This national conference was organized by the Kenya Department of Adult Education with support from UNESCO. It brought together a wide cross-section of stakeholders in the youth and adult learning sub-sector including: Ministry of Education, Ministry of Youth and Sports, Ministry of Gender and Children Affairs, various government departments and

 agencies, institutions of higher learning, local and international NGOs, adult and youth education providers among others.

UNESCO-Nairobi supported a research study to look at factors contributing to the persistent poor performance in Teso region, Uganda, on the national Primary Leaving Examination. A workshop was convened in June at Eneku Training Village, Madera, Soroti, to discuss research findings and their implications.

The study was undertaken in response to the growing concern over the poor performance of pupils in Teso over the years in comparison with other regions of the country. The study was lead by two researchers from the School of Education, Makerere University - Dr. Silas Oluka and Dr. Charles Opolot-Okurut.

Providing access to all children with special needs is an enormous challenge in the Eritrean education system. Eritrea Ministry of Education has put various measure in place to broaden educational opportunities for all children yet these have failed to reach children with special learning needs.

UNESCO is supporting the Ministry of Education in a new initiative to raise teachers and communities awareness about special needs education and build the capacity of teachers to effectively enhance educational opportunities for children with special learning needs through the development of school-based interactive pedagogy.

UNESCO with the Rwanda Ministry of Education has trained Rwanda's school Inspectors on early childhood. Part of the One UN Program in Rwanda, the training for school Inspectors was a first in a two-part series to be completed by the end of August 2008 to promote the development of a quality assurance mechanism in the early childhood development sub-sector. 

Advancing girls' and women's education - taking the lead and setting the pace to accelerate gender equity and equality in Kenya was the theme of this year's FAWE - Kenya General Assembly that took place on 18 July 2008 in Nairob. Insightful presentations included:

gender gaps in education; empowering girls and women at the grassroots; health and sanitation - a gender concern in learning institutions; role of youth and sports in community advocacy for girls and women's education; new gender policy in education and translating policy into practice; successful models in girls and women

Namibia Open Learning Network (NOLNet) with InWEnt -- Capacity Building International Germany—launched two regional e-learning courses:  e-Learning in practice and e-Learning development and implementation. These offer e-Learning skills development through on-line and blended learning.

Professionals from Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda are among those taking part in the courses. Others are from Egypt, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia. The e-Learning in practice course is designed for those wanting to specialize in a particular area of e-learning such as e-Learning management, instructional design, e-Learning course production or e-Learning facilitation. The course on e-Learning development and implementation is more comprehensive and designed for e-Learning managers seeking the gist of all aspects of e-learning aspects from instructional design, content development, e-learning technology, interactively, tutoring and support of virtual learning communities and e-Learning management..

The East Africa Working Group on Multilingual Education met in Nairobi on 11 June 2008.  Nationhood, pedagogy and policy were among the topics discussed. Based in Nairobi, the Working Group is comprised of representatives from universities, non-governmental organizations, government education offices and UNESCO.

The Nairobi meeting of some 18 scholars and specialists was characterized by both energy and vision, as the group explored concrete ways to influence the language and education situation in Kenya and in the East Africa region more broadly. UNESCO commissioned the Working Group to develop a discussion paper on language and education issues in Kenya, for use with policy makers and community leaders alike. This paper will be available in late 2008.

For more on languages in education see:
http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=55887&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

Kenya's Ministry of Labour and Human Resource Development will stage a national rally in Kilifi District, Coast Province, to mark World Day Against Child Labour. Kilifi District is semi-arid with a large number of children out of school. Early marriage, poor participation of girls in school, sex tourism and sexual exploitation of children are key issues.
Uganda's Minister of Gender Labour and Social Development along with the Minister of Education and Sports, International Rescue Committee and the Combating Exploitation of Child Labour through Education Initiative (KURET) will engage in a public dialogue on  

child labour and education.


See:   http://www.ilo.org/ipec/Campaignandadvocacy/WDACL/2008/lang--en/index.htm

Downloads
>> 2007 Education Reach Unreached Brochure
>> Good Practices Inter Agency November 2005
>> ILO World Day Against Child Labour Activities June 2008

A promising new education sector pilot program is set to promote 21st century skills needed for success of Rwanda’s emerging knowledge economy.  The program is brought to Rwanda by the Global Education Alliance, a new venture of the Global Education Initiative (GEI).

Global Education Alliance is a multi-stakeholder partnership for education created with UNESCO, private companies - AMD, Cisco, Intel, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Goldman Sachs – and the Education For All Fast Track Initiative (EFA-FTI).  Rwanda is the first country to pilot the multi-stakeholder alliance.

It should bring greater private sector support for education along with technical expertise needed to effectively integrate ICT into education.
Rwanda has been testing the One Laptop per Child technology developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab in effort to enhance the quality of learning.  A non-profit association called, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), set up independent of MIT promotes the sturdy inexpensive laptop in the emerging world. Visit: http://www.laptop.org/

- Download presentations from the visit of the Global Education Alliance to Rwanda (7-8 May 2008) 
>>  Rwanda Ministry of ED Global Education Alliance-7th May 2008
>>  Global Education Cisco Networking Academy
>>  Intel World Ahead
>>  GEI Overview Presentation Rwanda 7th May08
>>  Download GEI brochure

For more information on the Global Education Alliance:  http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/gei/GlobalEducationAlliance/index.htm

Uganda staged its key event for this year's Global Action Week at Ntinda School for the Deaf on 24 April 2008. The theme was ‘Quality education for all to end exclusion’ with special focus on people with disabilities.
The gathering brought together the Minister of Education and Sports, Ministry of Education Commissioners for Pre-primary and Primary Education, Director 

Literacy Adult Basic Education, Chairperson Uganda National Teachers Union (UNATU), Director FAWE, National EFA Coordinator, education partners, pupils and members of the general public. There was a lively march past, exhibition including handicrafts made by children with special learning needs and speeches. People were dressed in colorful T-shirts bearing the theme of the day with logos of UNESCO’s and FAWE.

>>Download report:
>>Photo gallery:

Some 800 learners from 18 different schools in the nearby Starehe constituency of Nairobi, together with other community groups and various representatives from the Ministry of Education, development partners, stakeholders, NGO’s,  the civil society, politicians and the media joined in the world’s biggest lesson to mark this years Global Action week.

To mark this years theme: “Quality Education to End Exclusion Now”

a public rally organized by Kenya’s Elimu Yetu Coalition (EYC) to highlight and lobby the issues of quality and inclusion and to remind the Government of Kenya, and politicians of their promise to achieve EFA by 2015.
Learners recited poems, acted out short plays and sang songs in praise of free primary education that was began in 2003. The young learners also told of the challenges and issues facing education in Kenya today such as exclusion due to disability, conflicts, gender, poverty, child Labour.

Education partners appealed for more education interventions for out of school youth and adults calling upon government and in particular the Ministries of Youth Affairs and Sports, and Gender and Children to take action.

A major highlight and plea to the government especially the Ministry of Finance was to increase the allocation of the budget to the Ministry of Education so as to fight the vices of exclusion.  The representatives of the Ministry of Education promised to pass the message to the Minister of Finance.

>>View Photo Gallery   

Quality primary education remains, for the most part, a pipe dream for close to 60% of children in urban settlements – majority living in slums. A myriad of institutional challenges currently inhibit the attainment of legal and policy commitments made toward quality education for all. Concern Worldwide along with the Global Campaign for Education and Daraja Civic Initiatives Forum organized the public lecture featuring, Professor Patrick Obonyo Digolo, University of Nairobi; Commissioner Wambui Kimathi, Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, and Dr Susan Nkinyangi, Senior Education Adviser, UNESCO-Nairobi.

A large and diverse crowd of people attended many of whom are working on slum education initiatives.