FDID commends UNICEF on girl-child education week
Foundation for Democratic Initiatives and Development, a youth oriented human rights organisation, has commended UNICEF for commemorating the girl child education week in Sierra Leone.
FDID recognises education as a basic human right. While notable progress has been made in ensuring children’s right to education in Sierra Leone, much is still needed especially in addressing the gender parity and quality of education that addresses socio-economic needs of the girl child. In order to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG2) by 2015, Sierra Leone must emulate the policies of other developing countries that are making huge strides in this regard. The bottlenecks and other administrative requirements that are hampering our ability to achieve the 2015 target should be reconsidered.
Generally payment of school charges remains an uphill task for most families, especially in face of mounting food crisis and unrelenting poverty. Hence, there is a need for school fees to be abolished to ensure that all children get access to education. Other African countries like Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, etc, have registered encouraging strides since they abolished school fees. Sections of population that were once precluded now have access to education.
In this light, we at FDID join UNICEF to advocate for:
- The Right of Access to Education: Education must be available for, accessible and inclusive of all children.
- The Right to Quality Education: Education needs to be child centred, relevant and embrace a broad curriculum, and be appropriately resourced and monitored.
- The Right to Respect within the Learning Environment: Education must be provided in a way that is consistent with human rights, equal respect for all culture, religion and language and free from all forms of violence.
Hindowa E. Saidu
Note: Hindowa E. Saidu is the Director of Foundation for Democratic Initiatives and Development, a Human Rights Non Governmental Organization in Sierra Leone. He can be reached at-fdidsl@gmail.com or 076804066/088571167.
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