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.
The Eritrean Minister of Education, Semere Russom, and his delegation visited Finland this week at the invitation of Finn Church Aid (FCA). Minister Russom had meetings with Finnish education officials, representatives of Finnish universities and other actors from the education sector. The Minister also visited the vocational education provider Omnia, and the Saunalahti primary school in Espoo. Finn Church Aid is supporting the development of teacher training in Eritrea.
Semere Russom, Eritrean Minister of Education.
“Many Finnish pedagogic practices are applicable to Eritrean schools. For example team teaching, special needs education and more individualised vocational training”, said Minister Russom.
“I was also impressed by the cooperation between the teachers, school management and the parents. Both teachers and students are supported on many levels.”
The Eritrean delegation also had meetings with the Minister of Education and Culture, Sanni Grahn-Laasonen; the Minister for Foreign Trade and Development, Lenita Toivakka, and Member of Parliament and Special Representative Pekka Haavisto.
On Wednesday, Minister Russom spoke at an international conference on Finnish and Eritrean cooperation for quality learning.
“Education is the cornerstone of all economic and social development”, Minister Russom emphasised.
The seminar was organised jointly by Finn Church Aid, CIMO, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland and the Finnish Ministry of Education.
Developing teacher training together
The shared goal of FCA and the State of Eritrea is to develop the nation’s education sector. Strengthening teacher training is of particular strategic importance in that process.
“Cooperation has begun well”, said Minister Russom. “In less than eighteen months we have achieved concrete results. The measures we have taken are progressing well and are already bearing fruit.”
Eritrea has substantial challenges in offering children and youth opportunities for quality education, and in providing the youth with skills that will help them find employment.
“Next, we will look into how we can together develop vocational training. Learning vocational skills has a direct effect in how young people view their future. This goes for youth both here in Finland and in Eritrea”, says Jouni Hemberg, FCA Executive Director.
FCA is working in cooperation with Eritrean teacher training institutions and education officials to develop the capacities of teachers and teacher trainers to ensure that Eritrean children and youth have the opportunity to learn with professional and motivated teachers. FCA is also supporting the establishment of Eritrea’s first national innovation centre.
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.
The teachers are returning to school in Bangui PK5 area after two years of absence. Some activities have been held during these two years but with no official teachers and no standard curriculum.
The schools have been closed mainly because of unstable security situation and the fact that teachers have been unwilling to come to school as they have feared for their own security. We will also provide training for the teachers and teaching materials and also organise bus transportation for the teachers for two weeks.
For the first time in two years, teaching will follow the standard curriculum.
FCA has taken the lead since the beginning of December to restart the activities of international NGOs in the Muslim enclave. Teachers, a local Imam, representatives from the Parent Teacher association, and local authorities as well as Ministry of Education are involved in the effort.
The official reopening will be held later this winter.
Primary school children dressed in bright green school uniforms smile and wave at us on our morning run while the morning rush hour is only just about to start. As sunlight breaks colours into soft evening shades, groups of school children returning home bring colour back to the streets of Asmara. What is going on? Do school days in Eritrea last from dawn till dusk?
In Eritrea, primary school has grades one to five. Children usually start school at age six. Primary school pupils have 30 classes per week, each class lasting between 30 and 60 minutes.
Because of the large number of keen pupils, classes are held in shifts, as was the case in Finland once. The pupils, then, don’t spend the whole day in school. But the same teachers work with both the morning and the afternoon shifts.
This week we had the opportunity to visit primary schools in Asmara. The schools in the capital are crammed but classes are mainly held indoors. There are schools in more remote regions where a shelter made from sticks and tarpaulin, or the shadow of a large tree serve as classrooms.
The Medeber primary school is one of the oldest in the city. The school, founded in the 1930s, has some 1,100 pupils and 24 teachers. In addition, the school has two classes for children with disabilities which have 52 pupils. They study in the school for 11 years. We got to visit their mathematics class where everyone was busy writing numbers. The children welcomed us cheerfully and then continued working vigorously.
The first year English class was having an exercise where one student got in front of the class and picked one of the object put on display. A little girl in pigtails determinedly picked up a large white cup and held it up for her classmates to see. “Cup!” the girls said and the others repeated the word in unison. When the word had been repeated about a dozen times, the teacher instructed the girl to move on to the next phase. “What is this?” the girl asked, and the class replied, at the top of their lungs: “This is a cup!”
In primary school, teaching is done in one’s own native tongue – in one of nine languages in Eritrea. However, English lessons start from the first grade, and from secondary school onward, English is the official language of teaching.
From Mederber we continued to the Erafaile School a stone’s throw away. This is the largest school in Eritrea in number of pupils. The school has a total of 2,180 pupils and 42 teachers, and group sizes are limited to 40 pupils. This is exceptional in a country where classes in primary schools often have as much as 60 pupils. The enormous school building of Erafaile has been constructed with Chinese funding and the school was opened only a little over a year ago.
The content and progression of teaching in all schools in the country are determined by school books provided by the Ministry of Education. In primary schools, teachers only teach certain subjects, which means they hold the same classes for many different groups over a week. Curricula for the upcoming week have to be presented to the school’s pedagogical director beforehand on the Friday preceding the classes. The uniformity of education is considered extremely important.
While going from classroom to classroom, we asked the pupils what their dream jobs were. In one class, almost everyone wanted to become police officers. The director of the school told us that some time ago, a police officer had visited the school to talk about his profession.
In another class, the most common ambition was to become a doctor. We also met pupils dreaming of becoming engineers, electrical technicians, pilots and farmers. And quite a few wanted to become teachers as well. Pupils were excited about studying and knew that getting an education is important.
It only takes some 13 hours to get to Asmara from the Helsinki Airport in Finland. Yet, Finland and Eritrea are located on the same time zone. It is perhaps more accurate to measure the actual time difference between the two countries in decades rather than hours.
The city of Asmara is characterised by charmingly beautiful buildings dating to the era of Italian colonial rule. Internet connection works sporadically, and not everything one is used to having back home is readily available. For example, there are no ATMs in the country. Instead, however, there is overwhelming hospitality, great sense of humour, and one of the safest and cleanest city milieus in Africa.
The first days have been busy with getting to know the new surroundings and meeting new people. At our working campus, we have met most of the teachers and toured around the site. Working conditions are, of course, quite different from what we have in Finland. Thus, what works in Finland might not work in Eritrea, and at the beginning we’re eager to learn from our Eritrean colleagues. In a good partnership with them, we will have opportunities to share our best practices.
There are two teacher training institutions in Eritrea. FCA education specialist Hanna Posti-Ahokas works at the one which is part of the Eritrean Institute of Technology. We, the two Teachers without Borders education experts, work at the Asmara Community College for Education (ACCE). The two institutions are administratively separate, but there is lively cooperation between them.
Initially, the focus will be on observing the teaching at ACCE. There is an on-going process of revising the curriculum for Diploma level teacher training, where our input is also desired. We will participate in different departments’ planning meetings and learn from their expertise as well as discuss the curriculum together with them.
Furthermore, earlier this year the ACCE has started a secondary high school level education programme aiming to educate more motivated teachers into the Eritrean education system. The challenge here, just like in so many other countries, is that the teaching profession is not nearly as prestigious and respected as it is, for example, in Finland. It is amazing how committed and motivated our local colleagues — teachers and other education professionals — are despite this.
Now, in the very beginning, one is immersed in all that is new; names, faces, places, voices and scents. Being awakened by roosters crowing in the heart of the capital and inhaling the delicious odour of freshly baked bread during the morning run make for a great start for the day.
Everything has gone smoothly, and there is undoubtedly a memorable time ahead of us. So here we go! It feels great to get started.
Observing classes
The Asmara Community College of Education provides education to both high school students and teacher trainees. Also, teachers who wish to update their diploma participate in the one-year programme. This means that over two hundred diligent students in total are on campus every day.
This week, we have been observing classes every day and so far have participated in English, biology and geography classes. It is wonderful to see the excitement glimmering in the eyes of teachers as they talk about the movements of tectonic plates in the lithosphere, the characteristics of life or English grammar, in other words the exact same things that are taught and studied in Finland. Even though conditions here in Eritrea are quite different from those in Finland, the joy of learning is universal.
Later on, we are going to visit local primary schools and see the practical results of the teacher training programme. One thing is certain: most students are eager to go to school. This becomes evident during our morning jog when, before seven o’clock, we meet flocks of smiling little school children in their green uniforms headed for their first classes of the day.
We will also have the chance to teach biology to high school students ourselves. It is perhaps easier to assess which methods work best in practice and which don’t once we have tested them personally. It is also more fruitful to discuss which methods to use with colleagues after you have tried them out yourself in a local context.
We have, then, a most interesting week going on here and possibly even more interesting ones ahead!
From sunny Asmara, over and out,
Katri Meriläinen and Jukka Tulivuori
Photo: Minna Törrönen
Jukka Tulivuori has over 15 years of experience as an educator, and holds an MA in education and an MSc in geography, biology and health education. His MSc thesis addressed ICT in Geography Education. He currently works at the Finnish National Board of Education (part of the MoE), Helsinki, as a Counsellor of Education focusing on Learning Environments, ICT in Learning and Teaching, Biology and Geography in General Education, and Environmental Education. He is a published author in education and has produced curricula and online materials about environmental education.
Photo: Minna Törrönen
Katri Meriläinen holds an MA in Teacher Education and specialises in English and Biology. She offers diverse experience in teacher education and integration of the arts in learning. Meriläinen specialises in pedagogical uses of information and communication technologies. Her passion for teacher education has led her to pursue international opportunities, and in 2009 she worked on developing an education programme for street children in Kolkata, India. Recently, Meriläinen has completed courses in Global Education and Education Quality Assessment.
How could I improve the learning environments of children in the difficult places I have visited? This was the question I was asking myself last autumn, sitting in my new room in the new FCA office, looking at the empty walls around my desk. My head seemed to mirror the emptiness, even though I was trying to come up with fancy architectural ideas.
As it happened, FCA education specialist Mary Tangelder came in and inspired me to look for a new angle. Why do the schools in developing countries always look like prisons, she asked, and then directed me on an idea hunt on the internet. She also talked about some wonderful Finnish schools she had visited. My head was no longer empty but buzzing with new ideas.
“Why do the schools in developing countries always look like prisons?”
How could we take notes from awarded Finnish school architecture, which is based on large, open buildings where different spaces meet and offer many different locations for learning and recreation? And how to do that especially when we work under very challenging conditions, with a very tight budget.
I started drawing on the walls and hanging various prints all over. That is my method of processing new ideas and collecting valuable seeds of thought and notable principles. And from all that, I began, little by little, to make out ideas that would combine limited resources and an inspiring school.
A redesigned learning environment is flexible.
A new school focused on learning and inspiring students could include a variety of spaces in classrooms, on big terraces, under a tree in a garden, in a media classroom, on a sports field or a quiet little corner, on a nice bench behind some shrubs. The buildings don’t have to be more expensive than before, they just need to be redesigned. The school grounds can then be transformed together to offer the kind of facilities that Finnish schools have under expensive roofs.
Obviously, an architect cannot design a school on his own; specialists in education are needed for support. We also decided to try out new ideas on a pilot project. That would be an excellent way to introduce our new ideas and principles to local personnel and partners. With meticulous documentation, this kind of a practical example would more easily attract the interest of others as well.
Product development and testing is quite different from our normal work, which meant that a proper time and financial resources had to be found for it. At the same time, FCA was looking for a target to the Suvivirsi Summer Hymn campaign in Cambodia. And behold, there was a place, and probably some funding as well, to test our new school design.
The writer is an architect and a coordinator of school construction at Finn Church Aid.
My mind was racing as I was bobbing on the back seat of an off-road vehicle on a mountain road in Haiti looking for suitable sites to build the Finn Church Aid (FCA) schools on. I was thinking about how I could help our teams around the tropical zone as they struggle knee deep in mud with similar problems relating to school construction.
At the same time, our team in the Philippines was busy preparing the construction of 47 classrooms in the aftermath of the super typhoon Haiyan. We were messaging back and forth quite a bit about the school plan which we had already been sketching at the start of the Philippines relief efforts. The main problems appeared to be the timetable for the competitive procurement and the availability of materials.
A large part of our workers involved in building schools are not professionals in construction, but for example villagers who participate in construction through a Cash for work -programme. The local engineers, for their part, might not be familiar with our humanitarian principles and objectives.
Already after my previous visit to Haiti, I had outlined a model that would help make construction more efficient, but now the shaking of the vehicle made some new ideas click into place in my head.
I finally realised that construction in development aid or in a humanitarian crisis requires a simple description, a check-list type guide. A good groundwork already existed, thanks to Matti Kuittinen, who had designed the schools for Haiti, and Sari Kaipainen, who had coordinated their construction. Based on that work, I drew up a guide for building schools: New School ideas for better learning spaces in emergency.
The objective of the guide is to help people involved in construction to take into account some essential elements, such as the principles followed in FCA and in humanitarian work, the quality of construction and keeping costs and timetables within the agreed upon limits, from Haiti to the Philippines.
I hope to get lots of feedback from the guide in order to develop it into an efficient and helpful tool.
I will write more on the joys of an architect, the designing of new buildings and spaces, in the next blog post.
The writer is an architect and a school construction coordinator at Finn Church Aid.
