Home | UNICEF in Action | Highlights | Information Resources | Donations, Greeting Cards & Gifts | Press Centre | Voices of Youth | About UNICEF

UNICEF pledges to school all Kosovo children

NEW YORK/GENEVA, 24 June -- The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) today pledged to give every primary school age child in Kosovo the opportunity to be back in school by the start of the academic year in September, despite huge challenges posed in the wake of widespread carnage and destruction of the province's infrastructure.

UNICEF, which has been helping to provide education for tens of thousands of refugee children in Albania and Macedonia, said the educational system within Kosovo had been devastated, with many schools vandalised or destroyed and an undetermined number of teachers injured or killed. In addition, landmines laid during the conflict, unexploded ordnance (UXOs) and the possibility that booby-traps were left by fleeing combatants create an especially dangerous environment for children. Dozens of people have been injured or killed since refugees began returning to Kosovo last week, including several children.

A rapid assessment by UNICEF in an area west and south of Pristina showed that out of 13 schools inspected, five were demolished and four burnt and one was suspected of being booby-trapped. Only three were deemed safe and usable.

UNICEF plans a crash cooperative effort with all of its partner organisations to provide temporary repairs to moderately damaged primary schools to prepare them for the coming winter. But many schoolrooms will have to be housed initially in alternative structures similar to the UNICEF school tents used in refugee camps in Macedonia and Albania. The effort will include the provision of basic furniture, teaching equipment and learning materials for students.

The children's agency will provide educational kits or "school-in-a-box", which contain both classroom and student supplies, and will mobilise teachers, including those with whom UNICEF is working in the refugees camps.

UNICEF has already distributed more than 100,000 pamphlets and posters to alert people affected by the conflict to the danger of landmines and will intensify mine awareness activities in Kosovo itself. The effort will focus on providing mine and UXO awareness educational materials in local languages to primary schools and communities. The development of resources to promote human and child rights and assist local reconciliation efforts through "peace education" will also be explored.

The agency expressed the hope that, by restoring primary education, it will help Kosovo's children to have a tangible sense that normal life can and will go on.

The agency noted that this10th anniversary year of the Convention on the Rights of the Child is an opportunity to remind the world that every child has the right to decent, safe primary schooling and said it hoped that the Kosovo effort would increase support for similar campaigns to ensure 100 per cent primary school enrolment in every country.

Home| UNICEF in Action | Highlights | Information Resources | Donations, Greeting Cards & Gifts | Press Centre | Voices of Youth | About UNICEF