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The Guardian view on higher education: humans need the humanities

The Guardian

By: The Guardian.

The subjects of least obvious use may prove to be of ultimate value

 

The authoritarian and populist government of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil is guilty of many crimes. Some, like the assault on the rainforest, will damage the whole world. Others will only damage Brazil: the latest example is the announcement that the government is considering withdrawing funding from university teaching of philosophy and sociology. Higher education may not seem a top priority in a country where a third of the adult population is functionally illiterate. The government’s education policy is already eccentric. The most recently sacked education minister, a former philosophy professor, had demanded that schools film their pupils singing the national anthem and listening to Mr Bolsonaro’s election slogan. But this is serious.

Sociology and philosophy are subjects which seem to their enemies to produce nothing but querulous unemployables fluent in sophistry and subversion. (Mr Bolsonaro has thundered about the need to “combat Marxist rubbish” in educational institutions.) Authoritarians promote a rigid society in which there is room for only a few guides and philosophers at the top. They need to know what there is to know about humanity and society, but everyone else need only know their place. This was certainly the model against which the great 19th- and 20th-century movements for workers’ emancipation rebelled. There is a strong democratic tradition of self-improvement for moral purposes running through socialism and some forms of Christianity before it. All these people understood philosophy and clear thought more generally as a threat to the pretensions of authority and a tool for a more just and better society.

Sociology is a special case of such an instrument of self-improvement. By helping people to think about their own societies, and to engage with what has been thought before, it can make for better citizens as well as better people. To understand the motives of others is to some extent to understand our own. Sociology and philosophy are not vocational subjects. They are the subjects that inform our understanding of any vocation. What happens when powerful people think that common sense can substitute for the disciplines of the humanities is obvious in the horrible consequences of social networks built by young men who understand computer code profoundly but everything else superficially if at all. The philosopher Karl Popper taught that subjects of inquiry could be divided into clouds and clocks: those whose boundaries and workings, however complicated, worked according to clear and explicit rules, and those where this couldn’t be done. Thinking about problems which are by their nature cloudy and cannot be reduced to clockworks is an essential skill in today’s world, as it has always been.

It is not, however, one which is always demanded by employers. Political authoritarians are not the only enemies of humanities. There is also the crude view that higher education is merely the servant of the markets, although any educated person can see that this is precisely the wrong way round. When Mr Bolsonaro praises subjects that generate “immediate return” for the taxpayer, it is a convenient justification for his ideological drive. Others actually mean it.

The principles of liberal democracy are threatened by thuggery, but also by some forms of intellectual assault. If they are to be defended, and their practice improved, we need more philosophers and sociologists. It is the subjects of least obvious use that may prove of ultimate value.

Source of the article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/30/the-guardian-view-on-higher-education-humans-need-the-humanities

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The Guardian view on higher education: more egalitarianism please

The Guardian

By The Guardian

The UK government’s review into post-18 education must recognise that it is clearly a good that would benefit society if more widely available

Has the engine of education concentrated ability of a certain kind under the latest changes? It would certainly seem so. Students in England receiving their A-level results on Thursday were the latest to do so under a revamp wrought by Michael Gove when he was education secretary. They are part of a move away from grades awarded on the basis of coursework to marks based on a final exam in such subjects as geography and drama. The result seems to be the persistence of trends in educational achievement – with girls continuing to outperform boys in most subjects and sciences attracting more entries. This will encourage the backers of this approach to laud it.

Adopting this outlook means considering the downsides. We must beware of sieving people according to education’s narrow band of values. After all, 1.5 million children took A-levels and 3.8 million people took vocational qualifications. To the government’s credit, it has belatedly realised that there needs to be a serious look at post-school technical and academic options. When Theresa May launched her wide-ranging review in February of post-18 education, it was expected to take a year. However, with the chaos in government engendered by Brexit, no one is sure where Mrs May’s review is going.

Higher education is clearly a good, and one that benefits society if more widely available. Tuition fees were trebled to a maximum £9,000 a year in 2012 – so that universities could use the income to cover large cuts to the direct public funding of teaching. Students take out state loans to finance these costs. Graduates pay the loan back with a 9% tax on their salary above £25,000. The loans are not cheap: from this autumn the interest charged will be 6.3%. If students earn less than £25,000 they do not pay back the loans and the taxpayer picks up the bill. As almost half of those in England are expected to have entered advanced studies, the system has expanded access.

Students are desperate to get the seal of approval that a degree confers. But the problem with trying to turn universities into institutions that compete for students is that they cannot all be right in their aspirations. Today each university is encouraged to borrow and spend capital on expectations that uncapped student numbers and research revenue will rise. Universities that get their sums wrong run the risk of failing, perhaps even going bust. The marketised system also does not allocate resources effectively. Since 2012 the arts and humanities have seen a 40% increase in funding; the smallest – 6% – has been for sciences.

Michael Young’s brilliant satire The Rise of the Meritocracy was published 60 years ago this year. It painted a picture of a society obsessed with talent. In Young’s book, by the year 2034 psychologists had perfected IQ testing. However, rather than promoting a harmonious society by focusing on smart folk, this had produced social breakdown. The losers from the brain games were unhappy twice over: they were told not only that they were failures – but that they deserved to be so. Eventually they revolted. With Brexit one is struck by how prescient the book seems. A lack of educational qualifications, say studies, was the “predominant factor” in voting leave. Higher education can advance the economy by increasing labour force skills and lift the store of knowledge. Perhaps most important, higher education has the ability to transmit a common culture and common standards of citizenship. If there was a time when the state should back such a vision, it is now.

Source of the article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/16/the-guardian-view-on-higher-education-more-egalitarianism-please
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A report card: Iran and its Afghan children

The Guardian

By The Guardian

Coinciding with a trip by the Taliban to Tehran last month, supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei announcedthat all Afghan children in Iran – there illegally or not – had a right to enroll in school. Access to education has been fraught with obstacles for refugees. Michelle May, who has been specialising in the topic, looks at the Islamic republic’s track record over the past 36 years. Photos by Shahriar Khonsari

Iran’s bureau for aliens and foreign immigrants estimates that 1.4 to 2 million undocumented Afghans live and work in Iran. When combined with the smaller, formally registered refugee population, the total number increases to 2.4 to 3 million. It is estimated that at least 800,000 of them are children. Afghans in Iran reside mainly in urban areas – just 3% live in refugee camps.

Photograph: Shahriar Khonsari

Afghans

The Soviet coup in Afghanistan coincided with Iran’s 1979 revolution. Afghans were persecuted for religion under Soviet occupation, prompting many to seek refuge in the Islamic republic. For two decades the government of Iran provided Afghans the same benefits as poor Iranians such as free public education, healthcare, and food subsidies. The Afghan population filled a void in Iran’s labor market, as many poor Iranian children and adolescents were killed in the Iran-Iraq war. Because of the void in the work force, there was market demand for young low skilled workers.

Photograph: Shahriar Khonsari

Afghans

By many accounts, Iran had been an accommodating host, funding its own refugee response for the first two decades. However, since the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Iran began introducing increasingly discriminatory education policies, dramatically impacting Afghan children.

Photograph: Shahriar Khonsari

afghans

International sanctions have made it difficult and costly for NGOs and UN agencies to function inside Iran.

Photograph: Shahriar Khonsari

Afghan children

Feeling the bite of sanctions, in 2012, the Iranian government began introducing even moredomestic policies limiting the basic freedoms of Afghans in Iran – including freedom of movement and education. Afghan children in Iran no longer have access to a free education. In addition, because of arbitrary deportations due to lack of documentation, Afghan families have been separated from each other, and the rights and needs of the most vulnerable – unaccompanied minors – have been violated and ignored.

Photograph: Shahriar Khonsari

Afghans in Iran

Although there is grey area defining the rights of refugees on one hand, and undocumented migrants on the other, those under the age of 18 in both groups have protection under the Convention of the Rights of the Child, which Iran ratified in 1994, as well as the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, and the Optional Protocol on involvement of children in armed conflict. In addition, under Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, all children, regardless of their legal status, have the right to education.

Photograph: Shahriar Khonsari

afghans

Moving up the ladder. One of the most frequently cited benefits to Afghan children residing in Iran is access to education that is not available in Afghanistan. In 1970s pre-war Afghanistan, literacy rates were 5-10% for boys and about 1% for girls. In Iran nearly 99% of the population age 15-24 is literate and 94% complete primary school.

Photograph: Shahriar Khonsari

afghans

To some rural families in 1970s Afghanistan, sending girls to public school was seen as a “threat” to the honor of the family. Researchers have found that once Afghans were exposed to Iranian media and schools, they began to equate education with upward mobility. Some refugees who once left Afghanistan out of protest against compulsory education for girls, now try to remain in Iran so their daughters can stay in school.

Photograph: Shahriar Khonsari

afghan

Despite issues with access in Iran, overall education and literacy rates for Afghan children have improved. Since those without documentation could not attend public schools in Iran, informal Afghan-run schools cropped up around the country. However, with time these undocumented schools were targeted and shut down by the Iranian government.

Photograph: Shahriar Khonsari

Afghan children in Iran

Today Afghan children without documentation are still not permitted to enroll in public schools. The Iranian government does not guarantee that children with documents can attend school. Both policies run afoul of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, Article 26. In addition, Iran has implemented unique school fees for Afghan children that are arbitrarily and have dramatically changed from year to year.

Photograph: Shahriar Khonsari

afghans

In Iranian domestic law, child employment is prohibited until the age of 15. However, a loophole exists for “domestic work,” meaning that many children who work in the home or in domestic workshops have no protection.

Photograph: Shahriar Khonsari

Afghan children

Documented or not, Afghan children in Iran should have the protections of the International Labor Organization, which Iran ratified in 2002, covering them from the worst forms of child labor, and setting minimum work age.

Photograph: Shahriar Khonsari

afghan

Michelle May is a psychologist specializing in child protection and education in armed conflict. You can follow her @meshelmay

Photograph: Shahriar Khonsari

afghans

Source of the article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/gallery/2015/jun/01/a-report-card-iran-and-its-afghan-children

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Dramatic changes in the place of creative arts in the curriculum

The Guardian

By The Guardian

A plea from members of the National Association for the Teaching of Drama, and a reminder that artists can often be persuaded to visit schools for nothin

Andria Zafirakou and her Artists in Schools project are inspiring and so very welcome (Teacher to use $1m prize to bring back the arts, 27 June). But we mustn’t lose sight of re-establishing the arts as an integral part of the curriculum. We, the undersigned, have been trying to draw attention to a creative arts discipline that is in danger of being lost.

In the second half of the 20th century a new educational practice developed. It used the art forms of drama and theatre to explore any area of the school curriculum and of life that a teacher and her class wished to address.

One of its leading exponents, Prof Gavin Bolton, wrote of its purpose: “to help young people to know the world, to refine and challenge the ways in which they see the world, to examine how they relate to the world and to test their own society’s values”.

At this year’s AGM it was agreed that NATD would go into a “hibernation” period, ensuring the financial and pedagogical future of its work until a more enlightened government is in power. In its country of origin, this child-centred, creative discipline is an endangered species. It must be protected.
John Airs Honorary life member, NATD, Prof David Davis Honorary life member, Liam Harris Chair, NATD, Maggie Hulson, Guy Williams Editors, NATD Journal, Theo Byer, Edward Bond BigBrum Theatre, Wasim Kurdi (Palestine), Luke Abbot, Cao Xi, Li Yinging (China), Yi-Man Au (Hong Kong), Brian Woolland, Chris Ball, Liz Ball, Tim Taylor, Mike Davies, Roger Wooster, Matthew Milburn, Carmel O’Sullivan, Elaine Ashbee, Margaret Higgins, Steve Nolan, Ian Yeoman, Danie Croft, Bernie Evans, Jane Airs, Jamie and Ali Airs, Kathleen Young, Douglas Young, Sam Yates, Liz Yates, Andrew Yates, Ann Bates, Jo Hanlon, Poppy King, Stephen King, Elspeth Williams, Andreas Williams, Helen Williams, Angharad Williams, Nick Timmins, Elaine Brown, Cate Murphy, Peter Cresswell, Roy Molyneux, Neil Hutchings, Helen Marks, Mark Dunne, Maureen Rahilly, Clare Hynes, Barry Lewin, Theresa Lewin, Eileen Kelly, Abhijith Subramanian, Dr Sujitha Subramanian, Sam Pryce, Martin McCauley, Martin Wood, Tim Hayden, Elizabeth Hayden, Angela Hayden, Michael Hayden, Len Naughalty, David Hookes, Hannah Hookes, Patricia Campbell, Mary M Reid, Heather Nunnen, Rebecca Smyth, Sue Ryrie, Nita Cresswell, Jenny Robb.

• Although I’m not in favour of the global teaching prize, because it demeans the dedication of the majority of teachers, I am impressed by Andria Zafirakou’s decision to set up a campaigning charity with the money to get more artists and arts organisations into British schools. But you don’t always need the support of a charity to get artists into schools. As a teacher I personally contacted classical musicians and cultural organisations, and found many of them willing – often for nothing or a modest fee – to play Liszt and Chopin to my sixth formers, or to celebrate the Charles Dickens bicentenary with year 9 – one even agreed to give a musical masterclass to our budding musicians.

And if you live in a place like London, teachers can organise visits to some of the best arts venues on earth, most of which offer affordable school rates, not to mention the outreach that many of them already offer.

Fuente del artículo: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jul/01/dramatic-changes-in-the-place-of-creative-arts-in-the-curriculum

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Expired education and Africa’s learning crisis

The Guardian

By The Guardian

The recent dismal report of a new World Bank study, which stated that Africa faced learning crises that may hinder its economic growth and the well-being of the citizens, questions the quality of basic education African governments have been providing their people. It is also an eye-opener to the abysmal degeneration of succession management for the society. Although keen observers of events on the continent have been worried about the celebration of mediocrity pervading key areas of society, this new study has presented bleak hope for Africa’s future, if drastic measures are not taken to address basic education. This is disheartening and highly lamentable.

The World Development Report (WDR) 2018, titled “Learning to Realise Education’s Promise”, was co-launched in Abuja the other day by the World Bank Group, the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Federal Ministry of Education. Whilst the report raised concerns about poor future prospect of millions of young students in low and middle-income countries owing to the failure of their primary and secondary schools to educate them to succeed in life, it also called for greater measurement, action on evidence, and coordination of all education actors.

It claimed that despite “considerable progress in boosting primary and lower secondary school enrollment, … “some 50 million children remain out of school, and most of those who attend school are not acquiring the basic skills necessary for success later in life.”

To substantiate its claims, the report noted that among second-grade students assessed on numeracy tests in several sub-Saharan African countries, three-quarters could not count beyond 80 and 40 per cent could not solve a one-digit addition problem. It went further to add: “In reading, between 50 and 80 per cent of children in second grade could not answer a single question based on a short passage they had read, and a large proportion could not read even a single word.”

Concerning Nigeria, the study found out that, when fourth grade students were asked to complete a simple two-digit subtraction problem, more than three-quarters could not solve it. It further stated that “Among young adults in Nigeria, only about 20 per cent of those who complete primary education can read. These statistics do not account for 260 million children who for reasons of conflict, discrimination, disability, and other obstacles, are not enrolled in primary or secondary school.”

Deon Filmer and Halsey Rogers, World Bank Lead Economists, who co-directed the report team, summarized the report when they stated “too many young people are not getting the education they need.” This remark corroborated the observation of Prof. Gamaliel O. Prince, the Vice Chancellor of University of America, California, who remarked at the matriculation of its Nigerian affiliate students, that Nigerians are receiving expired education. The question now is, what kind of education do African young people need?

As if a section of Nigerian youths foresaw the World Bank report, they had, two weeks, earlier flayed the poor education of Nigerian leaders, and had set a list of criteria for the next president. According to them, “many of our past and present leaders are an embarrassment to the country due to their very low educational background and lack of exposure.” These remarks are very instructive because, if today’s leaders, reputed to have had quality basic education, are leading the country astray, the quality of future leaders leaves little to imagine about when the discouraging report of the World Bank is considered.

The vital point that should not be missed in the interpretation of the report is the emphasis on quality basic education. This aspect speaks to Nigeria, where the idea of the educated is construed on the basis of holding a university degree. What kind of education would one claim to have acquired if he earned a university degree and cannot solve the problems of basic numeracy and comprehension? What kind of outcomes would be accomplished by the kind of learning provided by today’s educational institutions? This is not to assert that Nigeria does not have well-trained and adequate manpower. This is far from the truth. The highly quality manpower and human resources which Nigeria has in abundance could be seen in the value Nigerian professionals have added to the growth and progress of other countries.

As this newspaper has always admonished, addressing the problem of education in this country demands emergency response. What this country needs is a leadership that is vision-casting enough to align its human resources for growth in production. All it takes is a vision, the political will to realize that vision, and the sincerity of purpose in mobilizing the people around that vision. If learning is to be impactful and effective as to lead to personal development and pragmatic relevance to society, then Nigeria and all of Africa must first of all, understand the problem they face. Owing to the experiences of colonization, neo-colonization and even globalization, Nigeria and other African countries find themselves in the shackles of economic slavery, and have tied their educational curricula to exploitable learning models that service foreign powers.

Because the structure of income-generation and production has a part to play in learning outcomes in African countries, education ministries and stakeholders of such countries must see learning as a tool for solving problems and generating production in the society. Education should have a promise for children and youths in Africa; incentives should be made available for structured learning.

One of the maladies of African leaders is cronyism and nepotism. This extension of selfish interests to the benefits of family, friends, clans, ethnic groups and political party loyalists has encouraged the dominance of mediocrity in leadership in a manner that suffocates excellence. African leaders should build a culture of succession management founded on excellence so that the right persons in the right places would think out the right policies to move their countries forward. They should take a cue from forward-looking countries by identifying the best in all fields, and positioning them as managers for national reconstruction.

Furthermore, African leaders should go back to the drawing-board and identify the problems facing their people, and on the basis of this, begin to design curricula that should enable African children think inwards. Learning models should consider the role of history in understanding the African predicament and how it can empower them to think about Africa’s place in a competitive world. These models should also stress the relevance of language in learning.

To effectively get this done in Nigeria, especially, and save the nation from its many crises, it is indeed apparent that restructuring into a properly run federalism would have to drive structured learning.

Source of the article: https://guardian.ng/opinion/expired-education-and-africas-learning-crisis/

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Destruir bosques protegidos por unas onzas de chocolate

The Guardian

Por: Ruth Maclean / The Guardian

 -Un viaje hacia el corazón de Costa de Marfil muestra cómo sus bosques están siendo destruidos para abastecer la creciente demanda mundial de chocolate.

– La industria del chocolate lleva al desastre a los bosques tropicales de Costa de Marfil, como contaba eldiario.es en su especial La Tierra Esclava.

Desde el verde paisaje del parque nacional de Marahoué se alzan fuertes árboles plateados, con lisos troncos que únicamente lucen ramas en su parte más alta. Marahoué es uno de los ocho parques nacionales de Costa de Marfil. Hace 20 años estaba cubierto de bosques y era el hogar de chimpancés y manadas de elefantes.

Hoy en día es más común ver el esqueleto de unos árboles que fueron quemados lentamente para librarse de la sombra que proyectaban sobre los campos de cacao. O simplemente unos tocones aserrados.

Henri, líder tribal en la cercana ciudad de Diafla, creció junto al bosque y habla con cariño de sus imponentes árboles de iroco. Pero él también participó en su destrucción. Como tantos otros, Henri tiene plantaciones de cacao dentro del parque y emplea a personas de Burkina Faso para trabajar ahí.

“Todo esto estaba cubierto de árboles, pero los agricultores los quemaron para plantar cacao”, dice. Cuando Henri era joven, solía ver chimpancés y elefantes caminando por el parque. Ahora los animales han sido reemplazados por personas.

Como se le acabó el combustible de camino a Marahoué, Henri ha dejado su motocicleta cerca del camino y está terminando a pie su viaje. Pasa cerca del ganado, de las omnipresentes y deshilvanadas plantas de cacao y de los restos de un albergue turístico destruido en 2008, poco antes de que se fundara la cercana aldea de Zanbarmakro.

Poblaciones ilegales

Nadie utiliza la palabra “aldea” para referirse a Zanbarmakro. Prefieren “campamento”, que suena más pasajero. Pero la enorme iglesia construida en un extremo y la mezquita al otro, así como los hogares, las tiendas y la clínica privada disipan cualquier indicio de que este lugar, habitado por 13.000 personas, no vaya a estar aquí por mucho tiempo.

Los hombres llegan desde las plantaciones en sus motocicletas a media tarde y descansan en las escalinatas de una tienda de refrescos. Las mujeres despliegan su mercadería: una mujer exhibe una pila desordenada de calzados; otra, un estante con guadañas, de esas que todos los niños llevan para cosechar. Zumban los molinos de yuca. Según algunas estimaciones, hay 50 aldeas ilegales dentro del parque. Zanbarmakro es de las más grandes.

En la entrada hay un puesto de vigilancia soportado por pilares construido hace años por la OIPR (Oficina de Parques y Reservas de Costa de Marfil), la autoridad estatal de los parques. Los guardaparques de este organismo tienen el deber de garantizar que no se tale ningún árbol, que no se cace ningún animal silvestre y, por supuesto, que no se construya ninguna aldea dentro del parque. Extrañamente, parece ser que no se percataron de la llegada de los ladrillos y el cemento utilizados para la iglesia y la mezquita, ni de la salida de camiones cargados de madera y granos de cacao.

Henri presenta a Zoughory Laji Bourema, el jefe de Zanbarmakro, que camina alrededor de una gran lona blanca sobre la que está secándose el cacao para llegar hasta el porche. “Tengo algunos problemas con la OIPR”, admite Laji Bourema, alisando su brillante bubu violeta (una especie de túnica que visten los hombres).

Tarifas de soborno

Los guardaparques de la OIPR pasan la mayoría de su tiempo bebiendo té y revisando el WhatsApp en la residencia detrás de la oficina, a pocos kilómetros de los límites del parque. De vez en cuando, sin embargo, salen para ir “de caza”. Aparecen en alguna de las plantaciones, arrestan a varios agricultores todas las semanas y los dejan encerrados hasta que la comunidad paga por su libertad. El precio de los sobornos es conocido por todos: 100.000 francos (152 euros) por persona, o 150.000 francos (228 euros) si los encuentran con una motocicleta.

“Vienen a las aldeas, recogen el dinero, unos millones de francos cada vez, y luego se vuelven a ir”, dice Henri, buscando en vano la sombra de un árbol para protegerse del sol. “Vienen unas dos veces por mes a buscar dinero en sus todo terreno”.

La gente del lugar dice que el soborno que tuvieron que pagar en mayo fue más alto que nunca: equivalente a 16.800 euros entregados al jefe de la OIPR local. (La petición que hicimos para hablar con el jefe de la OIPR, el coronel Tondossama Adama, no obtuvo respuesta).

A cambio los dejan quedarse y cultivar el cacao, que venden a compradores en las ciudades cercanas de Bouaflé y Bonon. Estos intermediarios lo venden a su vez a Saco, una subsidiaria de Barry Callebaut, que provee de cacao a varias marcas internacionales de chocolate.

Cuando pedimos hablar con la empresa, Barry Callebaut no negó específicamente la acusación de que haya cacao producto de la deforestación ilegal en su cadena de suministro. “Hay cultivos de cacao en áreas con un alto valor de conservación en África Occidental”, dijeron. Barry Callebaut volvió a reafirmar su compromiso de terminar con los productos de deforestación para el año 2025.

Ilegalidad en las cadenas de producción

El periódico the Guardian viajó por Costa de Marfil junto al grupo ambientalista Mighty Earth para investigar el impacto del cacao en los cada vez más escasos bosques tropicales. Ambos entrevistamos a comerciantes y directores de cooperativas que dijeron comprar el cacao en áreas protegidas para vendérselo a Olam, una empresa agrícola mundial. Olam reconoció un incidente que según la empresa había sido aislado y añadió que había puesto en práctica varias medidas para garantizar una cadena de suministro limpia.

“Olam tiene absolutamente claro que la deforestación hecha por los pequeños agricultores de cacao debe terminar”, dijo un portavoz antes de añadir que, de todas formas, “se trata de una cadena de suministro compleja y altamente fragmentada”: “Las dificultades para rastrear el cacao hasta cada pequeño agricultor son inmensas”.

En el campo de cacao de un comprador llamado Sivacco, en la ciudad de Man, los hombres cuelan los granos en tamices metálicos rectangulares y con palas los meten en talegas. Uno de ellos tiene puesto un sombrero de Papá Noel. Frente al campo hay un extenso aserradero lleno de pilas de serrín, tablones y troncos. Por detrás se ve cómo sube el humo.

“Desde luego que nos llega cacao de las reservas forestales”, dice el jefe de almacén, que prefiere no ser nombrado. “Los pisteurs (motociclistas) lo traen hasta aquí y nosotros no sabemos exactamente de dónde viene. Vendemos a todas las grandes empresas”. Detrás de él hay un mural que incluye el símbolo de la Alianza para Bosques y una lista de actividades prohibidas.

“No nos importa. Ni siquiera preguntamos a los productores de dónde viene el chocolate. Las grandes empresas tampoco preguntan nunca de dónde viene”, dice Bamogo Arouna, un comprador de la ciudad de Taobly, en la base del monte Tia (un bosque de acceso reservado en el oeste de Costa de Marfil). Arouna dice vender a dos grandes exportadores que a su vez venden productos derivados del cacao a empresas como Nestlé, Mars y Hershey.

Los agricultores van en sus bicicletas cargadas de cacao desde la reserva hasta la bodega de Arouna, desde donde sale el empalagoso olor a cacao crudo. Paradójicamente, no se parece en nada al del chocolate. Un agricultor baja una talega de cacao a medio llenar del portaequipajes de su bicicleta. Los otros vierten su contenido dentro de los enormes tamices.

“El cacao es el cacao”, dice un comerciante encogiéndose de hombros y mirando el frondoso paisaje delante de él. “Nosotros solamente pagamos a quien lo tenga. No hacemos diferencia entre las reservas forestales y las no forestales”.

Hace doce años, cuando llegó a la zona, proveniente de Burkina Faso, la vista era la de un bosque tropical. Hoy todo son cultivos. Para él, no hay diferencia.

“Cuando llegué, era verde”, dice el agricultor. “Y aún lo es”.

Traducido por Francisco de Zarate

Fuente: http://www.eldiario.es/theguardian/precio-cacao-destruyendo-bosques-chocolate_0_686982015.html

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Taliban teachers: how militants are infiltrating Afghan schools

The Guardian

Por: The Guardian

When Afghan teachers are lobbied to give good marks to mediocre students, the pressure does not necessarily come from disgruntled parents. Often it comes from the Taliban.

In areas of eastern Afghanistan, militants intimidate teachers to let older boys who fight with the Taliban pass exams despite lacklustre performances, according to education experts working in the region.

They say insurgents also pressure teachers not to record the absence of students who spend much of their time on the frontline.

Not all teachers need coercing. Some are themselves active members of the Taliban, swapping chalk for Kalashnikovs after completing the day’s lessons. They take their salary from the Afghan government, whose armed forces they then fight on the battlefield.

“The Taliban are actively interfering in the education system,” said one educator who has trained teachers in Kunar province. In areas under heavy Taliban influence, he says, insurgents introduce their own members as teachers, threatening to close government schools if they do not comply.

Some of the teachers he trained were Taliban fighters, in effect on the government payroll, who turned up at school carrying weapons. “In the afternoon, they went back to fight the government,” the educator said.

The Taliban do not appear to issue their own curricula, but they inspect course material. In Logar province they have reportedly torn pages from books that portrayed historical figures in a light they disagreed with, casting progressive leaders as heroes and conservatives as foes.

Taliban teachers may also add bits to courses, particularly about holy war, said an education expert who works in the east. “They suspect the schools are teaching anti-Taliban propaganda,” he said.

 The infiltration of the educational system puts the Afghan government in a dilemma: see schools close or ensure that children receive some form of education. The Afghan ministry of education denied that any teachers on its payroll were affiliated with the Taliban.

Sayed Jamal, who heads the education department in Kunar, said: “It is up to the intelligence service to find out if any teachers are Taliban. So far, nobody has informed me that they are.” But there is no doubt that there are many complicated villages in Kunar, and some of them are out of the government’s control.

Accepting Taliban presence in schools has political consequences, making the Taliban de facto providers of a service funded by the Afghan government.

In Kohistanat district in the northern Sar-e Pul province, which has been under insurgent control for 18 months, Taliban officials head the education as well as health, religious study and security departments.

According to western security analysts, the officials, picked by the Taliban leadership in Pakistan, keep boys’ schools open, while inspecting curricula to comply with their values. Teacher salaries are collected monthly from the provincial capital. In addition, the insurgents tax salaries and harvests.

Girls at a government school in Kandahar.
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Girls at a government school in Kandahar. Photograph: Kate Holt for the Guardian

As an organisation intent on showing capacity for governance, the Taliban have appointed shadow ministers, including for education, health, religion.

 “It has restructured itself as a shadow state. In that sense the Taliban needs to deliver a certain level of services in the areas they control,” said Timor Sharan, the Kabul-based analyst for the International Crisis Group.

Sharan said the Taliban’s outreach into daily life had “absolutely increased compared to previous years. That doesn’t mean they have control, but that people are afraid”.

The extent to which the insurgents garner public support from providing services is unclear.

The Taliban derive some authority from their role as mediators. In rural areas, the Taliban set up mobile courts. While Taliban legal rule is often harsher on women and doles out corporal punishment, it is sometimes seen as more accessible and less corrupt than the governmental justice system.

Yet most Afghans rally behind the Taliban out of fear, said the education expert. They curry favour and provide the insurgents with intelligence and money.

“They don’t stand up to the Taliban, they don’t open their mouth. And that gives the Taliban more space to influence,” he said.

This type of latent influence adds nuance to official statistics of the Taliban’s geographical strength. The US military claims the Taliban control only eight of Afghanistan’s roughly 400 districts, and “influence” another 25.

Some observers dispute those numbers as downplaying the Taliban’s reach. Either way, data mapping military control does not necessarily capture the wield of soft power.

Ultimately, it seems, students suffer. In districts under Taliban control girls are seldom allowed to attend school beyond sixth grade. Teachers whose merit for employment is affiliation with the Taliban are rarely actually qualified to teach, aside from Islamic subjects.

In addition, when teachers are intimidated into giving good marks to Taliban pupils, it frustrates other students, the education expert said. “They see that other boys do well because their father has links to the Taliban,” he said.

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Fuente: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/09/taliban-teachers-militants-infiltrating-afghanistan-schools

 

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