Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education

Family and Child Welfare 3 (3+0)

Lesson 4 : Millennium Development Goals and Child Protection

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education

Education and Child Protection: Universal primary education cannot be achieved without efforts to eliminate the barriers that keep children out of school: child labour, violence in schools, discrimination, and over-use of institutional care. Reaching the hard-to-reach- including children affected by HIV/AIDS, orphans, children with disabilities, children from minorities and of migrant families, and those who are in institutional care- is critical to achieving education for all. Ensuring that children attend schools with qualified staff can also help prevent and address child protection abuses.

Child Labour: Child Work and Child Labour can impede the education of children. Particularly girls, who comprise a larger portion of the out-of-school population.

 Violence: The school environment needs to be safe, protective and free of violence if children are to be encouraged to attend and remain in school. Sexual violence and harassment facing girls at school is a major impediment to achieving gender equality in education. Eliminating corporal punishment and other forms of violence including bullying, peer violence and sexual abuse are thus integral to ensuring a safe and protective learning environment for children.

 Conflict/civil disturbance: Conflict/civil disturbance can displace families, separate
children from their parents and disrupt a child’s education.

 Child Marriage: Girls face economic and cultural pressures to drop out of school in order to get married. Exclusion: Many vulnerable groups subject to discrimination need to be taken into account in reaching this target, including children affected by HIV/AIDS, orphans, children with disabilities, children affected b y conflict and those trafficked, minorities and children of migrant families.

Children without Parental Care: Ensuring that children who are not able to live with their families are placed in the most appropriate family environment increases the likelihood that they will attend and benefit from school.

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Last modified: Monday, 13 February 2012, 6:37 AM