EENET news
What’s in this newsletter?
This year’s newsletter contains a special section on the issue of language and inclusion (pages 9-24). Often, we are so used to accepting ‘the way things are done’, or so focused on trying to promote inclusion for specific groups of children (e.g., disabled children or girls), that we don’t notice some of the most common problems in education; obstacles that potentially exclude huge numbers of children. For instance, globally, millions of children are being taught using languages they can barely understand. Many of the articles in the special section share the experiences of people who are trying to promote education in ‘mother tongue’ (the child’s first language). They show how use of mother tongue languages at the start of, and throughout, a child’s education can help prevent exclusion and drop-out, and promote diversity and reconciliation in society.
The newsletter also contains articles on other inclusive education topics. In particular, we have four pages looking at inclusion in vocational and higher education. If you have a story to tell about making education more inclusive for learners from different language groups, or for learners in vocational, higher or informal education settings, we’d love to hear from you.
Website news
We continue to be amazed by how much the website is used. In the last two years, the site has been used by 187,484 individuals.
They live in:
- 213 countries or territories. Only Chad, Central African Republic, North Korea, Turkmenistan and Western Sahara are missing!
- over 8,000 different towns and cities around the world, though for 15% of visitors we have no record of the city/town.
We would like to hear from:
- the 335 people who have visited EENET’s website more than 200 times in the last two years. That is dedication! Are you one of these frequent users? We’d love to interview some of you for the next newsletter, to find out how you use the information you get from EENET’s website.
The most visited webpage is still:
- ‘Early marriage and education’ – an article in Enabling Education issue 7.
EENET volunteers
It is becoming increasingly difficult for one part-time co-ordinator to meet the growing demands placed on EENET. So this year, EENET recruited a small team of volunteers to help with administration and specific projects. They only work a few hours a week, usually in between their studies or paid jobs, but their help has been valuable. A big thank you to Alex, Hattie, Kalpana, Nola and Olivia!
EENET’s Steering Group
This year we are reviving our Steering Group, following feedback from EENET’s evaluation in 2006. The Steering Group oversees the direction of EENET’s work, and ensures that the network’s vision for creating conversations about inclusive education in the South is maintained. Steering Group members represent the viewpoints of EENET’s user groups, its regional networking partners, its founders, and the international NGOs and donors that support EENET’s work.This year we held an open application process for two Steering Group vacancies for ‘grassroots’ representatives. We received applications from 24 countries and we were very encouraged by the number of people interested in EENET’s development. The new Steering Group will meet in September 2008.