Showing posts with label adult education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adult education. Show all posts

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Movie of the Month: The First Grader

Media Roundtable Discussion with Justin Chadwick, Director of the Movie, The First Grader from George Wada on Vimeo.



Justin Chadwick's remarkable film The First Grader is our movie of the month and when you see it, you would be be thrilled to agree with our choice.



Read the synopsis for a start.

Kenya, 2003: A radio DJ announces that the Kenyan government is offering free primary school education to all. Maruge (OLIVER LITONDO), an 84 year-old villager, hears this and decides he wants to educate himself. Arriving at his local school, with a newspaper clipping about this change in policy, he meetsJane (NAOMIE HARRIS), the school’s principal, and expresses his desire to learn. Her colleague Alfred (ALFRED MUNYUA), in an effort to get rid of him, tells him all pupils need two pencils and an exercise book.



The next day, Maruge returns, telling Jane he wants to learn to read. He has a letter from the “Office of the President” that he wants to understand. Exasperated, she tells him the school already has too many pupils. Later that night, she tells her husband Charles (TONY KGOROGE) about Maruge. Cautious of his own position, working alongside the government in Nairobi, he advises her to fight the battles she can win.
After cutting his trousers and turning them into shorts, Maruge returns to the school again. While Jane tells the school inspector Mr. Kipruto (VUSI KUNENE)on the telephone that she currently has five children to a desk, when Maruge re-appears, she relents. Alfred is reluctant, yet Jane is defiant, claiming Kipruto is not the head of the school. Allowing Maruge into her class, she seats him near the front – after he admits his eyesight is not so good – and begins to teach him, and her other charges, how to write the alphabet.

Plagued by memories of his time in Kenya in 1953, when he fought with the Mau Mau against the British, it even impacts upon Maruge in class, when Alfred scolds him for not keeping his pencil sharp. Made to sharpen it, he breaks down as he recalls a time when the British tortured him – using a sharp pencil brutally thrust into his ear. Apologising to Jane, saying it won’t happen again, Maruge later educates his fellow pupils, patiently explains about the fight for land that he and other Mau Mau undertook and teaching them the word for ‘freedom’.



Resentment brews over Maruge’s education. At home, people shout that he should stay away from the school, while in the playground, covert photographs are taken of him. Soon enough, the story that an old man is going to school hits the radio airwaves. Kipruto arrives, furious that he has learnt in the press that Maruge is attending his school. Jane tells him that Maruge fought against the British. She later learns from Maruge that the same soldiers killed his family.

Desperate to keep Maruge in school, Jane calls Charles, but he advises her not to go over Kipruto’s head. She wilfully ignores him, visiting the head of the education board to plead Maruge’s case. Her protests fall on deaf ears and Maruge is made to attend an adult education centre, where he soon finds himself surrounded by people with no ambitions to learn. He goes to see Jane, telling her he must learn to read because he wants to be able to understand the letter he’s been sent. Refusing to go back to the adult education centre, Maruge nevertheless must say his goodbyes to the children. Yet Jane offers him a reprieve – as her teaching assistant.

As the story breaks, the press descends on the school, surrounding Jane and wanting to question Maruge. He tells the reporters that the power is in the pen.

Nevertheless, his presence in the school is beginning to cause anger amongst the parents of the young pupils. One mother confront Jane, accusing her of seeking fame and fortune from all the attention, while another father proclaims to Alfred that the school is spending too much time on Maruge. Again, Kipruto arrives with the school in chaos, telling Jane that her special pupil cannot stay and that plans are afoot for the government to compensate the Mau Mau.

Resolute, Jane decides to teach Maruge to read after school has finished – despite receiving threatening phone calls. A delegation of politicians arrive at the school, keen to cash in on the free publicity surrounding Maruge, while secretly demanding that Jane cut them in on any money she has received. Events begin to spiral - people attack the school with sticks while Charles receives an anonymous telephone call, noting his wife is now out of control. Jane soon receives a letter that she is to be transferred to a school 300 miles away. Charles tells her that events surrounding Maruge are tearing them apart, explaining that he’s received calls claiming she has been unfaithful.

Jane explains to Maruge that she is being transferred, and then undertakes an emotional goodbye to the children, who all bring her gifts. Meanwhile, Kipruto introduces the class’ new teacher. Enraged, the children padlock the school gate and throw missiles at her and Kipruto. Meanwhile, Maruge travels to Nairobi, heading to the Ministry of Education, where he confronts the board on behalf of Jane, showing them the scars he sustained as a young man tortured by the British.

Jane returns to the school, where Maruge is there to welcome her back. He wants her to read to him his letter, which explains he will be compensated for his time in the prison camps. As the film draws to a close, the radio DJ announces that Maruge – the Guinness Book of Records holder for the oldest person to go to primary school – will speak at the United Nations.


Friday, May 6, 2011

Nigeria and UNESCO launch $6 million national literacy programme


Photo Credit: 31 Exchange


6 May 2011 18:37 Africa/Lagos


Nigeria and UNESCO launch $6 million national literacy programme

PARIS, May 6, 2011/African Press Organization (APO)/ -- Efforts to achieve Education for All in Nigeria received a major boost today with the signing of an $6 million agreement between UNESCO and the Nigerian Government. Under the agreement, Nigeria will finance a project managed by UNESCO to revitalize adult and youth literacy in the country. It was signed today at UNESCO's Paris Headquarters by UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova and Nigeria's Federal Minister of Education Ruqayyatu Ahmed Rufa'i.

Although Nigeria has made considerable progress towards Education for All, illiteracy remains a major problem, with an estimated 50 million adults who cannot read or write. Furthermore, some 8.6 million Nigerian primary-age children are out-of-school.

“The importance and enormous benefits of literacy both for individual empowerment and national development are well known and documented,” said Irina Bokova, following the signing ceremony. “As the UN's specialized agency for education, UNESCO has at its disposal a huge reservoir of expertise and experience. Every effort will be made to mobilize and effectively deploy these resources for the benefit of Nigeria.”

“This is a project charged with great expectations and it is in the spirit of achieving these expectations, together, that we envisioned our cooperation (Nigeria and UNESCO) for the achievement of the important goal of this major endeavor,” said Ruqayyatu Ahmed Rufa'i, who currently chairs the E-9 initiative*. “It is our hope that Nigeria's successful implementation of this programme will serve as a model, not only for the E-9 countries, but also those in the Africa region and elsewhere, facing the literacy challenge. We count on UNESCO to continue to provide appropriate and adequate support for its success.”

The agreement will open the way for a vast programme to strengthen national capacities for designing, delivering, evaluating and monitoring quality literacy programmes. It will be implemented by UNESCO's office in the Nigerian federal capital, Abuja over 42 months, in close cooperation with the relevant Nigerian authorities.

This if the fourth “self-benefitting” agreement signed between Nigeria and UNESCO since 2004, when the Government in Abuja committed almost $1million for a programme to reform the Nigerian Science, Technology and Innovation System. In 2005, Nigeria provided over $3 million for a UNESCO programme to boost science and technology education in primary and secondary schools and colleges of education. In 2008, the government in Abuja committed $565,000 to support technical and vocational education in Nigeria (this programme was complemented by an additional $1.5 million implemented directly by Government services. These three programmes are all ongoing.

* The E-9 Initiative is a forum for nine high-population countries (Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan) to discuss their experiences in education, exchange best practices and monitor progress on achieving Education for All (EFA). Since its launch in 1993, the E-9 network has also become a powerful lobby for EFA and South-South cooperation.


Source: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)


Releases displayed in Africa/Lagos time
6 May 2011
19:25 Cote d'Ivoire / UNOCI's future role under preparation
18:55 World Bank President Supports Further Moroccan Reforms and Civic Participation
18:53 Hennessy Advisors, Inc. Announces Second Quarter Earnings of $0.06 Per Share and Declares Quarterly Dividend
18:49 Experts and Policy Makers conclude CODIST II with resounding call to invest in Science Technology Innovation
18:37 Nigeria and UNESCO launch $6 million national literacy programme
17:59 El proyecto del Lago Kivu de ContourGlobal recibe la garantía de la Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency del Banco Mundial
17:32 South African Airways Selects Expedia Affiliate Network to Power Hotel Offering
17:31 Defense Logistics Agency Warfighter Support Representatives Assist Troops in Libya, Africa
15:33 Powerful Start to 2011: BASF Remains on Growth Track
14:30 Researchers Join Forces To Cure Deadly Childhood Disease
14:00 The Female Health Company's Brazilian Distributor, Semina, Awarded Contract For Up To 20 Million FC2 Female Condoms
14:00 Smartphone Sales Will Account for 53% of Global Handset Sell-Through in 2015, Pyramid Finds
13:42 ICE Futures Europe Announces Daily Volume Records for Brent Crude and RBOB Gasoline Futures
13:30 The Female Health Company Reports Second Quarter Operating Results and Confirms Annual Guidance
13:00 Wines of South Africa Launches New Sustainability Seal and Video at Earth Day New York
13:00 InspireMD to Participate in Benchmark Company, LLC 2011 One-On-One Investor Conference
12:29 Sasol Announces Appointment of Chief Executive Designate
11:18 Canadian Pharmacy Intermediary's Top Reasons U.S. Customers Choose Canada Online Pharmacies Revealed by SaveRxCanada.com
11:02 First Quarter 2011 Earnings Release and Conference Call for Harvest Natural Resources
10:46 Slovenia National TV Renews Broadcast Relationship With Eutelsat With new 10-Year Contract at the Hot Bird(TM) Neighbourhood



Source: African Press Organization