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FORESTRY, PRIMARY SCHOOLING AND THE MDGS

By Peter Taylor

Forestry and primary education may not at first sight seem to have particularly strong links, but for both children and trees to grow, mature and reach their full potential a longterm view of development is essential. Forestry requires us to believe that seeds and saplings will grow over time into trees that can bring us multiple benefits – for example timber, shade and food. And, it is also true that every child in the world should have access to quality, basic education, so that they too can grow, flourish and contribute to a society which ensures they are free from poverty, their rights are assured, and their voices are heard.

Unfortunately, it is only too apparent that many children throughout the world do not have access to primary education, and that many of those that do are not receiving a quality education that prepares them effectively for their future lives. Two major global frameworks – The Dakar Framework for Action on Education for All (EFA), and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have set the target date of 2015 for the achievement of a number of child-related goals. The EFA framework has six main goals addressing: early childhood care; free and compulsory primary education of a good quality; learning and life skills programmes for all young people and adults; adult literacy; gender equality in education; and improving all aspects of the quality of education. The MDGs include two goals that are of particular relevance to EFA:

• Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
• Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women

Another global target for 2015 (often referred to as ‘Food for All’) is to reduce by half the number of undernourished people. But these are huge tasks, and the achievement of the targets is already in some doubt. Although a lot of progress has been made, in the year 2000 there were still 125 million children not attending school; more than 1.3 billion were living in poverty, three-quarters of whom were living in rural areas; and every day, an average 30,000 children below the age of five were dying primarily due to malnutrition and related illnesses. Children who are sick and malnourished are unable to take advantage of primary schooling, even if it is available. Other constraints to their education may include living too far from a school, gender-based exclusion and inequity, or having to care for siblings and other family members following the loss of their parent/s through HIV/AIDS. Many children who do attend school under these difficult circumstances, are often too tired and unwell to learn, and face additional challenges including overcrowded or inadequate classrooms, and poorly trained or ill-equipped teachers.

The challenge, therefore, is to find ways of strengthening and integrating the links between schooling, health, poverty and nutrition. In the past, national and international development strategies have failed to properly address access to education and food as related issues. Forestry, within a broader framework of sustainable natural resources management (NRM), provides one means of tackling the interrelated areas of education, food and health in rural areas.

A number of initiatives demonstrate how this might be done. Some of these are of significant and global scale, and were started as a means of moving beyond business as usual. For example:

• • A joint flagship policy-oriented initiative on education for rural development convened jointly by FAO and UNESCO, calls for an integrated view of education, focused on access to quality basic education for all. To meet the needs of the rural labour market, and to achieve food security and poverty reduction rural development policies should prioritise basic education and strategies developed with full recognition of the rural environment. Agriculture is given a particular focus, and is interpreted broadly, to include fisheries, marine products, forestry and primary forest products. Particular strategic areas are resource availability/access, quality teacher training and support, and institutionalisation of innovative methods and approaches.
• The Farmers of the Future initiative, convened by the World Agroforestry Centre, is based on the premise that the livelihoods of farming households in rural areas of developing countries depend on their ability to integrate agroforestry and natural resource management into sustainable agricultural production systems. To achieve this, young people need supporting through formal primary schooling to develop the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes for sustainable agriculture and forestry. This initiative has a number of strategies, which include the integration of agroforestry and NRM concepts into the existing curricula of primary schools, and helping to develop the capacity of teachers to frame their teaching in a local context, drawing on the experience, skills and knowledge of the children they teach, and other members of the community (e.g. parents, farmers, foresters,) as well as their own. Stakeholder involvement, developing collaborations and partnerships, and strengthening links between schools, homes and communities are seen as key ways forward.

There is also a very wide range of regional, national and local initiatives that aim to address forestry within a broad understanding of agriculture and primary schooling. For example:

• The PACE (Pan-African Conservation Education) project aims to help share simple solutions to environmental problems between communities, with particular attention to forestry and forestry products. The project develops learning and teaching materials for primary and secondary schools, and supports teacher education (Norris, 2005).
• Environmental education initiatives also exist such as The Training and Information Programme on the Environment (TIPE), Mali , which develops curriculum and learning materials, supports continuous teacher education, and provides basic resources to help practical teaching. Strong links are created between primary schools and communities, so that children learn to analyse environmental problems in their neighbourhoods, to create potential solutions, and to view themselves as messengers for responsible practices, such as planting trees as a means of preventing desertification.
• The Social Forestry Education and Participation Project in Thailand , links rural schools and communities in northern Thailand in new ways. Thai students in primary and lower secondary schools study local forestrelated problems and work with adults in their communities to address the effects of deforestation through a variety of small-scale social forestry projects. Students learn both in and out of school, in communities, and can study real world problems related to forestry. Communities thus become laboratories for information gathering and students are able to share their new knowledge, which in turn helps them address community-based problems around forestry issues. These are just a small number of examples from a vast range of initiatives.

There are of course many challenges in achieving more holistic, integrated approaches which link forestry and primary schooling, but the benefits are potentially enormous: to provide a form of education that supports real learning by all children who attend school whilst at the same time supporting the growth of forest resources. Most importantly, each outcome has the potential to support the achievement of the other. Still, such approaches require one thing above all – time. We need to recognise that educational change, like the growth of forests, does not happen over night. Many projects and initiatives are not given enough time to develop and show their real potential to improve the lives of young people and future generations. We need to provide support and resources that will help them do this – whilst promoting gender equality and contributing to the achievement of primary education for all.

References

• FAO/UNESCO (2003), Education for Rural Development. Towards new policy responses. Paris : UNESCO
• GreenCOM. ‘GreenCOM Projects’ downloaded from http://www.greencom.org/greencom/projects.asp
• Michigan State University . ‘Other International Projects in the College of Education’ downloaded from:
  http://ed-web3.educ.msu.edu/international/projects/projects.htm
• Norris, S. (2004) Africa our home. Oxford : Siren Conservation Education UNESCO (2004) Education for All. The quality imperative. EFA Global Monitoring Report 2005. Paris : UNESCO
• Vandenbosch, T., P.Taylor, J. Beniest and A. Bekele-Tesemma (2002), Farmers of the Future: a strategy for action. Nairobi : World Agroforestry Centre

Further information:

Peter Taylor
Institute for Development Studies
Email: P.Taylor@ids.ac.uk

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