1. On the Way to School
This presentation is about children’s journeys to school around the world and is inspired by the documentary film On the Way to School. You should try to watch it!
The film follows the grueling and challenging journeys that four children make to school every day. The children are Carlito from Argentina, Zahira from Morocco, Jackson from Kenya and Samuel from India. This still from the film shows part of Samuel’s daily journey to school in India. Samuel is disabled and his brothers push him four kilometres in a wheelchair every morning to reach school.
The film tells the story of four inspiring children who value education so highly that they will make a tough and demanding journey every day to attend their lessons. I don’t know what you feel when you see this picture, but we are amazed that a young child will make such sacrifices to go to school and disappointed that more isn’t being done to help him.
Sadly, children who live further from their schools are less likely to go to school.
(Don’t read this bit: Photo credit: Press pack

2. Education
and poverty
Let’s think why going to school is so important for every child.
I’m sure you’ve heard a teacher say “if you don’t get good grades you won’t get a good job.’” Broadly speaking this is true.
The Year 6 children in this primary school lesson in Sierra Leone are all highly aware that their chance of a job with regular wages depends on them passing their primary school certificate.
However, if you think about it, the relationship between education and poverty is more complicated. It goes both ways.
If you don’t get a decent education you are more likely to be poor and if you are poor you are less likely to get a good education. It works like a ‘vicious circle’.
Therefore every child getting a good education, no matter where they live, is vital for creating opportunities and helping society to become more equal. These children in Sierra Leone live in the city and close to their school. Their journey to school wasn’t a barrier to education. Instead a big barrier was the hidden cost of education. Parents were expected to pay exam entry fees and the poorer parents couldn’t afford the fees. Their children often dropped out of school just before they took their exams, which must have been incredibly frustrating.
(Think about it again- if children don’t get a decent education they are more likely to be poor and if families are poor their children are less likely to get a good education).
However, in other places - particularly in the countryside - the journey to school is a significant barrier to children attending school.
Photo: Aubrey Wade/Oxfam

3. Your journeys to school
Method of transport
Time
Walk
Bicycle or scooter
Car
Bus
Train or tube
Other
So whether you live in a city, a town or the countryside, let’s think about your own journeys to school.
Put your hands up if you walk to school. How long does it take you? (Invite several answers to get an idea of the range and the average)
(Repeat the question for the other methods of transport).
Do any interesting points emerge?
Why do children have different lengths of journey to school?
How long would your journey to school have to be before it begins to have an effect on your attendance?

4. Fatmata 6 hours walk to school every day
Children in the UK countryside may live some distance from their schools, and some children in towns and cities may have to travel far to attend the school of their choice. However many parents have cars and give their children a lift to school. Many local councils provide school buses to take children to and from school. Others use public transport like trains and buses. And many children have bikes and cycle to school. I’d be surprised if many children in the UK had a journey to school like 16 year-old Fatmata from Sierra Leone.
Fatmata left home every day at 5am and walked to school for 3 hours, arriving at 8am. She left school at 4pm and it took her 3 hours to walk home. She arrived home at 7pm. She then had to help her parents around the house and do her homework. Some days she missed school because she was just too tired. However, she was determined and ambitious, and was keeping up with her education.
Photo: Aubrey Wade/Oxfam

5. On the way to school in Afghanistan
This photograph shows children walking to school in the countryside of Afghanistan.
As you can see there is no public transport, no school bus and not even a paved road. The children’s homes and their school are either out of view or far away in the distance. Children walking like this to school is a frequent sight in many developing countries.
There is a clear relationship between the distance children walk to school and their school attendance. In Afghanistan school attendance declines by 16% for every additional mile children have to walk to school.
Photo: Elissa Bogos/Oxfam

6. Girls on the way to school
Some groups of children face extra challenges if their journeys to school are too long.
You’ve already seen the challenges facing Samuel being taken to school in a wheelchair. One in three children out of school have a disability. Their journey to school isn’t the only factor influencing their attendance, but it is an important one.
Girls also face additional challenges. If their journey to school is long, parents worry about girls’ safety and security, and the risk of harassment they may face.
In Afghanistan around a quarter of respondents to a survey said distance was a major obstacle to girls education and around one third said insecurity was a major obstacle. 37% of girls who dropped out of school in the countryside, where journeys to school are longer, said that distance to school was the reason. In towns and cities, where schools are closer to children’s homes, the drop-out rate was only 12%.
Photo: Oxfam GB

7. Learning
at School
Once a child arrives at school, often after a long walk, there are other issues that have an influence on whether they attend lessons. Some of these issues are often grouped together and called ‘school quality’.
School quality includes:
the school’s buildings, facilities and equipment
the provision of water, toilets and school lunch
class size
the number of teachers and their qualifications
Schools in the countryside frequently have poorer facilities and find it more difficult to recruit qualified teachers than schools in towns and cities.
This inequality in providing education has an impact on school attendance. For example, 62% of the poorest children in Ethiopian countryside do not attend school. However, in the towns and cities 46% of the poorest children do not attend school. A child from a poor background has a better chance of attending school if she or he lives in a town or city.
Photo: Oxfam GB

8. Solutions
The children in the film On the Way to School make extraordinary and inspirational efforts to attend school every day.
But for many children and families, making this regular effort would very difficult. For example, the further Nigerian children have to walk to school the greater the chance they drop out will be, and walks to school of over 5km (3.1 miles) each way are not uncommon. In Ghana 30% of communities do not have a primary school and children must walk to another community if they wish to attend school.
It seems unfair to expect some children to make superhuman efforts to get to school while others have a school close to their homes. Every child should have a good quality school within a reasonable distance of their home.
One solution is for governments to invest more in education in areas where children might drop out because of distance. Education spending should be spread out across a country so it gives all children a fair chance. This investment doesn’t just apply to school buildings. It also applies to the number of teachers, school facilities and removing the hidden costs that poor families cannot afford.
The photograph shows a brand new school built in Pakistan to replace a school destroyed by the floods of Without this new well-equipped school children would not have a local school to attend.
Photo: Raheel Waqar/Oxfam

9. In 2015 the United Nations introduces the new Sustainable Development Goals. Goal 4 promises to ‘ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.’ All the countries of the world will work together to achieve this goal.
There are currently 58 million children missing out on school, including those who do not have a local school to attend. For the first time the UN education goal is explicitly saying that education should be inclusive and fair for all children. If the world meets this target the journeys to school shown in On the Way to School should thankfully become a thing of the past.
Image:

10. If you’d like to learn more and get involved in the global movement to ensure every child goes to school, please visit
And do watch On the Way to School. I think you’ll enjoy it!
Thank you for listening.
Photo: Georgie Scott/GCE UK