Lærere, børn, forældre og NGO’ er kæmper sammen med Uddannelsesministeriet for, at skolegangen skal fortsætte i Mali, selv om islamistiske grupper har tvunget hundredevis af børn i koranskole og lukket mange offentlige skoler.
FNs Børnefond (UNICEF) anslår, at 10.000 børn nu er flygtninge i deres eget land. Det betyder mange afbrudte skoleforløb.
MALI, October 5, 2012 (IRIN): Teachers, the Ministry of Education and aid agencies are scrambling to provide catch-up classes to thousands of displaced children who fled northern Mali for southern towns to help them graduate this year, while those teachers and families who stayed in the north are doing the same – determined to keep their children learning despite the closure of dozens of public schools and severe changes to the curricula.
Islamist groups in northern Mali – Ansar Dine, the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) – imposed Sharia law when they wrested control of northern Mali, shutting many public schools, slashing the curricula of others, and forcing hundreds of children into Koranic schools (or Madrassas) which are taught by religious leaders (Imams).
10.000 flygtningebørn i syd
The Ministry of Education estimates at least 10,000 children are currently displaced in the south without access to education, not counting refugee children in Niger, Mauritania, Algeria and Burkina Faso. Tens of thousands in the north are also stranded without education: One educator, Sidda Touré, estimates in Gao alone some 5,000 pupils cannot attend school.
Perhaps worst-off are children in Kidal in the north where Ansar Dine has not yet permitted any public schools to reopen, only allowing children to attend one of a few Islamic schools, according to retired teacher and Kidal resident Mahalmadane Touré.
“You can imagine how this is affecting the children, having their village occupied by rebels and then not being able to go school,” Hassimi Touré, head of primary and secondary education at the Ministry of Education in the capital Bamako, told IRIN.
Catch-up classes
At the Robert Cissé Academy in Mopti, 40km from the Islamist-held north, some 68 children are crammed into a classroom built for 30, their elbows clashing as they squeeze three to a desk. They left Gao, Timbuktu and Gossi in the north to learn here. Some live with relatives, others in displaced people’s settlements and those who came alone, sleep in the school.
“When the children hear about the remedy classes they come here, often without their parents. Others come with their families and enrol when they arrive,” said Sory Ibrahima Tapo, Robert Cissé Academy’s headmaster.
Børnene sover i klasselokalet
At night the students sleep on thin mattresses laid out in the classrooms. Food is scarce and the living conditions are hard, says Bintou Kane, who came from Niafunké in the north to resume her studies in the south. “I brought one sack of rice from home, but it’s almost finished,” she told IRIN.
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Ministry of Education are supporting the school, altogether running catch-up classes for 4,000 children across the country who were supposed to take their annual exams in June; while the government has enrolled a further 6,800 children in ordinary schools.
History teacher Ibrahim Maïga fled to Mopti from Niafunké with a group of students in August. “I cannot teach in a Koranic school,” he told IRIN. He does not expect to get a job, yet he cannot return. “The school is closed, there is nothing to go back to,” he told
Læs videre her:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/96463/MALI-Northerners-fight-to-learn
