Schools for Nomads

Voice 1:
Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Joshua Leo

Voice 2:
And I'm Liz Waid. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no matter where in the world they live.

Voice 1:
When you were young, what was your school like? Did you go to a large building every day or were you taught at home? Did you go to a school with hundreds of students or only a few? There are many different kinds of schools but most work in a similar way. Children travel to one building during the week. The teachers lead rooms of students to learn about many subjects. After many years of school, the students enter the world as adults. They have important knowledge and skills.

Voice 2:
These kinds of schools are good for communities that stay in the same place. The children can go to schools near their homes. But what about children who move often? How do they get a good education? Today's Spotlight is on communities in East Africa that are solving this problem.

Voice 1:
In Northern Ethiopia, families travel to search for water and food for their animals. For hundreds of years these communities have lived in this way. They travel through the dry areas of the country. When the water or food is gone, the communities must move on. The people in these communities are nomads. Every season they look for a new home for their sheep, goats, and camels. But this means that the children of the community must move too. It is difficult for these children to attend school. One season they may live near a school. But the next season they will live somewhere else.

Voice 2:
The lives of the nomads depend on their animals. The animals are the base of the community. If the animals do not have food, the community must move. The parents in these communities want their children to care for the animals. Education is not as important. As a result, many of the people do not know how to read or write. The schools in the area do not fit the lives of the nomads. The teachers are often not well trained. They do not speak the language of the nomadic students. And they use teaching materials that the nomad children do not understand.

Voice 1:
But the nomads in Ethiopia are not the only nomadic communities. All across East Africa, nomadic communities move from place to place. In Somalia, Sudan, and Kenya children travel and never attend school.

Voice 2:
Most of these nomadic children never go to school. But some people are working to change that. These people are making school fit the lives of the nomadic communities.

Voice 1:
In Kenya, near the border of Somalia, a group of children sits under a large tree. They speak together words in English. This is their school. It is part of a new government programme. Mohamed Elmi is a government official in Northern Kenya. He told reporter Ashley Seager that he believes that these kinds of schools are important.

Voice 3:
"My opinion is that people should not have to choose between the way they live and an education."

Voice 2:
Groups and governments in East Africa are helping to form these "Mobile schools" across the area. The children in these schools attend classes early in the morning. They study for a few hours and then they care for their animals in the afternoon. Some students may return to the classroom again later in the day.

Voice 1:
In one classroom, the teacher attaches signs to trees. There are no walls. School supplies are very limited. So he uses what he does have.