By Peter MutaiNAIROBI, June 24 () -- On visiting a local primary district in Western Kenya at 4:00 p.m., one see a noisy jubilation from the parents going to class as their children carry their bags back home to rest after a long day of hard work. Regardless of timing and the daily chores, many of these adult learners, strive to observe punctuality and look forward to two hours of learning as the class ends at 6:00 p.m. Enthusiastic women who are attending adult learning program begin their evening classes in late afternoon at Omuga Primary School in Rachuonyo in Nyanza province. For them, this is their second opportunity to better their lives. "Attending evening classes is more than a sacrifice but for a worthy cause," Pamela Oloo told in a recent interview. She is grateful that the adult learning program has provided her with an opportunity to be in school and hopes that she will achieve her dream of securing a white collar job. Though she does manual jobs in the village, for her to make it to school, she has been forced to turn down jobs offered to her during late afternoons that would interfere with her evening classes. Having completed her class seven in 1980 and married at only age 16, she was forced to cut short her learning as her parents were unable to take her to secondary school."I am confident that this will open up new opportunities for me to achieve my career because I realize that without this, I will continue to live in my vicious cycle of poverty," added Oloo. Besides attending fully fledged adult education in the school, the learners have also become innovative by forming a netball and football team. "We decided to opt for other means of keeping the students going and formed the teams that have been participating in the locational leagues," said Elisha Were, their teacher and sports trainer. Were noted that the 16 students, all mothers, have a lot of interest in learning and has maintained their class attendance ever since the program was started 3 years ago. He revealed that the first crop of students will be sitting for their Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) next year. He said that the need to establish a literacy project was identified by the community members themselves since it was discovered that most of dropouts are young widowed women who could still be useful in other sectors rather than resign to fate.As a result, many have been subjected to petty business in order to earn a living. Currently the students do not pay fees since this program is meant to empower them and they are taught by retired teachers on voluntary basis.Through an agreement with the school management, they have also been able to use the facilities free of charge."I went back to school after failing to secure employment opportunity as a messenger at a local Council office," said Margaret Odero.Notwithstanding the challenges in the recent economic times, many have realized that education is the only option to achieving a better life especially for women -- adult learning provides this opportunity for them to improve their lives as well as enable them to play their parental role which includes taking care of their childrenAccording to Were, the awakening has also been brought about by the new dispensation where women have realized that in order to harness the opportunities and rights offered in the new Constitution, they need to acquire a required level of education that will enable them to acquire space that will change their lives for the better and many of them are willing to go back to school. For 37-year-old Jane Ochieng, a mother of four children, her determination is to change her life from weeding for people to earn a living to becoming a professional woman.Better still, her greatest challenge has been instigated by her children who question her ability to help them with their homework.She has many times been forced to wait for her husband to help the children, a great embarrassment she does not want to encounter again."I am determined to be in school because I have realized that I don't know many things which include helping my children with their homework," she told . She said that she has to stay until late in the night to complete her assignment after completing all her household chores. A study conducted by UNESCO in the State and Development of adult learning in Sub-Saharan Africa, found correlations with low productivity, low incomes and poorer health as it hampers national development efforts. Despite the enormous growth in free universal primary education, drop-out rates from primary schooling remain high. The number of people needing adult basic education still grows and few resources are left over from primary education for children. The report noted that adult education sub-sector of state education systems remains relatively marginal and under-funded, in spite of the good economic progress in many countries since the mid-1990s It is widely believed that through Kenya's Vision 2030 which envisages increased adult literacy rate from 61.5 percent to 80 percent by the year 2012, funding shall be available from the public, private and corporate sectors as well as from bilateral and multilateral development partners. A 2006 survey conducted by UNESCO although the government has been the main provider of facilities for adult education programs, accounting for 41 per cent followed, by Faith-Based Organizations (FBOs), at 31.3 per cent, there were challenges that include insufficient resources such as classrooms as well as teaching and learning materials. Among the strategies recommended was for adult literacy programs to benefit from alternative funding sources such as the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) and Local Authority Transfer Fund (LATIF). This will support adult learning initiatives in remote parts of the country and therefore curb the challenges of retention by establishing proper learning program where students can be accountable. Kenya being a signatory to the Education for All Framework for action adopted at the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal in the year 2000.
Farmers plant corn in a stony desert area in Huishui county, Guizhou province. (Photo source: Zhang Jing /China Daily)By Jin ZhuBEIJING, June 15 (net) -- Millions of hectares of stony desert areas prevail in parts of South and Southwest China, posing great threats to the environment of the Yangtze and Pearl rivers, two of the country's main waterways, officials said.The country's stony desert areas shrank to 12 million hectares by the end of 2011, down 7.4 percent from 2005, according to the latest monitoring results released by the State Forestry Administration.The spread of stony deserts has been brought under control and the areas have been shrinking at an annual rate of 1.27 percent over the past few years, according to Zhang Yongli, deputy director of the administration, on Thursday."However, the country still faces severe challenges in fighting desertification as the spread of stony deserts continues due to the impact of climate change," he said.For instance, with successive years of drought, stony desert areas now spread at an annual rate of 6.8 percent in Qujing, Yunnan province, a major headwater area of the Pearl River, according to the administration.Of the 12 million hectares of stony desert areas, nearly 65 percent were in Guizhou, Yunnan, and Guangxi, regions frequently hit by drought and flood in recent years, Zhang said.The country's stony desert areas now threaten the headwater areas of the Pearl River, major tributaries of the Yangtze River, as well as water source of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project and the Three Gorges reservoirs, according to the administration."The stony desert areas with water loss and soil erosion cause sand deposits in the lower reaches of the rivers, which pose great threats to the local environment, as well as to lives and properties along the rivers," he said.Forestry officials said forestation and vegetation protection, as well as the application of modern agricultural technologies, contributed a lot to the ecological restoration in the stony desert regions.At present, more than 50 million people live in the rocky regions, where desertification has resulted from water shortages, soil erosion and persistent poverty, according to the administration."Stony desertification and poverty are like 'twin brothers', so we combined the work to control stony desertification with the efforts to improve local people's livelihoods," said Liu Tuo, head of the Desertification Control Center under the State Forestry Administration.Farmers had been encouraged to grow cash crops on stony lands to improve vegetation and increase earnings, he said.Li Maosong, a researcher on disaster reduction at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, told China Daily on Thursday that destructive farming practices, excessive land reclamation and overgrazing still exist in some rocky regions."For instance, farming on steep hills is quite common in those areas because of a lack of arable land, which caused severe soil erosion and speeds up the spread of stony deserts," he said."Government authorities should continue to increase investment in local environmental improvement and give more subsidies to support local farmers to avoid destructive farming practices," he said.Stony desert areas are big problems in eight provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities, such as Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Chongqing and Yunnan, according to the State Forestry Administration.(Source: China Daily)
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