Education crisis in Sudan, burning schools in Kenya and learning in India

India has the largest number (150 million) of children under the age of six in the world, and 50% of them benefit from the free government education system. However, almost half of the students in the fifth year of primary school struggle with reading and arithmetic. That’s why Azeez Gupta, a former business analyst, founded Rocket Learning and is pursuing an educational mission, using technology to teach children from all socio-economic backgrounds. At the same time, millions of girls in India do not attend school due to the social stigma of menstruation and lack of sanitation. Menstruation remains a taboo subject – 71% of adolescent Indian girls are unaware of it until they get their period for the first time. Many of them then drop out of school.
Poverty, strikes and teacher shortages, the COVID-19 pandemic, low vaccination rates, attacks by local militias and natural disasters are just a few of the reasons for the collapse of Sudan’s education system. Today, schools are often ruinous buildings, devoid of furniture, running water and toilets. 7 million children between the ages of 6 and 18 – one third of Sudanese school-age children – do not attend school at all, and the education of a further 12 million is severely compromised. According to UNICEF, 70% of Sudanese 10-year-olds in public schools cannot read a simple sentence. In Kenya, meanwhile, boarding schools known for their high requirements are put on fire. They are arsoned by students frustrated by an overloaded curriculum and pressure before exams. There were 126, sometimes tragic, acts of arson between January and November 2021.