new educational initiative of SOS Children’s Villages
As an actor in civil society, SOS Children’s Villages has decided to invest more in education from 2009 to 2016. This will particularly affect children who are at risk of losing or have already lost their parents.
While going to school every morning is normal for most children, to millions of girls and boys this remains an unfulfilled dream. The former may complain about boring lessons, play truant or ask themselves what the things they learn at school have to do with their life and their future. The latter, however, cannot even ask such questions: there are either no schools at all in their living environment, or they are not allowed to go to school. For instance because they are girls or belong to a minority, or perhaps their families cannot afford to pay for school fees, books, meals, transportation and uniforms. According to UNICEF [1] estimates, approximately 93 million children worldwide have no access to any schooling, and World Vision [2] states that at least one third of these children is handicapped. Many people, not least children, are deprived of the right to an education [3].
The basis of positive development
Since before the announcement of the “millennium goals” by the United Nations, the general public has been aware of the fact that education is the basis of positive development. One of the eight millennium goals is free access to basic schooling for all. However, the reality is different, even if most nations officially agreed to support this goal. In her latest publication [4], Katarina Tomasevski, who was in charge of education at the United Nations for a long time, reports that the ratio of teachers to soldiers is still 100 to 150. Furthermore, the latest UNICEF report on the situation of children and young people in the world [5] makes it perfectly clear: over the past ten years an average of 12% of the gross national product worldwide was spent on defence, while only half the amount was spent on education.
The lack of possibilities for education is not the only problem, since in many countries the quality of the educational system is poor. According to the UN Youth Report [6] it is the disadvantaged children in particular who often do not receive sufficient schooling and are therefore unable to start a career. Children can be disadvantaged because of their origin or social background, through neglect, as a result of crises (for instance armed conflicts) having to flee, trafficking or other reasons. At school they are frequently stigmatised and the disadvantages double with regard to the curricula, through educational structures and teachers who do not adequately react to their individual needs and learning difficulties. Furthermore, many children perform badly, refuse to go to school and have to repeat a year due to malnutrition, traumas, abuse and neglect. These conditions hardly give them any chance to break the vicious circle of violence.
Our target group and the needs involved
In order for the children and young people entrusted to the care of SOS Children’s Villages to become competent and start their independent lives in a responsible way, the new educational initiative “Learning for Life” increasingly focuses on our target group’s specific educational needs. This involves ensuring access to and completion of education for all the children in our programmes and further developing schools and educational centres run by SOS Children’s Villages.
Special attention is paid both to the integration of children with particular needs and to the use of modern child-based and personalised forms of teaching. The situation of girls and boys from migrated families and minorities, or that of children with special needs, are taken into consideration. In this context, child protection, learning in one’s native language and child participation are only a few subjects to be dealt with in order for children to benefit from their education and develop into responsible adults. The numbers mentioned above clearly show that SOS Children’s Villages cannot achieve these goals on its own. In the future, cooperation with other organisations and public bodies will become much more important to the educational facilities of SOS Children’s Villages than it has been so far.
The planning and implementation of services in cooperation with various partners in order to enable a greater number of disadvantaged children to claim their right to high-quality education will no longer exclusively affect the schools and educational centres of SOS Children’s Villages. There will also be new forms of cooperation in the field of education in general and it goes without saying that this calls for highly qualified staff. SOS Children’s Villages wishes to help create and promote the development of children, families and communities by means of sustainable and improved educational services and a greater awareness of the need for quality education.