Bridging Continents by Building Classrooms But a Gap Remains
Posted by John Borst
on Oct 13, 2010
It is estimated that there are approximately 70 million children in the World who in the 21st Century get NO education what-so-ever. So it was heartening to read in the October 2010 issue of Rotary Canada the article “Reading Writing and Rebuilding: Canadian Rotarians unite to construct an Afghan school.” (click HERE to read the article) The article by Paul Engleman describes how the Canadian Rotary Collaboration for International Development (CRCID) under the leadership of the Rotary Clubs of Calgary Heritage Park and Winnipeg lead the project in cooperation with the Canadian International Development Agency to fund a 20 room school in Jalalabad called Nasrat II.
But when I read the line “…the school will accommodate 4,000 students…” I was incredulous. That is nearly 200 students per classroom. As a result I wrote the editors and learned that “…the students will attend class in three different shifts, accommodating all of the students at different points during the day…” Still the mathematics of that fact still means a classroom ratio of nearly 70 students to one.
Clearly there is a long way to go. In the process I also discovered that Rotary Canada has a website on this project where you can view 23 pictures of the school's construct. (Click HERE to view the pictures)