. Save the Children strives to make education accessible and safe for children, focusing on those who are hardest to reach.
In Chui, Kyrgyzstan, we helped bring refugee children into the educational mainstream and encouraged community discussions to tackle prejudice. We have set up inclusive education coalitions in three South East European countries, and persuaded local authorities in Kosovo to fund inter-ethnic kindergartens.
Save the Children works with governments and education authorities to strengthen school systems and make them more child-friendly. We led a campaign that resulted in corporal punishment being outlawed in Mongolian schools, benefiting over 650,000 children. The Mongolian government is also introducing a new code of conduct for teachers to end illegal school fees, which have kept thousands of children out of school.
We aim to ensure that education is relevant and of a high quality, from early childhood development centres through to accelerated learning programmes for older children who have missed out on school. Our basic education programme in Amhara, Ethiopia, provides informal education opportunities for over 270,000 children in rural areas.
In India, we trained 1,000 Village Education Committees so they can play an active part in shaping local education provision. We trained more than 30,000 teachers in 2008 alone, in places as diverse as Papua New Guinea and Tibet. Around the world, Save the Children enables children, parents and teachers to be involved in school organisation and the delivery of education.
Rewrite the Future is the first global campaign involving all members of the Save the Children Alliance.
Over half the children out of school worldwide live in areas affected by conflict. Every year, another 750,000 children have their education disrupted by humanitarian disasters.
We are calling for change for these children, and making a direct difference ourselves by aiming to provide good quality education in conflict-affected countries for 8 million children by 2010.
