Hope in a Hell Hole

Crime, Disease, famine, poverty, politics, war, and more are part of the African Continent, south of rich Arab Nations, and their own problems, within, and with Israel.

The Social, Economic, Religious and Political problems are legion. Have been for years.

The West, and the world in general, has always been selective in how it approaches cleaning this mess up.

We know that.

No need to harp on it 24 hours a day.

Let's instead spend just a moment looking at a positive, and celebrating its small, but growing, potential to instigate change in the long run.

Overnight, more than a million additional children showed up for school last year when Kenya's newly elected government abolished fees that had been prohibitively high for many parents, about $16 a year. Many classrooms are now bulging with the country's most disadvantaged children.

Kenya is not alone. Responding to popular demand for education, it is one of a raft of African nations contending with both a wondrous opportunity and nettlesome challenge: teaching the millions of children who have poured into schools as country after country - from Malawi and Lesotho to Uganda and Tanzania - has suddenly made primary education free. Mozambique will join them in January when it abolishes fees.

The explosion in enrollments has put enormous pressure on overburdened, often ill-managed education systems.

What hangs in the balance is the future of a generation of African children desperately reaching out for learning as a lifeline from poverty, even as poverty itself presents a fearsome obstacle.

This is a long, and involving, article by Celia W. Dugger, of the New York Times, and it is interesting, thought provoking, articles such as this one that keep me coming back to the Gray Lady despite its politics, and other frequent bouts of wrong headedness.

The Times keeps winning Pulitzers for a reason, and it ain't JUST for its Left leaning editorial slant.

The New York Times: In Africa, Free Schools Feed a Different Hunger

Comments

[jaspar]

> its Left leaning editorial slant.

Haw. I wish the slant were only on
its editorial pages.

;)

[Kiril]

You are right, Jaspar. :-)

I forgot to continue my thought when I wrote that.

The rest of the paper has its moments, but you can still spot the slant a mile away sometimes. :-)

[theophilus]

Free primary education in kenya has helped many children access education. Progression to the next level should also be subsidized for affordability.