Let's talk education: Afghan dreamers, education in crises and differentiated learning

Season 4, episode 8

Let's talk education: Afghan dreamers, education in crises and differentiated learning

From Afghan dreamer to achiever, Somaya Faruqi, captain of the Afghan Girls Robotics team talks about education and empowerment. Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait, takes us into the world of delivering education to children living in crisis settings. And Sam, a young teacher from Ghana talks about how he ensures all the children in his primary school class are getting a quality education.

Host: Saara Chaudry

Guests: 

Somaya Faruqi, Captain of the Afghan Girls Robotics team

Sam, school teacher in Anyima, Ghana 

Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director, Education Cannot Wait 

Producers: Sara Faruqi and Priyadarshini Mitra

Composed and mixed by: Chandra Bulucon

Additional music:  (Ambient) Love (CC BY) by Kirk Osamayo and Blue Skies by HoliznaCC0 c/o Free Music Archive

Transcript:

[00:00:00.00] [BELL RINGING]

[00:00:02.51] This month classes resumed after the summer in Canada and many other parts of the world. Millions of children went back to school, back to learning, meeting their friends, moving ahead. Education, for most children in Canada, it's a given. They know they will go to school. At some point, letters will form words and words into sentences. They will be able to add and subtract, understand signs, send a text, browse the internet.

[00:00:33.05] For many, they will later pursue degrees in things that interest them. And yet, for millions around the world, all of this seems impossible. Today, 64 million children of primary school age remain out of school, the majority from marginalized groups. While 600 million children who are in school will go home without having learned much at all. We are in a learning crisis, and we need to step up. Hi, everyone, and welcome to For Every Child podcast. I'm your host, Saara Chaudhry. And today, we will be talking about education.

[00:01:13.74] [MUSIC PLAYING]

[00:01:41.57] If you want to plan for a year, you should rise. For a decade, you plant a trees. But if you want to plant for a lifetime, what do you have to do is to educate people. That's my philosophy as a teacher.

[00:01:55.99] [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

[00:01:59.03] This is Sam, a primary school teacher from Ghana.

[00:02:04.64] In the same classroom, we have students who cannot even bring out the letter sounds. Some can read words. Some can also read storybooks with ease. So as a teacher, what are you going to do? We have to group all these students according to their learning abilities.

[00:02:22.19] Sam uses differentiated learning groups to ensure each child is learning at the right level.

[00:02:28.67] I give each group a particular exercise per their learning ability. I apportion my time so that I can help each group in order to reach a certain level. Each and every one will be able to understand what I'm teaching. In my class, about 80% to 90% can read fluently because of our huge outputs. When you want to do anything in life, you have to know the basis in each and every subject to acquire broader knowledge to overcome the challenges that you are facing in life.

[00:03:03.57] UNICEF supports teachers like Sam with training programs to help overcome obstacles in learning so each child can get the education they deserve.

[00:03:13.89] [MUSIC PLAYING]

[00:03:20.27] In August 2020, the Afghan girls robotics team were on the verge of a breakthrough in Herat province. The five members aged 14 to 17 dubbed the Afghan Dreamers were seeking approval from the Ministry of Public Health in Afghanistan for a prototype ventilator they had designed to help their country in the fight against COVID-19.

[00:03:44.42] The team, led by then 17-year-old student Somaya Faruqi, had over the course of three months used second hand automotive parts to make a ventilator to address the shortage of devices used to treat COVID-19 patients in Afghanistan. The Afghan Dreamers did end up making a ventilator and two more devices despite lockdowns and shortages of materials.

[00:04:10.22] A few short years later, things have drastically changed in Afghanistan. The Taliban, the de facto authority in the country, has banned adolescent girls from attending school. Somaya was able to leave for Qatar in this time where she graduated from grade 12 and then received a scholarship to attend University in the US where, not surprisingly, she is majoring in mechanical engineering.

[00:04:38.97] Somaya and I chatted in between classes as she casually mentioned that she is working on designing a steam engine. Hi, Somaya. So getting an education which so many girls are being denied right now in Afghanistan changed your life drastically. If you had to explain to someone the need for education for all, what would you say?

[00:05:05.41] For many girls, it's not just about books or classrooms. It's about hope, empowering, and have a chance to a brighter future for everyone. And when we have access to education, we can dream, we can learn, and we become like a stronger individual for our self, and we can shape our own destinies. It's not just a want. I think it's a fundamental need for everyone. Because when we are educated, we can build a better world for ourselves and people around us.

[00:05:35.41] In your own experience, how has the opportunity of getting an education impacted your life? You've said in the past, your mother, just a generation earlier, was unable to attend school. So for you, it's been a real life changer.

[00:05:51.25] I think it's clearly visible to see, for example, my mom is one of those girls that in 20 years ago when Taliban were again in Afghanistan, she couldn't go to school, she had to marry, and she couldn't even finish the middle school. And then when I can see myself and my friends and our generation, I can see that we are educated.

[00:06:13.47] We have the opportunity-- we had the-- girls in Afghanistan had the opportunity to go to school or to finish the University, be doctor, be anything that they want. So it's clearly visible that how education impact our life. So for me, personally through education, I knew my power and my potential. I know who I am and what I'm here for, what I can do.

[00:06:36.33] For example, I would never thought that I can build a ventilator with my team. I can build many devices that even boys and men in Afghanistan, they didn't. But with opportunity of education, I could do that and my teammates could do that and every girls in Afghanistan or in any part of the world can do that. And also, it helped me-- I changed the perspective of my family and my people and community that girls are not just for being at home.

[00:07:04.02] They have the talent. They have the potential. They can do something. And we should make them a part of the society and give them access to education. We had a neighbor that was like, look at that girl, she's traveling around. And she has a negative perspective of me and my teammates to go and participate in competitions. But now, his girls are in our team and it's a big thing, a big change.

[00:07:35.14] All right. Let's talk about your robotics. How did you become interested in it, and did it start young, and then how did the Afghan Dreamers then come together?

[00:07:45.49] I'm the oldest child in the family. So I have three brothers younger than me. And as the oldest child, I always feel myself responsible to help my father who is a car mechanic. So I always help my father to fix some things, to go in his shop, but I was allowed to only go on Friday when no men were around because of the traditional society of Afghanistan.

[00:08:06.55] And then I was interested in working with machines to fix something, to work with different parts of the car like the radio, the machine, the lock lockdown. And then by an amazing opportunity, I joined to the robotics team, the all girls robotics team for the first time in Afghanistan.

[00:08:24.39] It was an exam between 150 girls from different girls and from different schools in the Herat city. And then fortunately, six girls were accepted, and I was one of them. And then we started our work on 2017 with six girls. We had many like challenges, obstacle in that time. The security, the perspective of the people about girls and esteem and engineering and about the robotics team for the first time in Afghanistan.

[00:08:55.07] And also, the equipment. At that time, we didn't have much equipments to work with. And we were just six girls. We needed more members in our team, but we couldn't have more members because most of the families, they do not allow their girls to come and join our team and travel around to different countries to participate in competitions.

[00:09:17.03] But after our first trip when we have the courage middle-- several courage medal from the first global competition, and when we came back to our country with achievement, we saw that something is changing. The mindset of the people about our team about the girls and esteem and engineering, it was changing. And after our trips, hundreds of girls, they come to our team and they wanted to join, but we could enroll a few because of the equipment that we have.

[00:09:47.72] Amazing. So what do you see for yourself in the future? What are your hopes for girls and boys in Afghanistan right now with many denied and access to education?

[00:09:58.16] I think that the story is repeat from 25 years ago. Now everything that my mom told me, now I can see that with my own eyes that it's happening right now inside Afghanistan. There are millions of girls that they are not allowed to go to school. They cannot come out of their home without a male guardian like their father, their brother, their husband. They cannot go to parks, [INAUDIBLE] restaurants.

[00:10:21.50] And it's sad to see all these girls have talents and we miss all these talents and miss their potential. And we cannot have a improved Afghanistan without half of the community, which are the children and girls. So if the government want Afghanistan to improve, they have to let girls to go to school and to be educated.

[00:10:43.82] Now, schools and universities are like clues, so let's see the far future. For example, in 10 years, we are not going to have any female doctor. Are they going to let females to go and see a male doctor? For sure, they are not. So what should we do? There are many families inside Afghanistan that they were supported financially with their daughter, their wife, or their sister.

[00:11:11.12] So now, they are not allowed to work, and they have no male guardian in their home. So how they are going to support themselves financially? Are they going to pass their life? So these are all the questions that no one has a logical answer for that, and they cannot-- they do not do anything for girls and women in Afghanistan. And it's not about one family, two family, 10 family. It's about millions of women.

[00:11:37.47] So I want that when I'm done with my education, work in a high tech company. And as well, I will continue to advocate for women and girls in Afghanistan and also in each crisis affected country because I have the opportunity to help them and I want to use my opportunity to provide them more opportunities and to have access to education and to be their voice.

[00:12:03.69] Thank you, Somaya.

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[00:12:08.34] As we heard from Somaya, education opens up a lot of doors. And like Sam in Ghana shared, sometimes children just need a little extra support. But what about education in crises? Challenges like displacement due to climate change, conflict, extreme economic hardships? Today, over 200 million children are affected by crises, up from 75,000,000 in 2016. How do we reach those children and ensure they get an education when so much around them is also out of control?

[00:12:46.44] How can we ensure a few peaceful hours of learning? That they get a space of safety, a place to socialize, a place to make friends, a place to laugh and learn. Yasmin Sharif is executive director of Education Cannot Wait, the UN's Global Fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, Hi, Yasmin. Thanks for joining us. So like I said earlier, there has been a massive increase in the number of children living in crisis who are in need of an education. Can you provide us with any insight into why this is?

[00:13:25.42] Well, I think there are three factors that have influenced the rapid increase. One is that we see proliferation or increase of armed conflict. We are not bringing peace, but we are seeing more and more conflicts over the past years. Ukraine is a case in point, now we have Sudan, and then intensified conflicts in various countries.

[00:13:52.57] Then we have the whole era of COVID-19 that brought millions and millions out of school of whom many never returned. I think an estimated 20 million girls may not have returned to school as a result of COVID-19 and being married away and had early childhood pregnancies.

[00:14:18.64] And then I have to say also that, of course, the [INAUDIBLE] discussion the other day with our monitoring and evaluation reporting team that developed the latest research and then had it endorsed by an interagency panel of UN agencies and civil society experts. We have used more data that has been available to be able to reach a more exact figure.

[00:14:49.67] So I think if you bring the three factors together, they're interconnected. But I think if you look at the broader picture, it's very clear where we are moving, the direction. It is not getting any better. We are further descending. The numbers are growing higher and rising. Just imagine-- and it doesn't take a lot of imagination for that, a country that has suffered maybe decades of armed conflict. You have a traumatized young population.

[00:15:21.26] They don't receive mental health or psychosocial services that would be part of education or they don't receive school meals. So they become a part of the whole famine phenomena that you see in the world today, and they don't receive academic or social emotional training in the country then. Who is going to rebuild that country [INAUDIBLE]? Who is going to be the engineer that builds the-- constructs the bridges?

[00:15:52.14] And who are going to be the judges and the lawyers to create the rule of law? And who are going to be the new leaders of the country? And who's going to be the nurses and the doctors? And who's going to be the teachers? It goes without saying, without education, you are absolutely disempowering a population from rebuilding and rising up after a conflict or a climate change or a climate induced disaster.

[00:16:17.52] But with an education, you can-- through education, you can rebuild, you can build back better, you can end extreme poverty, you can ensure gender equality with girls back into school, you can ensure health, you can ensure water for all, and you can build thriving economies and societies post-war, post-conflict, post climate disaster, and prevent new ones from reoccurring.

[00:16:48.36] And you have traveled extensively around the world in areas of crisis and have seen up close the impact it has on children and communities. So can you describe to our audiences back home what a classroom looks like in an area that is impacted by a crisis and the challenges to learning in such an environment?

[00:17:09.77] If you look around-- the sun does not travel around, and you go to sub-Saharan Africa, you see children even sit under a tree, or they sit in a classroom that is half bombed out, and there is a bench. There's no school supplies. The teachers have no support, no training. There's no mental health and psychosocial services. And if you don't have any school mates, how are you going to concentrate?

[00:17:33.54] Because most of these children, it's so very important or stressed from toxic stress. Some are deeply traumatized. They might have seen their villages burned down. They may have seen their parents injured or killed. They may have seen war, sexual violence. They fled their homes. It is very normal to react with a trauma to such a normal situation. It needs to be addressed during these formative years for them to concentrate, learn, and heal.

[00:18:11.04] Or if there's no water and sanitation, I mean, how will you consciously be able to learn in punishing heat? Water is such a commodity in these countries. You need to have proper sanitation where girls can go to the restroom without being worried about any abuse. Boys can go to the restroom. You need protection around the school. There may still be low intensity conflict or traffickers or militia roaming around so that you can protect maybe through transportation, school buses.

[00:18:48.65] And yes, there's a comparison. If you look at that countries, they invest around 10,000 averagely per year for each school child for children and adolescents like us or our children. And out there when we are working in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, in Asia, and Latin America, we operate with $150 per child per year. So how do you get quality education?

[00:19:23.53] Obviously, if funding was available and invested in education, we could not only reach so many million more children, but we can also create more quality where you have all these dots connected to ensure a child centered approach, and ensure that our learning outcomes because that's how we measure a quality education. So for us-- and we are a Global Fund because we don't implement. The implementers in these joint programs are precisely UNICEF and other UN agencies and civil society together with host governments and local teachers and school administration. They implement.

[00:20:13.78] But our job is to unlock funding around the globe so that we can have a bigger outreach, but also a deep and quality in the education that is delivered and that shows that you have now ended secondary school, you have achieved proficiency, and now you can move on to higher education and become the teacher, the doctor, the nurse that is your dream. We mustn't forget there are 224 million dreams out there. And the rest who also have, we have to invest in those who don't have.

[00:20:52.53] Thank you, Yasmin. A pleasure to speak with you. That was Yasmin Sharif speaking to me from Geneva. As we heard from our guests today, we are living in critical times. Children are being denied access to education, others don't have resources or opportunities for it, and for so many others, there are simply no schools, teachers, or books around. Those who are learning aren't receiving quality education. But a focused push, resources in the right places, and support for children in education can help steer us back on course. Thanks for listening.

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