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Education of Street Children in Ethiopia.

In Ethiopia, formal schooling is limited to those who can afford to pay for their books, school materials and uniforms. For the roughly 60,000 children living on the streets, going to school remains just a dream. UNICEF's street children rehabilitation programme, however, has made that dream a reality for 2500 of Ethiopia's most vulnerable children. Though many of the programme beneficiaries do not attend formal schooling, UNICEF supports a number of non-formal education activities, which allow street children to learn educational fundamentals.

With the help of UNICEF, some street children move beyond simply getting a basic education to excelling in their classes. Tutorial sessions are given for street children to supplement their education in formal school. 400 children were enrolled in the two-year-old tutorial program (235 females, 165 male) which runs for ten months out of the year. In addition to the extra tutorial help, the beneficiaries are provided with school materials, uniforms, exercise books and the like. The programme employs 15 tutors and its students range in age from 10 to 15 years.

In the dimly lit mudwalled rooms, street children in little more than rags enthusiastically worked on their English and mathematics. Though some students comment that they find it hard to attend when they have other work to do, many try to come regularly for the extra help. With the help of the programme, street children have been given a boost like a street girl at the top of her class in formal school.

The non-formal education classes make a difference to students like Temesgan Aklilou, a 15-year-old shoeshine boy. Temesgan lives alone and makes 2 to 3 birr per day as a shoeshiner. He speaks favourably about the tutorial classes, "These classes are good and help me to get good results in school. My favourite subject is English and I wish to move up to higher education. Without these classes and education materials (provided by the programme), I could not go to school."

In Nazareth, a small town two hours south of Addis Ababa, a 20-year-old teacher is responsible for the non-formal education of 100 children. In the basement room of the district recreation center, Sosena Sisay strings together curricula for her young pupils. She is equipped with little more than ten rickety benches, spindly desks and an old chalkboard. Yet, she is able to teach the children a variety of subjects ranging from Amharic and English to mathematics and natural sciences. Though the school isn't much, it is more than the street children of Nazareth would otherwise have.

In Addis Ababa, street children receive educational help from local and international NGOs. With the help of UNICEF, NGOs like GOAL provide basic educational materials to children who have been identified as street children and are enrolled in the programme. GOAL operates 13 night shelters throughout Addis Ababa and is in the process of constructing a new drop-in center for the non-formal educational needs of their recipients. The girls and boys of the street come for a clean, safe place to sleep, food and counseling in these small houses. At eight in the morning, street children gather into the shelters and settle down with their schoolbooks on their lap for extra tutoring sessions before bedding down on their thin mattresses. For now, support organizations content themselves with doing what they can. For GOAL, that means making use of every opportunity to educate the street children.