2004 UNICEF reportIs hope possible for the world’s children? [Archives:2004/792/Reportage]

Yasser Mohammed Al-Mayyasi
The tragic situation of children worldwide is going from bad to worse. An estimated 121 million children across the world do not have adequate education, while millions more have no education at all.
UNICEF, in its 2004 report, concentrates much more on education, health care, equality and providing the protection means for suffering children.
Education for both sexes of children tops the agenda of UNICEF to be executed in the coming period.
The report covered has chapters. The first dealt with the primary and secondary education for children. Education is one of urgent objectives. It focuses on the equivalence between sexes in terms of primary and secondary education and is expected to be achieved before attaining other goals.
Such an objective is thought of as a test for the world's commitment to exterminate poverty. Failure in achieving this objective will hinder other objectives.
The second chapter of the report concentrated on the educated young girls as being the unique power; they can make up a positive development. The chapter further released that numerous long-term benefits of girls' education help enhance the economic growth and bring about sound generations and healthy families. Of the benefits of girls' education is bringing down the mortality rate among mothers.
The report indicated that around 135 million children at the age of 18 could not have access to any kind of education and there are more than 60 percent of girls who are deprived of education.
Educating girls is the goal that should be given more priority than others. The campaign of ” Yes for Children” ascertained that more polls have gone in the favor of educating children and that this matter received around 95 million votes.
Chapter 3 of the report holds the title “Girls are neglected”. Since countries do not care about that, the report called for equality between both the sexes of children in the area of primary and secondary education.
However, this is perceived as a long-term goal. The chapter stated there are horrible figures of girls who are not enrolled in schools and that a large number of girls who did not complete even the primary education is witnessed in some of the developing countries.
Although numerous countries worldwide attempted to bring down the percentage of children who did not join schools, it has been to no avail. Four million children in Africa are not enrolled in school, the majority of who are females.
The chapter also says the World Bank (WB) has adopted the “Fast Track Initiative” that can help in providing the education for all. However commitments and promises are not always fulfilled.
As the current world is engaged with security factors, some commitments could not be fulfilled. It is often realized that scant international assistance is responsible for girls' dropping out their schools.
Chapter 4 concentrated on the negative impacts of girl's education and human development. It considers education as vital matter in emergency cases.
Over the last years, many governments suffered heavy costs for not turning attention towards girls' education so they spent large sums of money in health care. If they focused on educating girls, they would bring up a generation protecting itself from diseases.
The UNICEF report holds the view that education is next in importance to the family, for it creates a healthy environment for children especially girls. It helps them learn the skills and collect information useful for their protection.
Human development, as a result of education, has shown positive outcomes in encountering Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). One of the studies conducted in 17 African countries and four South American countries revealed that educated girls have fewer tendencies towards pre-marital or extra-marital sexual intercourse than others.
If they are sexually active, they demand those who need to have sex with them to use condoms. According to the report, the most efficient protection against AIDS starts in school.
The fifth chapter of the report dealt with teenagers and emphasized that intensive research carried out by the American Development Agency revealed that male and female teenagers share the same problem as the restriction of schooling, degraded level of the quality of education and the lack of schools closer to their residences as well as the lack of support.
Children's hatred for school and their poor academic achievement is the source of concern in the majority of industrial countries. The report confirmed that only fewer countries in which we can find out the number female children enrolled in schools is closer to that of the males.
A modern study conducted by UNICEF on families in 55 countries came to a conclusion that in some countries the percentage of girls attending school is less than that of males, while in others, male children are found to have no access to education. It added that the poor acquisition among males in the industrial countries is a growing problem. In the linguistic and human areas of learning, more often females to males score higher and reasons behind this are various.
The concluding chapter of UNICEF's report covered what should be done to limit the problems encountered by children. It reveals that an additional cost of $9.1 billion is demanded to meet the millennium goals in regard of generalizing primary education by 2015.
It is clear the generalization of education is not a barrier that's difficult for the world to overcome. The above-mentioned cost, which is $US 9.1 billion is easily affordable compared to that of military operations.
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