The UKFIET newsletter provides a summary of news and blogs posted onto the UKFIET website.
The UKFIET Forum features a selection of blogs related to various issues in international education and development, including COVID-19. UKFIET encourages participants to submit ideas, and they will also cross-post articles already published elsewhere.
What do we know about the links between girls’ education and climate and environment change?
In 2021, representatives from around the world met in Glasgow for COP26, with the year being heralded the ‘make or break’ year to avert irreversible impacts upon our planet.
In this blog, Camilla Pankhurst, Education Adviser for the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office reflects how for billions of people, climate change is not a future problem but a lived reality. It is the poorest households in the poorest regions hardest hit, with women and girls disproportionately affected due to existing gender inequalities. As experts grapple with these challenges, the question of the relationship of climate change with girls’ education has been building momentum.
How schools in Nepal are including children with disabilities
The Inclusive Futures project (a consortium of specialists and global leaders in disability and development from 23 international organisations) works to tackle inclusion issues to ensure children with disabilities, including those with multiple disabilities and other learning support needs, can go to school.
This blog highlights the story of Sandip in Nepal, who lost his leg when he was 14 years old. As Sandip’s story shows, children with disabilities can struggle to attend school. They face a number of barriers, such as not having accessible transport, facing stigma and discrimination, and not being able to access learning environments that support their specific needs.
Launch of the global report on boys’ disengagement from education
On 7th April 2022, UNESCO organised a webinar in partnership to launch the new report: ‘Leave no child behind: Global report on boys’ disengagement from education’.
This article summarises some of the key points from the panel discussions and provides links to the report, the video of the launch event and other supporting resources.
The Girls’ Education Challenge have launched a thematic review – localising power and responsibility for education through community-based structures
NGOs have long understood that meaningful community engagement makes education projects more relevant, successful, and sustainable. But the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought sudden school closures and disrupted INGOs’ and national NGOs’ work, catapulted communities into leading roles.
A Thematic Review by the Girls’ Education Challenge explores how structures from within the community – or community-based structures – contributed to the successful implementation of interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic. It identifies six key factors which were present in projects which successfully adapted to this new way of working.
It’s not girls versus boys, it’s ALL children against gender inequality
This blog provides an insightful response to the UNESCO report on boys’ disengagement in education – it argues that it is important to contextualise enrolment, learning and completion data within the larger situation of girls and boys.
Girls’ education remains a compelling entry point to tackle deep-seated inequalities in the education system, particularly in countries furthest from achieving SDG4 and especially as a response to COVID school closures. The blog proposes that gender equality in and through education is a more productive banner than boys’ education or indeed, girls’ education.
Able Child Africa have published a paper outlining the economic case for the inclusion of children with disabilities.
The paper demonstrates why investing in children with disabilities provides exceptional value for money. The various ways in which the inclusion of children generates economic growth means investing in children with disabilities for governments, donors and INGO’s alike is worth every penny.
Do get in contact with lauren@ablechildafrica.org.uk with any reflections.
Transforming Education Summit
Date: 9 June 2022
Time: 14:00 –15:30 ( CET – Paris time)
Following the first consultation on 23 May, the IDDC Consortium are holding a consultation for Action Track#1 (inclusive, equitable, safe and healthy schools) to review the good practices submitted.
Participants can register for the event on the IDDC website.
The online event will be available in English, French and Spanish.
District Coordinator – Futuremakers – Sightsavers, Bangladesh
Location: Bangladesh Office
Contract Type: Fixed Term Contract
Salary: Local Terms and Conditions Apply
Closing date: o5 June 2022
Sightsavers implements projects in over 30 countries in Africa and South Asia working to eliminate avoidable blindness and promote the rights of people with disabilities. We are looking for a District Coordinator to work within the Futuremakers project in Bangladesh.
As a Sightsavers District Coordinator you will work with the ‘Futuremakers’ project team to coordinate the implementation of approved activities with our external partners.
Your duties will include; effective planning, local level launching and liaison, advocacy and communication, monitoring and evaluation, and financial and asset management.
Futuremakers supports disadvantaged young people, especially girls and people with visual impairments, to learn new skills and improve their chances of getting a job or starting their own business.
In 2021, Futuremakers programmes reached more than 304,000 young people, and more than 671,000 young people between 2019 and 2021 across 41 markets.
Place: Accra, Ghana
The Programme Officer will work to enhance the quality of the project which focuses on the economic empowerment of persons with disabilities through formal employment. They will ensure that the programme is planned, implemented, monitored and evaluated to the highest possible quality standards.
