Dubai January 20, 2003
UNICEF supported satellite schools take root
Qatar Airways offers BBC World news on-board all flights

BBC World, the BBC's 24-hour international news and information channel, and Qatar Airways marked a new distribution agreement making BBC World News programmes available as part of the airline's in-flight entertainment service. Qatar Airways' operates flights from its hub airport in Doha to 38 destinations worldwide.

The new service will offer passengers BBC World News presented daily from London and featuring reports from BBC's unparalleled network of global correspondents. "In keeping with our aim to offer the highest levels of hospitality, Qatar Airways is committed to giving our passengers the best in-flight services," said Qatar Airways' Chief Executive Officer Mr Akbar Al Baker.

"Qatar Airways is delighted to provide its passengers with a new offering in the form of BBC World news which will help them keep informed about the latest events around the world. "This is the age of information and Qatar Airways has now put the world at its passengers' finger tips," Mr Al Baker added.

Commenting on the new distribution, Zina Neophytou, Travel Distribution Manager, BBC World said, " We are really delighted to have completed this agreement with Qatar Airways enabling more air passengers around the world to tune into BBC World while they are travelling. "It builds on our existing distribution on airlines, in hotels and airports, in the Gulf region and is in line with a global trend to offering people news they can trust wherever they are."

Qatar Airways is one of the fastest growing airlines in the world. The airline currently has a fleet of 19 Airbus aircraft and flies to 38 destinations. In the past year they have added seven new destinations to their network and aim to have expanded to 50 by the year 2005. BBC World, the BBC's commercially funded international 24-hour news and information channel, is owned and operated by BBC World Ltd, a member of the BBC's commercial group of companies. Reaching 241 million homes and 870,000 hotel rooms in over 200 countries and territories worldwide (96 million 24-hour homes), BBC World launched in its present format in 1995 and is funded by advertising and subscription.-keralamonitor.com

BURKINA FASO: UNICEF supported satellite schools take root

OUAGADOUOGOU, 17 January (IRIN) - An initiative which aimed at achieving "maximum" enrolment of children in schools has so far enabled some 100,000 children attend school in the 230 three-class satellite schools which have been built in the country since 1995, through help of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

During a visit to one of the schools in Burkina Faso's Gnagna province, some 200 km east of the capital Ouagadougou on Tuesday, Burkina President Blaise Compaore declared that the year 2010 "must be the horizon of freedom and emancipation for those who are still in darkness".

"The school opens you to the rest of the country and to the rest of the world," he said, urging parents to "work at sensitising other parents to send their children at school." Compaore was invited to the school by UNICEF.

The province of Gnagna has one of the lowest schooling rates in Burkina with only 17 percent of children going to school. "The deficit we had in education in the past was due to the limitation in material and financial means of the state but with these satellite schools we have the possibility of involving more communities and we can increase the education offer," Compaore said.

The UNICEF satellite schools are contributing to increased girls schooling in the country - which is among the lowest in Africa. In some areas the girl schooling rate is as low as 10 percent while the national rate for girls' school attendance is 36 percent. In low rate areas mother educator associations have been set up to make sure the girls not only go to school but remain there until they complete the full cycle.

The satellite schools are expected to contribute to raise the current national schooling rate of 43 percent to 60 percent by 2005 and that of girls to 50 percent in the same period. "The satellite school bring schools nearer to the marginalized communities (have nots) and the schools," Basic Education Minister Mathieu Ouedraogo told IRIN on Tuesday.

"There is a continuity with what he does at home and at the school that makes it possible for the child to complete its primary school in five years instead of six years because they start with their mother tongue and end with French and all the apprenticeship is in French," he said. The schools are equipped with double closets latrines, drinking water systems and community canteens. The World Food Programme and a the nongovernmental organisation (NGO) Cathwell, provide food for the canteens.

Most of the schools were built in the poorest areas of the country's 14 provinces where the school attendance rate was very low at the request of the populations themselves. The schools are located at an average distance of four kilometres from the full cycle school. They are bilingual with
children starting with their mother tongue and French.

Performance evaluation has shown that in the average success rate in the satellite bilingual school is 85 percent versus 42 percent in regular schools. Satellite schools are made for those children who are too small to walk three to four kilometres to go to school and also for those who failed to attend the regular school and are aged between 8 to 10. They later transfer to the regular school at form four.

Alarmed by the low schooling rates in the country in 1995, the government called upon UNICEF to coordinate the satellite school project and help in donor mobilisation. "These schools lay emphasis on the local peculiarities, on nutrition, health, hygiene, household economy and civic rights," UNICEF Representative Joan French said on Tuesday.

"The system is based on the participation of families and aims in the long run at alleviating poverty by preparing a better future for the children," French said. "The communities organised in management committees and associations ensure the smooth running of the school," French added. The teachers come from the community but are trained so that they can enable the children acquire good socialisation and life skills, UNICEF said.

By 2009 the government hopes to have built 6,000 of these satellite schools throughout the country. The project which has cost so far some US $30 million is funded by the Netherlands, Norway, Canada, France, the US, Spain, Taiwan and a group of NGOs. -keralamonitor.com

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