In Calcutta and in Rio and around the world, creative and committed social entrepreneurs like Loreto's principal, Sister Cyril Mooney, and CDI's Rodriggo Baggio are demonstrating new ways to draw children to school and teach them the skills and values they need to succeed in a changing world.
These social entrepreneurs recognize that the old method of teaching – by feeding facts to children – needs to be replaced by a method that engages children in the learning process and develops minds by encouraging problem solving, decision making and creativity. They recognize that learning does not begin and end at the classroom door, but must be integrated into the lives of children, taking into account their home and community life. They recognize that school and learning needs to be a relevant, interesting experience for children whose attention can too often be diverted by television and video games or drugs and crime.
For academics and educators, these insights may not seem unique or insightful. Decades of research about learning and education have led to many of these conclusions. But what is unique is the way social entrepreneurs are implementing these ideas effectively and changing fundamentally how young people are learning and growing up.
Education Systems Get a Failing Grade
Around the world, education systems are failing at their core task: to prepare children to be productive members of society. This is true despite the fact that improving education has been a top priority for nations around the world for decades.
In the 1960s, countries from Sub-Saharan Africa to South Asia to South America recognized that education is crucial to reducing the gap between rich and poor, igniting economic development and bringing together the people of their sometimes polyglot nations. For decades, multilateral organizations – the United Nations, the World Bank – have poured resources into educational reform. Year after year, governments around the world have experimented with new curricula, new teaching aids and new teacher training.
Despite the priority status education has had on both national and multilateral agendas, schooling around the world still too often gets a failing grade. UNICEF estimates that nearly a billion people, a sixth of the worlds population, are illiterate – most of them women. The World Bank estimates that 150 million children aged 6 to 11 worldwide are not in school. And in most of the world, only three out of four children who begin primary school are still there four years later. Students are dropping-out of school for a range of reasons: schools are too far from home in rural areas; cultural barriers keep girls and minorities out of the classroom; and, books and uniforms cost too much in countries where education is not free.
Millions of children who do attend school are languishing in settings where little learning is taking place, crowded into dimly lit classrooms with no chalkboard or books or pencils. UNICEF estimates that in many countries only two of every five pupils in first grade have a place to sit. In many countries, teachers are responsible for an unmanageable number of students. In Bangladesh, class sizes near 70 pupils; in Equatorial Guinea, there may be as many as 90.
Many teachers spend the entire day at the front of the room dictating lessons, with little or no participation by students. Teachers transmit facts and information that seems largely irrelevant to the children's lives. And teaching materials in many instances reinforce stereotypes about girls and minority groups, compounding rather than helping to bridge divides in the community.
Schools and school infrastructure are woefully underfinanced. Teachers' salaries worldwide continue to stagnate or in some instances are eroding. In some African countries, primary school teachers often receive less than half the amount of the household poverty line.
The Growing Importance of Education
Clearly education systems all over the world fail to guide and teach the world's children. At the same time, skills and education are more important than ever. Numerous studies have shown that better educated workers will consistently and continuously earn more throughout their lifetimes. In the United States, this gap is growing: In 1996, the median full-time worker with at least a bachelor's degree earned 74 percent more a week than the median full-time worker with only a high school degree; the discrepancy was only 38 percent in 1979. Those without skills will find it harder and harder to find jobs that pay enough to keep them and their families out of poverty.
This loss of potential and productivity is widening the intolerable gap between the richest and poorest around the world. And, the failure to adequately educate the next generation will create other lasting problems:
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Schools are a key source of information about the importance of sanitation, nutrition and family planning.
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Each year of school for girls can also translate into a reduction in fertility rates and a decrease in maternal deaths in childbirth. In Brazil, illiterate women average more than six children, whereas those with secondary education have fewer than three children. In Kerala state, in southern India, where literacy is nearly universal, the infant mortality rate is the lowest in the developing world and the birth rate is the lowest in India.
The Innovative Learning Initiative
A comprehensive solution to educating the world's children is clearly needed, and social entrepreneurs are a critical source of ideas and experiences that can shape this solution.
To that end, Ashoka is launching the Innovative Learning Initiative, which will draw on the experience and knowledge of social entrepreneurs – like Sister Cyril and Rodriggo Baggio – who have developed effective new approaches to all aspects of learning. The program will study the work of more than 250 Ashoka Fellows in education and youth development and distill the core principles upon which their work is based, as well as practical methods of implementing the principles.
After an initial look at the strategies of these Fellows, several principles have emerged. Individually, they are only partial solutions; taken together, they will redirect the lives and learning of children around the world. These principles include:
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Prepare Children for Change. Social entrepreneurs understand that mind-numbing transfers of mere data will not prepare children to cope and flourish in a modern, changing world. Children need to learn by developing and fine-tuning their minds. They need to know how to adapt and assimilate, integrate ideas and seize opportunities as they develop. At the primary level, this means understanding concepts like identifying and describing and naming.
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At a more advanced level, this means developing analytical, problem-solving and leadership skills, and fostering creativity. This focus on dynamic skills and concepts rather than static facts will prepare children to adapt and flourish in today's changing environment.
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For example, in India, Dr. S.N. Gananath has developed math and science aids that are designed to make children independently discover answers to problems. In a system where students traditionally learn math and science by rote, Gananath's aids help children develop a better understanding of concepts and an understanding of their practical application.
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Put Children in Charge. Around the world, social entrepreneurs are putting children in positions of responsibility to intensify their learning processes and teach them life skills. By putting children in charge of activities like tutoring or managing community programs, the children learn important communication and decision-making skills.
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For example, in Mexico, Guillermo Alonso's program gives children the opportunity to improve life in their communities. Children identify serious problems like alcoholism or the lack of decent health care facilities, then develop strategies and plan activities to solve the problems. By being given the authority to address the community's problems, the children develop leadership.
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Engage All Parts of the Community to Support Learning. Social entrepreneurs are often expertly skilled at leveraging community resources to enhance learning. They are able to connect the children and their learning with others in the community, generating greater responsibility for the children both inside and outside the classroom. They have targeted society's indifference to children, especially poor children, and identified important new roles for members of the community. Parents, community groups and business leaders are engaged in developing curricula, discussing student and community needs, supplementing limited resources and finding solutions to school problems like drop-out rates and absenteeism.
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For example, in South Africa, Jonny Gevisser is developing schools that are "hubs" for their communities. By enlisting students, parents, teachers, community groups and business leaders, he is creating a learning program that will satisfy the development needs and education expectations of the community.
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Integrate Learning Into Children's Lives. Social entrepreneurs understand that reconnecting education and learning with family, work, leisure and community is critical. Learning needs to be sufficiently relevant and attractive so families have an incentive to send their children to school and so they see school attendance as important in their lives. For instance, if children are working to help support their families, educators must deal with the need to replace the income before they can get children to go to school instead.
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The profiles in this issue of Changemakers highlight this important principle: the need to integrate learning into children's lives. This issue focuses specifically on three strategies:
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Tião Rocha, in Brazil, has increased school attendance through his "To Be a Child" program, which uses playful group interaction, games, cooking experiments and environmental projects to enhance academic and life skills.
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In Bangladesh, Ibrahim Sobhan recognized that children were not attending school because there was too heavy an emphasis on homework, which was difficult for students to complete for myriad reasons, including the fact that there was no place to read or study at home. Sobhan's program, called "School Based Education" shifted the focus of the school day away from homework and toward in-school learning, dramatically increasing attendance in school.
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Damodaran Acharya (a.k.a. Damu) has convinced working children in India return to school by making class schedules flexible and by engaging children in the management of schools and development of the curriculum.
Michele Jolin is the Senior Project Manager for Ashoka's Innovative Learning Initiative. Jolin is also a Member of the Board of Horton's Kids and of Kids' Computer Workshop, two non-profit organizations that serve at-risk children in Washington, DC. Before joining Ashoka, Jolin served as Chief of Staff of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers.
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