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So much to learn

The fifth in a series of articles in which Hester Ross follows the progress of the Queen's Jubilee Baton through the Commonwealth and focuses on debt related issues encountered along the way. This week the baton makes its way into the heart of Africa through Uganda and Tanzania.

One hundred and six 7 to 9 year olds sit in rows on the hard mud floor. It's not a huge classroom but the children aren't very big either and the room doesn't seem especially crowded. Some scrape away at slates, a few work in smudged and frayed exercise books where there has been much rubbing out of old lessons. Others make dust in the floor and scrape figures with a stick. One child has a brand new, bright red pencil. The focus of attention is the blackboard where the stream of light from the window falls on the row of take away sums to be copied out. It's Mr Mahone's first job. He has no text books but he has three pieces of chalk in his pocket. His salary isn't much but he would like to have it. He hasn't been paid for three weeks.

In Tanzania it costs at least $8 per year to send just one child to school. That's the equivalent of a month's wages for a coffee worker who may well have three or four children. The wonder is that so many ordinary people achieve such enormous sacrifices. They do it because they see Education, including education in bare classrooms without books, as the way to escape poverty. And they are right.

Even a small amount of schooling can have far reaching effects. Studies show that each year a mother spends at primary school reduces her children's risk of premature death by around 8%. Yet so often it's the girls who are left behind in the education stakes. If a family can only afford to educate one or two children then inevitably boys are chosen. 40% of African children don't go to school.

Under the terms of the current debt programme Uganda and Tanzania have both reached "completion point". Yet the story is complex and by no means over. Thanks to Uganda's Universal Primary Education Programme, funded by debt relief, primary school enrolment rose from 56% to an impressive 95% in just three years. Unfortunately this progress is severely threatened as the demands of debt servicing start all over again. Tanzania will spend nearly twice as much on debt than on education after so-called debt relief. Both these countries demonstrate the absurdity and the inadequacy of the debt process.

In a recent leaked report the World Bank itself suddenly recognises that unless drastic action is taken at least 88 countries will miss the goal of getting all children into primary education by 2015. Cancelling debts can get children into school. It's time to educate our leaders.

Visit www.jubileescotland.org.uk for more on Scotland's debt campaign or e-mail mail@jubileescotland.org.uk )
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