A photo gallery on educational issues

Emergencies, Crises, Reconstruction: Armed conflicts, natural disasters (earthquakes, floods and cyclones), ecological and man-made disasters (desertification, drought, deforestation), and the deterioration of living conditions that includes poverty, unemployment, and famine -- all of these can result in large scale fatalities and injuries to the population. They can create massive displacement and migration of population and devastating physical destruction.

Children are the first victims of war: They suffer doubly: those who do not lose their lives are deprived of basic needs such as a home, a school, and even their parents. Adult survivors are often without work, youths become dropouts and they need special programmes. In addition, more than 20 million refugees and 30 million displaced persons are today living in the most precarious of circumstances, and at least 60% of their number are children.

HIV/AIDS and education: The right to quality basic education as well as skills-based HIV/AIDS prevention education must be extended equally to boys and girls. Education is one of our most important weapons against the spread of HIV/AIDS. The evidence for this is growing. In countries with severe epidemics, young people with higher levels of education are more likely to use condoms and less likely to engage in casual sex than less-education peers.

Water, environment and sanitation are children’s issues linked to education. When over a billion people do not have access to safe water and 2.6 billion people –- half of the developing world’s population -– do not have adequate sanitation, then it is not surprising that so many schools fail to provide these essentials to their students. Safe water and adequate sanitation are as important to quality education as pencils, books and teachers, and crucial for girls to take their rightful place in the classroom. Without these basic necessities, girls will continue to be absent. Far too many schools are woefully lacking hygienic conditions with broken, dirty and unsafe water supplies and toilets or latrines not adapted to children, especially girls. Some have no water or sanitation facilities at all. Too often schools are hazardous to children’s health.

Child labour and exploitation: Nearly a quarter of a million children, or 16 out of every 100 children worldwide, are engaged in exploitative child labour—in violation of Convention on the Rights of the Child and international labour standards. Almost three-quarters of them work in hazardous environments, such as mines or factories, or with dangerous substances, such as chemicals.

The majority of child labourers are “invisible” – hidden from sight and behind the reach of the law. Many of these children are not only being exploited, they are often being denied education, basic health care, adequate nutrition, leisure time and the safety and security of their families and communities.

Technology: In much of the developing world, where millions of children go without basic education, access to computers and the Internet is still a luxury.

.© 2005 Developed by the UN Web Services Section//DPI