The Jordanian school system, which is already struggling to support its Jordanian youth, is in danger of collapsing due to the sudden influx of Syrian refugee children. School-age children from 5 to 17 years old comprise 35 percent of the Syrian refugee population in Jordan–most of them are not able to attend school in Jordan due to overcrowding and an insufficient amount of educational resources.

Syrian families have have been leaving Syria since the beginning of the civil war: this summer, a large exodus of Syrian families found refuge in surrounding countries including Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Turkey.  This has caused an extreme strain on the educational facilities, among other national stresses, of these countries.

Jordan’s school systems have to utilize double shifts–morning and afternoon classes with different students–to accommodate their own large student population. In the past few years, there have been efforts to eliminate these shifts. However, with the influx of Syrian refugee children, these shifts have become necessary again. These shifts continue to add to the pressure on Jordan’s educational system; double shifting puts an added strain on teachers, school infrastructure, and parents and families.

However, even with these accommodations, many Syrian students don’t have access to education. According to UNICEF, more than 81,000 syrian refugee children are enrolled in learning programs in Jordan. Nevertheless, attendance is still very low.

Yusra Shinwan fled from Syria with her two children. At the start of this school year, she tried to register her children in some schools. She was able to register them, but was told to her children could not attend until a double shift was instituted. They are still waiting. She says, “my 13-year-old son and 16 year-old daughter look around and see people their age going to school and they feel left behind…I fled for safety, but now they are restless and angry…they are telling me that they are wasting their education and their future. They want to go back to school in Syria.”

Curt Rhodes, International Director of Questscope, an organization aiding social development in the Middle East, says, “the focus has been on registering children…It has not been on how to help them stay in school.”

The numbers are worse in Iraq and Lebanon.  In Iraq, 90-95% of Syrian refugee children are not enrolled in school. UNICEF warns that this is creating a lost generation of students.

However, in an effort to fight against this lost generation of students, many international organizations are creating avenues of aid for Syrian refugee students and for children in general. September 21st marks this year’s International Day of Peace--the theme this year is “Education for Peace.” The United Nations has marked this day as an exhortation to invest in education more intentionally.

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Despite multiple federal and international grants and programs, 1.97 billion dollars between 1997 and 2012, the literacy rate in Pakistan has only slightly improved in that time. Today, over half of the country’s children aged 5-to-16 lack access to basic education. In 1998, only 42.7 percent of Pakistanis has received an education; over twenty years later the rate has only risen to 46 percent.

Khusro Pervez, Director General of the National Commission for Human Development (NCHD), a non-profit group that focuses on education, says, “Education has never been a national priority.” Azman Khan and Myra Iqbal from Reuters captures the problem as this: “since independence in 1947, Pakistan has seen seven national education policies, eight five-year-plans and about half a dozen other education schemes. Yet the results are dismal.”

Kaiser Bengali, an education expert from the government after government has abandoned the policies of the previous administration and adopted new and even loftier targets, wreaking havoc on the education system and squandering millions of dollars.”

Additionally, Pakistan’s education system is full of corruption.  In 2011, The Supreme Court heard a case of 66 billion rupees levied in a special education tax between 1985 and 1995 but never used for schools. Additionally, in 2013, Transparency International found that 43 percent of Pakistanis surveyed viewed the education system as corrupt or highly corrupt. While the progress in Pakistan seems slow and dismal, Pakistan’s federal education budget for 2013 is 17 percent higher than last year and the government has honored “its pledge to double the education budget and keep its eyes glued on the target.”

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In the past few years, Chile has been swept up by mass student protests and government reform that has dismantled its structure of educational programs, among other reforms. Those at the forefront of these student protests are now approaching reform internally. Leaders in these protests, including 26-year-old Giorgio Jackson, 25-year-old Camilla Vellejo, and 26 year old Karol Cariola, are running for positions in Chile’s congress on November 17^th.

These students are a part of a growing force of social reformers running for office in Chile. Union leaders and environmentalists are joining their movement and seeking political office to affect change in the political and social climate of the Chilean democracy. Though Chile has been nominally a democracy since 1990, many right-winged leaders hold an un-democratic sway in office: Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, who ruled in a dictatorship until 1990, still served as a “senator for life” and many members of the armed forces are “designated senators” – allowing both to have veto power against any reform in the senate.

Jackson and his fellow protestors want to continue their fight internally because they believe there needs to be systemic change in the government: Jackson claims that students are facing “a legacy of the privatization of education, an understanding that education is not a right but something that you can purchase.” Vallejo continues to say the treatment of education as a commodity “immediately distorts the principal objective which is to educate not earn profits, as well as generates a brutal socioeconomic segmentation…in other words the children who are born poor are going to receive a poor education and will continue to be poor. ”

Protestors like Vellejo are demanding not just educational reform but a social revolution: “We realized the problem was bigger, the problem was structural.” If elected, the future of Chile’s social and political reform holds promise in regards to educational structuring and schooling systems.

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Many teachers in the Dominican Republic  are taking the initiative to enroll in courses in climate change, all in an effort to educate their students. The Dominican Council on Climate Change has launched privately funded climate diploma courses that teachers and government officials can enroll in. In addition to this, they have launched another education initiative to train 200 teachers in climate change. The Dominican Republic’s Minister of Education is now considering making climate change a part of DR’s school curriculum.

The DR is a nation greatly threatened by climate change. According to a study conducted by the Dominican Institute for Integral Development (IDDI) this summer,  the Caribbean country is the seventh most vulnerable country in the world. However, most Dominicans are not aware of these dire conditions. IDDI’s Evaydée Pérez says, “One of the most acute challenges we face in our country today is the low level of knowledge about almost any kind of topic linked to climate change and its consequences.” Indhira De Jesus, from The Nature Conservatory, a sponsor of the climate education program, says, “ We have big deficits in the field of climate education. Only 5.9% of people in the region have access to reliable information on climate change and its consequences.” Moises Alvarez, the National Coordinator of UN CC:Learn, a climate education initiative sponsored by the UN, says, “In the long run, no strategy against climate change can work if the public is not sufficiently educated or informed.” Many Dominican leaders of climate change education believe that local decision-makers and government officials need to know more about climate change and its consequences in order to tackle the problems this Caribbean nation is faced with.

Many teachers have enrolled in these classes and have found them very beneficial. Yndira Rodriquez, who has spent 192 hours in the past few months—including weekends and free time—to learn about climate change, believes that her new knowledge will help her students. She says, “I’ve learned so much—everything from cartography to the various effects of climate change on our environment to pedagogical concepts on how to teach what I’ve learned here.” She continues in saying that this knowledge will help to change the future education system; she plans to set up a “green school” where children and adolescents can learn about the environment and how to protect it best. She continues, “If we start when they’re young, they can bring that message home with them and in turn educate others—and that would be a completely sustainable campaign.”

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As Thailand introduces their “One Tablet Per Child” initiative to bring tablet computers to each of their 9 million Thai schoolchildren, many wonder if this will manifest as merely a political gimmick or become a truly effective tool to combat Thailand’s growing education problems.

In the past week, the World Economic Forum (WEF) ranked Thailand’s educational system last out of the eight countries assessed from the Association for Southeast Nations (ASEAN). This is while Thailand’s budget for education comprises 20% of the national budget and salaries for teachers comprises of another 9%–among the highest proportions in the region and the world.

While Thailand has made true advances in providing universal education and bridging the gender gap, it has not solved its endemic problems of political corruption, poorly trained teachers, and teacher safety.

As a constitutional monarchy, Thailand is ruled by both a king and its parliament: however, the parliament is prone to upheaval and position shifting. New and opposing political factions are voted in every few years, making it difficult to maintain stability in the government and in supporting ministries and initiatives.

The current minister of Education, Chaturon Chaisang, is the fourth education minister in the Yingluck Shinawatra parliament,  which has been in power since 2011.  In response to the WEF rankings, Chaisang admits he is “very concerned” and believes the Thai education system has lacked any consistent development in the last 15 years.

In concert with the shifting political landscape, the “authoritarian and militaristic culture” in which Thai students are taught is also detrimental to their learning. Chaisang acknowledges that any future reform should concentrate more on teaching than on structural problems. He said, “Our teaching method is wrong. Our curriculum is outdated…university graduates, despite having studied English for 12-16 years, can’t speak it at all.” In the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), an international study to evaluate education systems, Thailand ranked in the world’s bottom 25%.

Additionally, many teachers are leaving the profession due to an increase of attacks on educational representatives. Since 2004, Malay Muslim separatist groups in the southern provinces of Thailand have conducted periodic attacks on teachers, who are seen as representatives of the Thai government. According to Human Rights Watch, 160 teachers and education personnel have been killed by these groups. The most recent attack took place on July 24^th and killed two teachers in a roadside bomb.  Due to these attacks, many schools have been closed for weeks, causing students to fall behind.

Confronted with these problems, Chaisang has initiated a series of brainstorming sessions—beginning with his own ministry and then extending into the private sector. His goal is to collect a spectrum of ideas to recreate the education system. Various academic and non-profit organizations are recommending proposals that suggest creating a more neutral educational ministry that can stand independently from political influence, reassessing teacher education and qualifications, and revolutionizing and standardizing fundamental training of teachers.

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Amidst the fighting in Syria between the government and rebel groups, the schooling system in Damascus has been dismantled. But some teachers refuse to leave Yarmouk, Syria’s largest Palestinian refuge camp, and continue to provide education to the growing population of Palestinian students.

Yarmouk has been under siege by the armed opposition since December 2012 and has suffered from heavy shelling and shooting by government forces as well. Many of the residents and teachers escaped to Lebanon and safer Syrian districts in 2012, leaving the education system in shambles. The two secondary schools were closed and the UN agency for Palestinian refuges, UNRWA, stopped operations at the camp.

However, some teachers stayed. Khalil Khalil, an Arabic professor at the University of Damascus and four other teachers have established an education program at the Palestinian Mosque in the camp. The school has grown from serving 20 students to more than 200.

While this is encouraging, the resources available are not enough. Khalil says, “it has become difficult for us to continue our work as before. We have needed to find places to educate these children but that is not easy at all in the camp at the moment. Then there are those essentials for education such as books and notepads and pens…but the most important thing is the security of the children and those that are volunteering to teach them.” Yehya Ishmaawi, one of the founding teachers, continues, “It is no longer a case of providing basic education support but trying to revive the complete program.”

In order to fund the school, the teachers have sought UNRWA support, which has been granted. Jemaal Abd al-Ghani, an UNRWA official appointed to work with the teachers and volunteers running the school in Yarmouk, says, “This is an unofficial route we are following but the most important thing is that we don’t allow the students’ education to be disrupted and we enable them to sit the exams on time, and under the supervision of UNRWA.”

Although the school in the Palestinian camp is growing, violence and aerial bombardment still greatly affects the students and the teachers. On the first of April, a mortar bomb hit right next to the mosque, injuring a number of children. A few days later, another strike killed two students and seriously injured three others. Although assaults on schools are not uncommon in Syria, there is hope seen in these students and teachers as they work to maintain some semblance of a normal life.

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Peru’s Ministry of Education announced the approval of an enterprise, “Routes of Solidarity: Rural Bicycles,” that will provide bicycles to children living in rural villages to increase school attendance.

Early trials have shown that students have greatly benefitted from this program: in April, students in the northern province of Lambayeque decreased their journey by more than two hours.

Pilar Appiani, Director of Promotion for Schools, Culture, and Sport, said, “Bikes have reduced the time it takes students to get to educational institutions, which has resulted in improved academic performance as students arrive at class less tired, more clear-headed, and earlier.” Once fully implemented, the program could benefit 100,000 students living in rural areas.

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Mexico’s teachers are protesting a federal proposal to overhaul Mexico’s education system. Their protests are causing chaos in Mexico City and are forcing the state and federal governments to reconsider the bill.

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s decision to focus on educational reforms stems from his desire to build up the Mexican middle class. Currently, Mexico is ranked last in standardized test scores in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the OECD. Additionally, there is extreme corruption present in the school system: teachers buy, sell, and inherit their positions; additionally, removing poorly performing teachers is very difficult, even amongst allegations of sexual and substance abuse. The union system in Mexico is very strong and also full of corruption. This year, Elba Esther Gordillo, the leader of the large National Education Worker’s Syndicate, or SNTE, was arrested and failed on embezzlement charges.

In light of these events, Nieto and the Secretary of Education have proposed a bill that requires more frequent evaluation, stricter employment practices, and better mechanisms for firing poorly performing teachers.

The teachers protesting these reforms argue that these reforms are a disguise to begin privatizing the Mexican school system. Floriberto Alejo, a 50-year-old teacher from Oaxaca state, who came to Mexico City to protest, said that this overhaul attacks a teacher’s seniority, and “this evaluation is disguise to start firing…peers.” He believes that making the evaluations–which will now take place every four years–more difficult will fire many public school teachers and force parents to move to private schools.

The protests have been led by two nationals teachers’ unions, the National Education Syndicate (SNTE) and the National Educational Workers’ Union (CNTE), and are taking place in Mexico City. Around 20,000 strikers are blocking the main roads in Mexico City, and 4,000 have blocked the main roads to the international airport. They plan to cease their march only when lawmakers agreed to sit down with union representatives to negotiate.

The protests have shut down 24,000 schools in five impoverished states across southern Mexico. School was scheduled to start the week of August 20^th; however, two millions students have not returned to school because their teachers are striking.

The teachers also believe that the proposals only attack the teachers and not the real problem: the long-term inadequacy of budgets and extreme corruption in the school systems.

The President claims that the teachers are misunderstanding the proposal. He says, “The education reform will give them opportunities that they don’t have today. The reform benefits Mexico’s teachers because it is designed to give them job stability, clear rules and certainty for ascending within the national education system.”

However, there has been no direct confrontation from either the President or the Mexican Secretary of Education. Edna Jaimie, director of México Evalúa, believes that both the state and federal governments are choosing not to heighten the conflict.

Lawmakers have removed the provision that creates an evaluation requirement from the bill in response to the protests. Many believe that this will make the law ineffective and undo the progress made by the bill.

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India’s schools are falling behind in implementing the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, which mandates  free and compulsory education for all Indian children ages 6-14. This act was approved in 2009, but recent surveys by the State Commission for Protection of Child Rights and UNICEF show that the state of education has not improved much since then.

In the Indian state of Bihar, there is an average of 82 students per classroom, and one teacher for 57 students, which is similar to the ratios in 2009 as well. Additionally, Bihar’s schools have not seen an improvement on infrastructure and facilities including kitchens, libraries, playgrounds, potable water facilities, and bathrooms.

Bihar’s Principal Secretary of Education also states that there are positive changes being made. He claimed that the process for teacher recruitment is ongoing and believes that the state will achieve a 40:1 student to teacher ratio by November, as compared to the 57 at present.

The problem extends outside the state of Bihar, as Mumbai (Bombay) also has similar mismanagement. A recent survey shows that there are around 82 posts in different branches of the Mumbai education department that are vacant.

Many activists are shocked at the lack of changes. Chetan Pednekar, vice-president of the Maharashtran Nationalist Party, is angry: “Everybody is talking about implementing RTE for the benefit of the students, but with so many posts lying vacant in the Mumbai education department, how are the officials planning to tackle the problem?”

When contacted, Mumbai’s Assistant Deputy Director of Education N B Chavan stated that some of the vacant spots had been filled. He also added that when senior officers are transferred to education departments across the state, vacancies are created. He claims that “this has never affected our work and we ensure that the responsibility is shared aptly so that there are no loopholes.”

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As Morocco’s unemployment continuously grows, education and skills are no longer enough to obtain a job, in either the public or private sector. While the young Moroccan men and women that are not educated have an even harder time finding jobs, the unemployment rate for educated youth is still terribly high: 22% among males and 38% among females. According to the Gallup organization, one out of three young Moroccans wants to emigrate to find jobs—this number increases as the youth’s education increases.

According to Moroccan Sociologist Samira Kassimi, layoffs and business failures are the main cause of unemployment. However, there is a mass influx of graduates into a labor market that cannot absorb them all.

Meanwhile, unemployed Moroccan graduates continue to protest in metropolitan areas in Morocco. Every year, more graduates continue to join the movement. Graduates protest four or five times a week—the more they protest, the higher the possibility for a government jobs. Organizers keep a tally—protestors are awarded points for attendance and for scuffles with police. The more points a protestor receives, the higher his or her name is placed on a list given to employers looking for employees.

The campaign for jobs has become a game for many protestors and has brought both anger and shame to them. Protestor Abdul Rahim Momneh says, “I have a degree, a master’s degree in English, and I’m here…idle without a job, without dignity, without anything.”

However, the Moroccan government is making efforts to alleviate the stress on the labor market. The strategy to reduce the unemployment rate is multi-tiered, according to Employment Minister Abdelouahed Souhail. Souhail claims that this strategy calls for encouraging investment, building up workforce skills, and tailoring education towards the businesses required in the labor force.

The primary contradiction and cause of joblessness for those educated is that they are being educated in fields that do not offer jobs—the labor market needs people with skill sets that are hard to find.

The government is working on identifying employment trends and gauging the effectiveness of vocational training programs in an effort to understand labor market needs and decrease the unemployment rate.

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