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Young children most vulnerable in Eastern European schools

"Across the region, more than 32,000 pre-schools have closed, 23,000 in Russia alone, and the number of children attending kindergartens has fallen from 61 to 44 per cent," said UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy. "Conditions for teachers have also deteriorated. In Russia alone, hundreds of schools are closed down because of strikes and thousands of teachers are refusing to go to work until they receive back pay -- some have even gone on hunger strikes. These are serious threats to early childhood development, and in the worst case we could be witnessing a major educational meltdown."

In Russia, teachers at thousands of schools have threatened to participate in a nation-wide strike called for 27 January.

UNICEF figures reveal dramatic declines in kindergarten enrolment in countries where enrolment was low to begin with. For example, in Kyrgystan, one in three children attended kindergarten ten years ago. Now attendance is less than one in ten. Similar declines are found in Georgia (44.1 per cent to 11.7 per cent) and Azerbaijan (21.9 percent to 13.8 per cent).

In Russia and Ukraine, where kindergarten enrolment also declined, there were also modest increases in the under-five mortality rate over the decade.

"The sad reality is that neglect of children's rights to early primary education is often accompanied by declines in basic health and nutrition," Ms. Bellamy said. "It is a tragic syndrome that calls out for reforms that recognize that the future of the entire region is dependent on providing quality, free, public education to all, beginning with the youngest."

UNICEF is spotlighting education in specific regions in the wake of The State of the World's Children 1999, a wide-ranging report on serious challenges to the basic right to education facing millions of the world's children.

Ms. Bellamy cited the ongoing upheaval in Kosovo, battles over the national budget in Russia and unrest, economic hardship and armed conflict in several countries as the backdrop to the current educational crisis. In Georgia, she noted, education outlays are now one-tenth of 1990 levels. In Bulgaria, they have fallen by three-quarters over the past decade.

"As incomes in the region have fallen," the UNICEF chief added, "costs of schooling have risen, often sharply. Private efforts to fill the gap left by public shortfalls have opened the way to stratification which denies equal education to the poorest and most marginalized children. Thus, for example, clothing for children to wear to school, once subsidized, is now the responsibility of hard-strapped families. And fees are now charged for school services that were once free."

"The economic roots of the problem are palpable when we see children who once went to school now going into the labour market," Ms. Bellamy added. "This opens up a whole spectrum of violations of children's rights, ranging from hazardous labour conditions to increased vulnerability to sexual abuse and exploitation."

Another sign of the problem is a decline in social services that were once offered by schools. In Georgia, for example, health and dental checkups provided a decade ago to some 670,000 children are now available to less than half that number.

Ms. Bellamy called for a concerted social effort to reverse these trends. Among the most serious needs, she said, are cost-efficient alternatives to formal state kindergartens. Other needs include new options for vocational training, fairer examination systems, more parental involvement and a serious commitment to equal opportunity for the poorest and most marginalized. Also, schools must begin once again to serve as key points for health and nutritional services vital to children.

"The educational crisis in Central and Eastern Europe is not as visible and dramatic as in other parts of the world," Ms. Bellamy said. "But the sheer number of children involved and the consequences of a backward movement in education in the region cannot be overestimated."

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