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EENET Newsletter: Issue 13
EENET news
Enabling Education - for life!
This year's newsletter features articles that take us beyond
primary and secondary school settings. Education should
be an enabling experience at every level of learning, from
early childhood to old-age. Effective learning does not
only happen within a formal classroom environment.
Articles cover early childhood development (Sri Lanka), kindergartens (Trinidad and Tobago), safe play areas (Kyrgyzstan), and learning in the home (Armenia), as well as post-secondary education (Australia, England and Nigeria). Some articles focus on the use of art and drama to bring students together and promote pupil or stakeholder voice (Armenia and England). Education for 'forgotten' groups is discussed (child slaves in Niger, shepherd boys in Lesotho and over-age learners in Southern Sudan).
Further articles look at environmentally-aware schools
(Madagascar), the relationship between special and
mainstream schools (Malawi), and advocacy for inclusive
education (Tanzania). We also introduce next year's
newsletter theme - water, sanitation and inclusive
education - with an article from Nepal about the effects of
menstruation on girls' participation in education.
New website
EENET's website has been completely redesigned!
The work has been done free of charge by an amazingly
dedicated volunteer - Alex Hauschild - who also designs
EENET Asia's newsletter. The new site should be ready to
launch in October 2009. It contains hundreds of articles
from over 200 authors and features more than 80
countries. The website address remains the same -
www.eenet.org.uk - but we have made some significant
changes to the content:
- simplified navigation menus
- improved listings of documents - you will be able to search easily according to theme, author, country, date, and type of document
- improved accessibility - you will be able to choose font size and colours, and we will gradually add audio and video files to complement some of the written materials
- easier updating process - EENET's co-ordinator will be able to update the site in-house, so materials and news announcements will be added more quickly and regularly.
We hope that you will like the new website, and look forward to receiving your feedback. As always we need more contributions for the site - so keep sending your articles, reports, posters, photos, etc.
Steering Group meeting and open seminar
In September 2008, EENET held the first meeting of
its new Steering Group. The Group is made up of
EENET's founders, and representatives from regional
inclusive education networks, grassroots user groups
and academic institutions. The Group oversees
EENET's work, and ensures compliance with the
network's vision and commitment to participatory
ways of working. Discussions focused on regional
networking, strategic planning, financial issues,
improving the newsletter, and clarifying our
accountability to network members. As part of the
meeting we held an open seminar - The Bigger
Picture - focusing on the use of images and
photography in inclusive education research and
projects. As well as workshop sessions there were
case studies from India and Burma, and a showing of the Young Voices film. A copy of the report is
available from EENET.
Participants in EENET's 2008 steering group
Back row: Windyz Ferreira (Brazil), Evena Massae (Tanzania),
Anupam Ahuja (India), Salma Khalidi (Palestine), Kalpana Kumar
(India), Alex Hauschild (Indonesia), Ingrid Lewis (UK), Nafisa Baboo
(South Africa), Charity Namitwe (Zambia), Ian Kaplan (UK).
Front row: Sue Stubbs (UK), Susie Miles (UK), Francis Simui (Zambia)
Mother tongue teaching
Last year we focused on the issue of language
and how the use of mother tongue supports the
learning and participation of children, especially
at the start of their education. Augustine
Chulube, a teacher from Zambia, was inspired
to write to us:
"Working with people like you has given me the courage and optimism to carry on working well at my school. Thank you so much for sending me the newsletter. The last newsletter challenged us teachers on the importance of teaching in mother tongue. I was glad to read that teaching in mother tongue is the only means of ensuring good quality primary school education. I shared the newsletter with fellow teachers and parents here, particularly in the rural schools. I translated it into the local language, Icibemba, which is widely spoken in Zambia. Parents and teachers welcomed the idea and I provided photocopies which stimulated the interest of parents to support the use of mother tongue in school."
If any EENET newsletters have inspired you to share information with others or to have discussions (or arguments!) about a particular inclusion issue, we'd love to hear from you.
Consultancy business
EENET has received an increasing number of requests in recent years to help other organisations find
inclusive education consultants. We have also undertaken more consultancies directly, with EENET staff and
founders acting as the consultants. In early 2009, the University of Manchester held a business enterprise
competition. We took the opportunity to develop and submit a business plan for EENET to set up a
consultancy branch. We were shortlisted in the top six of the competition. Although we didn't win, we are
continuing to develop the consultancy business plan. A key focus of the plan is to find more consultants
based in Southern countries, to run consultant capacity-building workshops, and then help NGOs to recruit
more South-based consultants. If you would like more information about EENET's consultancy work, please
email: .
We would also like to thank Derin Adefajo and Thabo Miles 'Matli for their valuable voluntary contributions to the development of EENET's business plan.
Facebook
If you use the social networking site Facebook - www.facebook.com - please visit EENET's page and become a fan! You will be able to read latest news, find links to key documents and videos, and join in discussions with other EENET fans.
Reference:
Link: http://www.eenet.org.uk/resources/eenet_newsletter/news13/page1.php
Published in: EENET Newsletter 13
