How would you feel sending your children to study in a school that was damaged in battle and had no learning materials available? What would you think if your child was attending a class much lower than other children his age because the exams were in a foreign language and he couldn’t pass them? Would you want your children to study the history of a neighbouring or foreign country instead of that of your own? What if your children couldn’t go to school at all? And how would you do your job if you were the only teacher in a class of 198 students?
During the 2014/2015 school year, 2.8 million Syrian children and adolescents weren’t able to attend school. That’s 40% of all school-aged Syrians. After five years of conflict, there are many causes for this, but surprisingly many of them are related to the quality of education which directly affects learning. The problems in the quality of education are different for Syria than they are for the refugees, but always difficult to resolve. The language of teaching, the curriculum, organising teacher training, and the wellbeing of teachers and students are the core issues.
Finn Church Aid (FCA) operates within different international networks to find solutions to the issues of education in emergencies and quality of education. Since 2010, we have been part of the UN’s Global Education Cluster which is responsible for supporting local education officials in coordinating education-related emergency relief efforts. Last year we joined the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), a network of education professionals. This week the experts of INEE’s working groups have assembled in Amman, Jordan, to cooperate in improving the quality of education in the world’s most difficult crises. This group of about 50 experts from UNHCR, UNRWA, UNICEF and the international branches of Plan and Save the Children also includes two representatives from FCA.
On the agenda this week have been many refugee issues, not limited to the Syrian crisis alone. We have been preparing guidelines for ministries, civil society organisations and schools on how to organise psychosocial support to children, youth and teachers. The process is directed by FCA and Plan International. Increased wellbeing often translates to improved learning outcomes.
We have also been contemplating the use of self-study programmes in regions that have become isolated by war. A new teacher training programme was also launched in Amman with the intention of training primary school teachers who work under crisis situations. The programme is freely available on the INEE website and has already been used in Iraq and the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya. This project has been led by UNHCR, and FCA has been one of the seven organisations involved. In relation to this training programme, FCA has organised a pilot project on the use of mobile phones to solve the problems teachers face daily in refugee settings, for example: how to ensure equal learning in a class of 198 students.
Quite a bit can be achieved with expertise, experience, imagination and problem-solving, yet money is also required. We have also had to contemplate how we could more effectively advocate towards donors and decision makers to release more funds for education in emergencies. Everybody has the right to education, even those caught in conflict.
Minna Peltola
FCA Senior Thematic Adviser, Right to Education
PS. FCA’s Regional Education Specialist for Eastern Africa, Mary Tangelder, was also present in Amman.
This year and next year, Finn Church Aid (FCA) constructs more transitional and semi-permanent learning centres with adequate water, sanitation and hygiene facilities in Nepal, extends its post-earthquake teacher training to new schools, and continues psychosocial support for teachers and children.
Devastating earthquakes hit Nepal on 24 April and 12 May 2015, destroying 770,000 homes, killing thousands and affecting millions. Four thousand schools were destroyed or damaged, keeping 1.2 million children out of classrooms.
After providing emergency relief, Finn Church Aid decided to concentrate its efforts on making it possible for children and youth to continue their studies. Within a couple of months after the earthquake, FCA had constructed temporary learning centres for nearly 20,000 students.
In 2016-2017, FCA builds 600 transitional classrooms in the districts of Makwanpur, Gorkha and Sindul with funding from UNICEF.
In remote areas of the Lalitpur district, FCA builds 40 semi-permanent (lifespan of 15-20 years) classrooms for schools which were not included in the reconstruction scheme of the Ministry of Education. FCA will also repair partially damaged, but structurally safe school buildings and tear down unsafe ones.
With the National Center for Education Development, Finn Church Aid is developing an activity package aiming to strengthen the cooperation between schools, families and communities in tackling post disaster child protection risks in Nepal. FCA is also cooperating with four secondary schools to develop an emergency school material kit especially aimed at high school-age students.
“FCA is bridging the gap between response and reconstruction to strengthen the overall quality of education, resilience and recovery at school and community level. The collective efforts of the government and NGOs fulfilled only 70 per cent of the need for temporary learning centres. Therefore, FCA continues to build additional transitional and semi-permanent learning centres”, says Finn Church Aid Nepal Country Manager Lila Bashyal.
Finn Church Aid extends its teacher training for post-earthquake recovery to new schools. The training is given in cooperation with Nepalese education authorities and gives teachers and pupils tools to manage their anxiety and identify when peer support is not enough and professional help is needed.
“FCA continues to provide psychosocial support, because even after one year of the massive earthquake, due to continued aftershocks, teachers report that earthquake survivor children are still traumatised with high levels of psychological and academic distress”, Mr Bashyal says.
The situation in the country remains severe, as people are still waiting for government support for rebuilding their homes and starting their livelihoods. Hundreds of thousands of Nepalese, who lost their homes in the earthquakes, are still living in temporary sheet metal shelters, and even in tents.
Further information: Lila Bashyal, FCA Country Manager for Nepal, email: lila.bashyal(at)kua.fi, Tel. +977 98 511 59 106
Merja Färm, Humanitarian Coordinator, email: merja.farm(at)kua.fi, Tel. +977 98101 35798
A new semester kicked off at our workplace, the Asmara Community College of Education, in February. That also marked the start of a course we had been involved in organising called Introduction to Action Research, which is a course aimed at second year classroom teacher students. The course is meant to provide students with tools for studying their own work, and expand their own thinking about the teaching profession while strengthening their teaching identity.
The idea that teachers are the best researchers and experts of their own work has been a rather prominent pedagogic view in Finland for quite some time. This is not self-evident; in many countries teaching is being developed by ministries or government agencies. The expertise of teachers is getting increasingly valued also here in Eritrea, and this is the third time the Introduction to Action Research course is being organised at the teachers training institute we are working at.
Action Research is not a single research method, but a way of doing research that allows for the use of multiple different methods. It’s a great way of approaching the particular problems and challenges encountered in teaching. The idea is to formulate a research question linked to a problem encountered in the daily professional life, and attempt to find a solution to that problem through research. This solution can be improved upon later based on experiences at work.
The course spans the entire semester, in other words until the end of June. That means that enough time is reserved for immersing in the subject. This is good, because many students have never done research before, and everything in the course is new and interesting to them. The benefits of cooperation are emphasised in the course and participants plan out research projects in small groups.
This year, course participants are second year teacher students and the course is mandatory for everyone. There are three groups in the course which means there are quite a few participants. The largest group has nearly fifty students. Getting to know each student takes time and resources.
During the course participants are introduced to the different methods available for research and what are the best ways for teachers to make research a natural part of their everyday work routines. Action Research is used to find solutions to the problems that arise in normal day-to-day work. Potential research topics brought up by our colleague teacher trainers include: why pupils are late for classes, how to support pupils in difficult subjects like physics and why some pupils don’t do their homework.
It’s positive that the question of how teachers could evolve in their work by studying it themselves is being raised here in Eritrea too. Everyday problems can be solved with Action Research and the research projects don’t have to be enormous in scale or long-lasting. Short and intensive studies can also have a clear impact. We are awaiting with great enthusiasm to see what kind of research projects the Action Research course members come up with.
Katri Meriläinen and Jukka Tulivuori are working as Teachers without Borders volunteers in Eritrea.
Finn Church Aid (FCA) is launching a project to support basic education and remedial classes for over 2,000 children in Syria. The situation of refugee youth on the Greek islands is also alarming, as they are currently being ignored. As much as 80% of refugee children travelling alone disappear after reaching the continent.
FCA supports the basic education and remedial classes of 2,200 children in Syria. Most of them are girls. The majority of beneficiaries live in the Dara’an region, where the Syrian war began in 2011. Other supported schools are located in Al Hasakeh, Aleppo and the Damascus surroundings.
Especially children and youth have suffered from the Syrian war, which has now lasted five years, because they have been out of school for extended periods due to bombings and security threats.
“An estimated 2.1 to 2.4 million children and youth still living in Syria won’t still be able to return to school this year. Thousands of Syrian children will grow up without spending a day in school. And these children are expected to one day build a new Syria”, says Olli Pitkänen, FCA Regional Programme Manager for the Middle East.
According to the UN, the number of Syrian children in need of immediate humanitarian assistance may be as high as six million. Securing education, providing child protection and offering psychosocial support are of particular importance.
“Children and young people are hopeless and live in isolation. They are in an extremely vulnerable position. Under such circumstances, education offers a feeling of stability. It gives you confidence and offers a chance for a radically different future”, says Minna Peltola, FCA Senior Thematic Adviser on Education.
Since 2012, FCA has organised education and recreational activities to thousands of Syrian youth in Jordan.
In Greece, the situation of refugee youth is critical – many disappear after reaching the continent
In February 2016, FCA conducted a needs assessment with Norwegian Church Aid and the Swedish Church in Athens and on the Greek islands, mapping out specifically the needs of refugee children and youth. Since autumn 2015, Finn Church Aid has been assisting refugees in Hungary, Serbia and Greece.
Women, children and young people constitute the majority of refugees currently arriving on the Greek islands. The young people in particular are in a fragile position. For example, child-friendly spaces are organised, to some extent, but no youth spaces are available. Protection of young girls should be managed much better, since they might have to share emergency housing with men. Minors travelling alone are also often kept in police detention facilities where boys and girls share the same rooms. Later, these young people are transferred to guest houses on the continent, where, according to FCA’s study, eight out of ten disappear or leave illegally, which makes them particularly vulnerable. Most will never be heard from again.
Giving psychosocial support to the youth is problematic too, because relief workers and volunteers might not share a common language with the refugees. They might show support to the smaller children by holding them in their arms, but don’t have ways of similarly supporting older children and youth.
Tuesday 15 March 2016 is the fifth year anniversary of the Syrian war, which began as repression of the Arab spring civil uprising, and has since ballooned into a complicated international conflict. The war has claimed 250,000 lives; over one million people have been injured. The conflict has created 6.5 million internal refugees within Syria, and 4.8 million Syrians have fled the country resulting in the worst refugee crisis in the world.
Further information:
Olli Pitkänen, FCA Regional Programme Manager for the Middle East, tel. +358 40 729 22 85. In Finland from Mon. 14 March to Sat. 19 March 2016.
Minna Peltola, FCA Senior Thematic Adviser on Education, tel. +358 40 739 56 12.
Eriikka Käyhkö, Information Officer, tel. +358 40 631 97 32.
Watch a video of our work with children and young people in Syria:
Et ole hyväksynyt markkinoinnin evästeitä nähdäksesi videon.
