About

 Education in Malawi is in a dire state, primarily caused by the rapid and unchecked spread of HIV/AIDS that has caused the average life expectancy in Malawi to drop from 48 to 39 years since 1988.

After the 1994 declaration of Free Primary Education, more than 1.3 million additional children came to school. ** There were not enough classrooms or teachers to effectively handle such an influx. **

** ~  http://www.air.org/overview/mawindo.aspx********

__Definition__ __:__ Quality basic education for all children, youth, and adults.

__What It Is:__ Education for All is a UNESCO organized movement with a global commitment to provide education for all people. It started at the World Conference on Education for All. The movement hopes to universalize primary education and massively reduce illiteracy in a decade. The people that are involved realize that a dangerous amount of adults/children are illiterate and have no possible way to change their current status. Many have failed the requirements for a well-paid job because they are illiterate. Education is valuable to everybody, and that’s why our group is interested in changing the current problems. __Issues:__ Many people are unable to go to school because they are under privilege. This bars them from getting good jobs, which keeps them poor. Nearly one billion people entered the 21 st century not being able to read or sign their names. One hundred twenty one million children are not educated. Without education, the world rates of debt burdens, population growth, war, dangerous occupations, and crime are all increased. The threat of economic stagnation is also bolded. The money used on weapons of war is so great, that if you take 1% off of the total amount, it would pay for all the children in the world to go to school. That takes about 6 billion dollars. Gender is also a concern. Of all the children out of school, 60% of them are girls. __What’s Being Done:__ A non-government organization called Education For All, organized by UNESCO, tries to assist countries in expanding access to education. They want to try and reach children at an early age so that they can receive basic education (which is vital to their future), no matter what gender, race, or class (equity). EFA is working with national governments and other development partners to achieve universal free primary education. They have six main goals that they’re using to advance education in countries without much success. These goals are to expand early childhood care and education, provide free and compulsory primary education for all, promote learning and life skills for young people and adults, increase adult literacy rate by 50%, achieve gender parity by 2005, then gender equality by 2015, and improve equality of education. New schools are being built to handle the incoming tide of students. Government policies are also being changed to help in the development of Education for All. __Potential ways our group could help:__ We can do volunteer work, donate to the EFA, help people around our school, join NGO’s that are trying to solve this issue, and go out and teach people ourselves by starting free classes. __Why:__ We are very fortunate individuals because we’ve already been provided excellent educations by our parents. It’s not fair that some people have these advantages and others don’t. If everybody is provided the chance to be better, then everything they did would’ve been because they worked hard, and not because they were born in a higher class. We’re just trying to level the playing field.