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Education for
Rural People in the Caribbean
By Food and Agriculture Organization of
the United Nations press release
Posted: May 12, 2006 20:23
UTC
| From Elitism to
Equality
WASHINGTON, DC, U.S.A. and ROME, Italy -
International attention turns towards the Caribbean region on
the eve of a regional conference on education for rural people
(*) to take place in Saint Lucia on 18 and 19 May
2006.
Representatives of ministries of agriculture,
education and health, and international agencies, NGOs and the
private sector will attend the meeting, which is part of a
global partnership launched by FAO and UNESCO during the 2002
World Summit on Sustainable Development to eradicate poverty
and hunger. A similar meeting for the African region took
place last year in Addis Ababa.
"Participants will
discuss a wide range of issues including food, nutrition,
education, school gardens, HIV/AIDS and gender," according to
Marcela Villarreal, head of FAO's Gender and Population
Division.
"Education is essential for the rural poor,
many of whom are women. It is also essential for rural
children who lose their parents to AIDS. Field schools need to
be developed to provide essential skills and knowledge to
orphaned children. Educating the rural poor contributes to
preventing the pandemic from expanding rapidly in rural
areas," Ms Villarreal says.
Worldwide, 100 million
children are still being denied the opportunity to go to
school. Without urgent action these children will remain in
poverty and at far greater risk of HIV/AIDS infection,
according to education experts.
Education challenges in
the Caribbean
"In the Caribbean region, the impact of
poverty, HIV/AIDS and educational deficits is acutely felt in
the rural context," according to an FAO paper to be presented
at the Saint Lucia meeting.
The paper deplores that
"significant percentages of the population of the Caribbean
States are impacted by poverty," and underlines the need to
exert considerable efforts to reach the UN Millennium
Development Goals in the region.
In the Caribbean, as
in Latin America, poverty rates are higher in rural areas than
in urban areas. In Jamaica, for example, the rural poverty
rate is three times as high as the urban poverty rate, while
in Guyana, almost the entire rural population is
poor.
"The education system in the Caribbean evolved
from a colonial historical legacy which was predicated on
privilege. Education served as a primary device for social
selection and class stratification. With the attainment of
independence and the growth of nationalism, mass education
became a socio- political priority," according to the
report.
The Saint Lucia conference on education for
rural people will immediately follow a World Bank/CDB/OECS
Caribbean Forum on Lifelong Learning to be held on 16 and 17
May. It is expected that Ministers and education officials
from 15 countries attending this forum will join the
conference.
By helping to fight poverty, hunger and
illiteracy, FAO and UNESCO are working hand in hand towards
achieving Millennium Development goals number one, two and
three: eradication of extreme poverty and hunger; achievement
of universal primary education; and promotion of gender
equality and empowerment of women. FAO has been assigned the
responsibility of leading the education for rural people
initiative.
(*) The Conference is organized by FAO, the
Italian Development Cooperation office, the Government of
Saint Lucia, UNESCO's International Institute for Educational
Planning, the World Bank, the Inter-America Institute for
Cooperation in Agriculture, the Caribbean Development Bank
(CDB), the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and
other partners. Its theme is: Food Security, Agricultural
Competitiveness and Sustainable Livelihoods.
For more
news on the work of FAO: http://www.fao.org.
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