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Attacks targeting teachers and students worldwide on the rise, says UNESCO report

The number of politically and ideologically motivated attacks on teachers, students and school buildings is rising, says the report Education Under Attack 2010, launched by UNESCO.

These attacks are perpetrated by non-state armed groups and state actors alike.

Education under Attack 2010 is the second report on the subject; the first was published in 2007.

This report is launched together with a second UNESCO publication entitled Protecting Education from Attack: A State-of-the-Art Review, in which several experts take critical stock of knowledge on prevention and response, with respect to both international law and interventions on the ground.

The two texts comprise both an assessment of the current situation and a call to action, in the face of violence that appears to be rising dramatically, following a more general pattern of increased attacks on civilians and aid workers in recent years.

Three years ago, when UNESCO commissioned the first Education under Attack study, the problem was little known. Education under Attack 2010 notes growing awareness within United Nations agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and public opinion of the recurring nature of these attacks, which are not exceptional or isolated incidents. Above all, the report demonstrates that the destruction of schools and the murder of students and teachers are not limited to acts by the Taliban in Afghanistan or Pakistan in opposition to the education of girls and women.

The 2010 report reveals that the problem is much more extensive. Education was attacked in at least 32 countries between January 2007 and July 2009. Often, an attack on the educational system represents an attack on the State. Conversely, certain States or paramilitary organizations may target academics in order to neutralize real or imagined opponents.

The report also covers the issue of child soldiers – the number of which is currently estimated at 250,000 worldwide. Abductions are frequently carried out for the purpose of forced recruitment or sexual violence against girls. The report expresses particular concern about the systematic nature of crimes committed and sinister tactics used in several countries against teachers, pupils and unionized education workers.

Irina Bokova, the Director-General of UNESCO, has underlined that UNESCO is concerned by these attacks for three reasons: they “constitute a threat to the right to life, and a threat to the right to education, which is itself the key to other freedoms and basic rights; lastly, these attacks jeopardize the achievement of the Education for All goals.” The Education for All (EFA) campaign is a global commitment to provide quality universal education by 2015.

The report also examines the reasons why attacks on education often attract little attention and it points to the role that the International Criminal Court (ICC) could play in strengthening accountability and ending impunity for such attacks.

In his recommendations, author Brendan O’Malley advocates the creation of a global observatory on the subject. The United Nations currently lacks reliable data for an accurate assessment of the problem. More in-depth research is needed, he says, to enable better analysis and understanding of the causes, means and impacts of attacks on education.

By Parth Guragain

But this thing had a negative impact on our fellow travelers…

Lot of the time what we do is we preach others. That is we say what you so do, what you should follow and so on .But never we care that what we are doing and always try to justify our self. There was a particular incidence that occurred while I was coming home from Pakistan few months ago. We were four friends in a compartment of a train and there was a family along with us in the same compartment. As such they were very friendly but there was one thing that was bothering one of my friend.

The head of the family was a man; his habit was to eat each and every things that entered inside the compartment of train that was brought by the vendors. But the bad part of it was he was throwing these plastic wrappers here and there due to which the compartment was getting dirtier and dirtier with the journey. Three of us were doing the same thing, we were throwing these waste here and there. But one of my friend all of sudden what he did was he brought a polythene bag and started collecting all the dirt. We were shocked and also ashamed. After that we realized our mistakes and started collecting all the waste that we made.

But this thing had a negative impact on our fellow travelers that is this family. That is they started commenting regarding us I could understand what they were saying but didn’t paid attention to it. As the journey progressed they were felling somewhat ashamed of themselves. They started collecting their waste. So their habit was somewhat changed by the deeds of my friend who didn’t even preached a word. When we reached Gorakhpur, India the head of the family that is this Gentleman caught hand of my friend and said I will teach my son to be a good human then only to become a successful man. This was the best part of that journey and I also learned a lot from this act of my friend. So it is always easier to preach others but we should try to imply it our self first and show to the others.

By: Aditi Adhikari

“Once you lose a language, you lose a culture. Language transmits culture. It forms the basis for identity”

(Richard Littlebear, college President, Chief Dull Knife College in Lame Deer)

While most of us have thought about losing our diversity we have in terms of diversity of wildlife or plants, diversity of languages and cultures doesn’t strike us as particularly important. The truth is that much of what makes the world a beautiful place is its people: the languages they speak, the customs they follow, and the different ways in which different groups live. Another aspect of the truth is that with globalization, we’re losing this diversity.

I’m not saying globalization is a bad thing. It’s a totally amazing thing; it’s bringing people together and allowing for the exchange of ideas. It’s hard to take sides; you can’t quite say losing cultural diversity is good, nor can you say globalization is bad. For this time, I’m going to be content with being a fence-sitter. I’m going to be content with just talking about the problem and suggesting things, not quite attainable, to balance the two.

As the world is becoming smaller with the advent of information technology and the invention of things like the internet, we are learning more and more of each other’s cultures. But more people are also forgetting their own cultures. More and more people are learning prevalent languages like English, French, Spanish, and other mostly European languages, but more people, especially in Asia and the Middle Eastern countries, are now unable to speak languages that their parents spoke with ease- their mother’s mother-tongues.

But culture is something that is hard to define, “the customs, arts, social institutions, etc of a particular group or nation.” according to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s dictionary, culture can vary between and within small groups of people. We can make statements about large groups of people, but there are some norms that can be applied to only a small group of people. So while we often make statements like “Age-hierarchy is less prominent in Westerner society than in Eastern society,” culture is mostly not as simple as saying “East” and “West”. There are differences in the festivals celebrated in the ‘terai’ (plains) of Nepal, and those celebrated in the hills. Often, a person will be a part of more than one culture; for example, a Nepali Hindu man of the working class, or a Nepali woman who follows Tibetan Buddhism and lives in her small village cannot be defined only by his/her religion or nationality. Perhaps through their own combinations, each village, or each family even has their unique cultures.

As people’s lifestyles change with development and change in living conditions, cultures are bound to change. As people learn about foreign arts and start experimenting with them, cultures are bound to change. Language also evolves through time, but not as fast. By forgetting our languages, or losing parts of our culture, we are not just denying ourselves the cultural identity that we have a right to. The “criminal” generation will hardly realize what’s missing, they will struggle all their lives to make ends meet, to develop their careers, to give their children the best. Maybe even the next generations will not realize, except maybe when people ask “Can you speak your mother tongue?” and they have to answer “Yes, but not very well,” or “No, but I understand,” or with just a “no”.

I read an article about a year back about a woman in a village in Nepal who was the only person alive who could speak Dura,her language. And then I felt a chill down my spine. My mother tongue is Nepali, but I can write English better than Nepali, and my spoken Nepali too, is only as good as my spoken English. I already speak in a mix of Nepali and English; even though I don’t like it, it slips. What if, when I have kids, I (unconsciously) don’t speak much Nepali with them and they never learn to speak the language well? More information and world-class literature from all over the world is available in English than in languages like Nepali, so it is beneficial if we have a good command of the English language. Still, I am afraid that as more people learn to speak English, it will be less necessary for them to know their own languages to communicate with each other. I’m scared about Nepali because it is my language, but many languages face far more dangers of
extinction

“Whose language
has not been the oppressor’s tongue?
Which language
truly meant to murder someone?
And how does it happen
that after the torture,
after the soul has been cropped
with the long scythe swooping out
of the conqueror’s face –
the unborn grandchildren
grow to love that strange language?”

(From “A Different History”, by Sujata Bhatt)

I know English doesn’t mean to murder my language, just as my language never meant to murder the many whose extinction it played a hand in. But as a translator, I also know that language pretty much defines culture. There are so many concepts that are native to one culture and cannot be translated into another language. And when a language dies, so do those elements of culture. Usually, we learn the languages of the “superior”, those who have power, or those who have access to knowledge, mostly because it paves way for opportunities. And yet, after the initial discomfort, and how we have no choice we grow to love that language. We should accept and love what is foreign to us. But we should also continue to love what is our own.

In multi-cultural societies like Nepal, it is very complex to include mother tongues into regional curriculums because there are so many ethnic groups and so many languages. Parents should help (not anybody else, but themselves and their children) by teaching their children their mother tongue. Other languages, the child can learn later. It is said that children who acquire good skills in one language, can learn those skills in any language, while children who are taught the broken form of a foreign (or their own) language don’t acquire good skills in any language. Teachers should start language classes, and children should not be ashamed to study their own languages.

The world is globalizing, but when we lose language, we lose what it took our ancestors thousands of years to come up with, and not just for ourselves. We lose it for generations to come. (What are the chances that your children will learn to speak your mother tongue if YOU can’t speak it? Who will they learn from? ) We lose more than we gain by learning another language, because with our endangered languages, our identities are at stake.

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