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Monday, November 9, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
Education
EDUCATION-BENIN: Expatriate Teachers Refuse To Return To Nigeria
More than 90 Beninois teachers, hired to teach French in Nigeria, have refused to return to the West African country, citing poor remuneration and poor conditions of living.EDUCATION-BRAZIL: Poorly Trained Professionals Glut the Market
Brazil is a paradox when it comes to medicine. The population lacks access to health services and thousands of people die every year from malaria, diarrhea, tuberculosis, measles and other preventable diseases, but there is an excess of doctors: one for every 673 inhabitants.EDUCATION-TECHNOLOGY: Developing Nations Move Forward
Developing nations are joining the largest library in the world today - the network of 56 million computer hosts linked to nearly 200 million people worldwide known as the Internet.EDUCATION-BRAZIL: A Revolution in Secondary Schooling
Brazil's Education Ministry is promoting an in-depth reform of secondary education, to boost enrollment and meet growing demand, and as part of an effort to tackle social ills such as teen pregnancy and high unemployment among the young.//CORRECTED UPDATE//EDUCATION-MEXICO: Losses Mount in 5-Month University Strike
The strike at the largest university in Mexico and Latin America has reached the five-month point, with university officials reporting a 40 percent decline in scientific research and 100 million dollars in losses.EDUCATION-MEXICO: Losses Mount in 5-Month University Strike
The strike at the largest university in Mexico and Latin America reached the five-month point Monday, with university officials reporting a 40 percent decline in scientific research and 100 million dollars in losses.EDUCATION-NIGERIA: University Lecturers On Strike, Again
For the second time this year, Nigerian university lecturers have staged a nationwide strike to press the government for an increase in pay.EDUCATION-RUSSIA: A Soviet Pride Falling Apart
'Learning is rowing upstream,' an ancient Chinese proverb says, but these days, for Russian education workers, life is largely a struggle to keep afloat.EDUCATION-NIGERIA: Winning The War Against Cultism On The Campus
When Nigeria's new President, Olusegun Obasanjo, ordered heads of universities and tertiary institutions in July to flush out cultism from their institutions within three months, critics viewed the order as a very tall and hard one.EDUCATION-INDIA: Alternative Schools Net Girl Dropouts
The villagers of Khosi Kheda think that the proper age for a girl to become a bride is 14. So nobody really expected Kishwar Jahan's teachers to oppose her marriage.EDUCATION-MEXICO: Sex-Education Classes in Elementary Schools
Sex education will be part of the curriculum at Mexican elementary schools when students return to the classroom Aug 23 - ending a six-year debate on the content of teaching manuals to be used for sixth grade pupils.EDUCATION-SIERRA LEONE: Girl Soldiers To Swap Guns With Books
Since the Sierra Leonean peace treaty was signed on Jul 7, the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) has been busy making plans to help young girls return to school and resume normal lives.EDUCATION-COSTA RICA: Communities Help Kids Go Back to School
Community councils take up the fight against the exploitation of children in Costa Rica and encourage thousands of girls and boys to go back to the schools they abandoned for work.EDUCATION-NIGERIA: Cult Students Terrorise University Campus
The brutal murder of the Registrar of Nigeria's Delta State University, Peter Otolo, by suspected cult students at his residence early this month, is worrying Nigerians.RIGHTS-BRAZIL: Leading University Joins Fight Against Racism
The leading public university and the bar association of Brazil have recognised the need to fight racism and created commissions to seek ways to combat the discrimination suffered by blacks.EDUCATION-NIGERIA: Teachers’ Strike Paralyses Schools
Primary schools throughout Nigeria have been paralysed by teachers' strike over a new minimum wage.EDUCATION: Schooling Crisis in Developing Nations
Any hope of promoting global access to basic education by the turn of the century had been dashed because of problems - mainly in the developing world - encountered during the past 10 years, a UN conference heard here.DEVELOPMENT-MEXICO: Closing the Research Gap
Mexico is taking steps to end the long- standing policy of ignoring research in the fields of science and technology - where only .38 percent of the gross national product (GNP) was spent in the past.EDUCATION-CANADA: University Coming to the Arctic
The University of the Arctic, an institution without walls, will begin enrolling students next year in areas north of the 60th parallel.EDUCATION-CHINA: Bored Students Spell Trouble for Economic Future
The Chinese government has taken bold steps toward market reforms, but the lack of creativity among its youth may well hinder its lofty economic ambitions.EDUCATION-ARGENTINA: Two Years Camping Out and Fasting
Teachers from all over Argentina have been taking turns over the past two years camping out in front of Congress and fasting for periods of 15 days to protest low salaries and the small slice of the budget allocated to education.« Previous Page — Next Page »
Two teachers work in a classroom in Forces Vives School in Dori, Burkina Faso. Credit: UNICEF/UNI978361
Safe and uninterrupted education is a fundamental right for all children. Education is paramount to global development, as it has been proven that investing in education – especially for girls and children – contributes significantly to economic growth and prosperity. Although more than 1 billion children go to school, many are subjected to conditions that are not conducive to a proper learning environment, including makeshift facilities, a lack of supplies, violence in classrooms, inadequate sanitation, untrained instructors, and widespread school closures. Since 2015, there have been immense gains in education with an increase of 109 million children in school. However, as of 2023, 272 million children are still out of school.
High poverty levels in developing countries also impede children’s access to a proper education. For example, from the early to mid 2000s, Sub-Saharan African nations witnessed a dramatic decline in trained teachers due to inadequate funding in the education sector. Furthermore, major cuts to United States international aid threaten an estimated 23 million additional children's access to education, as USAID‑funded school programmes across Africa and Asia face closure.
Various other factors contribute to the decline of education, notably hunger, which has increased as conflict and climate change interfere with global food production and dissemination. Meanwhile, certain social and cultural practices also impede children’s access to education, with gender inequality, discrimination, child labour, and child marriages preventing millions of children from attending school. Economic conditions such as the inaccessibility of higher education also affect disenfranchised communities across the world. In extreme situations, such as warfare where educational facilities are destroyed in their totality, notably in Gaza and Sudan, entire generations of children might grow up without access to education. Rebuilding educational infrastructure is a long and arduous process, especially when violence persists across generations, and this significantly stunts the development of societal prosperity and stability.
IPS is dedicated to telling the shocking truths about worldwide education through impassioned opinion pieces and comprehensive articles, highlighting global issues that impede worldwide education and the courses of action being taken by organizations such as UNICEF and Education Cannot Wait.
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