Education gives you "wings"
The Early Warning System supports young adolescents in Tajikistan to complete secondary education.
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Breaking customs: from secondary school to career in aviation
“I had never have thought about linking my future with aviation and becoming an aviation engineer!”
Sadam Gorgadze, 18 y.o adolescent from roma community in the northern Tajikistan, who at one moment of his life was about dropping out from the secondary school, is now enrolled in the Moscow Aviation Academy.
Traditionally, education is not a priority for roma families and children often drop-out from school at the very young age. Unlike his peers in the roma community, Sadam had successfully graduated from the secondary school #18 of B. Gafurov district and continued to pursue his dream to become a pilot.
“It has been our school tutor, Krysina Svetlana, who convinced me, a then 15-year old teenager, to not to drop out the schooling and get higher education for my future career.”
This happy-end story became possible within the pilot Early Warning System, a school-based management programme aimed at identifying and supporting students at the risk of drop-out and helping them in transition to the upper education level. It has been set up in fifteen schools of Sughd region, including the secondary school #18 of B. Gafurov district.
The programme helped to enhance the capacity of educational facilities in identification of out-of-school schoolchildren alongside with detection of schoolchildren from disadvantaged groups for further support at school and community levels. According to the principal of the secondary school #18 of B. Gafurov district, the school is better equipped nowadays to prevent children from dropping out of school. Currently, the attendance rate of schoolchildren, including children from roma communities, has considerably increased within the past three years. To date, 60 children from 32 roma families have returned to the school. In addition, the school supports these families in receiving or restoring the identification documents for children as part of drop-up prevention approach.
Sadam set an excellent example for his school peers and local community members of how the fulfilled right to education enables a child to grow to the fullest potential and changes the quality of life.
"I hope that his story will inspire other junior schoolchildren and their parents to look up to Sadam to understand the importance of education towards achieving their dreams"- Farida Karimova, UNICEF Child Rights Monitor in Sughd region.
