Project gives school dropouts income generating skills

According to UNICEF, chronic poverty is the main reason for an estimated 1 million children not attending school on the giant Indian Ocean Island, but efforts are now underway to equip the youth with income generating skills. Last week, 258 out-of-school youth "graduated" from the DESCOL initiative, a project operating in 17 districts in the central Antananarivo region. Each district identifies local entrepreneurs who transfer their skills, such as baking, motor mechanics or tailoring, to young apprentices. "It is not an ideal situation, but we have to consider what is best under the current circumstances. Many young people have dropped out of school because they simply cannot afford to attend classes. In some cases, children who are 17 years old are too old to attend formal primary school. So a project such as DESCOL tries to find ways to accommodate these young people," UNICEF communication officer Misbah Sheikh told IRIN. Young people receive three months of basic education training in numeracy, Malagasy, French and civic education, including HIV/AIDS prevention and health issues, followed by a six-month vocational training course. "Over the past year about 400 young people have benefited from the project. We are still collecting data and hope that the lessons learned from the DESCOL initiative will help inform national policy on out-of-school youth," Sheik said. She noted that although Madagascar has made steady progress in education, with net enrolment rates increasing from 65 percent in 1995 to 82 percent in 2003, one in every five children still do not go to school. Moreover, only 39 out of every 100 pupils completed primary school, and dropping out of school was particularly common among poorer students. Data from the Ministry of Education indicated that only 12 percent of children in rural areas completed primary school, compared to 60 percent in urban areas, Sheik added.