LIDC

The switch from rote learning to activity-based education in Tamil Nadu, India, has been rapid and successful. M.P. Vijayakumar - a pioneer of the child-centric scheme - tells Development Matters how a pilot project for 13 schools has now been adopted by 39,000 schools. The approach is being used to teach five million primary schoolchildren in the state, is gaining supporters elsewhere in India and is attracting attention from abroad, including from China.

October 9: Leon Benjamin, author of Winning By Sharing; Ken Banks, of FrontlineSMS; and Teddy Ruge, of Project Diaspora

MDG 2, the achievement of universal primary education, has a target of ensuring that by 2015 children everywhere will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling. Net enrolment ratios have increased, with notable regional increases in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia. However, regional ratios disguise wide variations between countries. National ratios disguise variations in enrolment patterns across the grades of primary education and in the enrolment by grade patterns by income group, gender and location.

The intensity of international efforts to reduce child mortality has varied since global child mortality data became available. During the 1980s UNICEF spearheaded a “Child Survival Revolution” focused on simple, mainly vertical, interventions, yet in the 1990s interest waned as UNICEF focused on other issues and child survival seemed to disappear from WHO’s agenda. The MDGs have given renewed energy to the child survival movement, especially MDG4’s target to reduce under-five mortality by two-thirds. This is meant to be a global and regional goal, not a country-level goal.

Progress is being made to achieve the targets for MDG 6 but there is more work to be done. Global trends for HIV show that the epidemic is beginning to plateau but the need for treatment and prevention continues to outpace current interventions. Malaria interventions with bed-nets and appropriate anti-malarial treatment for children under five are making inroads into reducing deaths.