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1、Adama Sow, 10, shares her two-person desk with three other girls at Dixin Elementary schoolin Conakry. There are 80 students in her class, typical for this urban school.The classroom is hot, Adama says. With four of us in a desk, it is too cramped to write. Shesays there are too many students, and t
2、he classroom is small.Teacher, Fatimata Camara, said the tight quarters make it difficult for students toconcentrate.She says it is difficult to teach 85 children at once and make sure they each understand thelesson. But these are important years, she says, when children are learning to read and wri
3、te.Correcting the homework of so many students is also overwhelming, and she says 30 wouldbe a more manageable class size.Once Camaras morning shift of students goes home at lunch time, as many as 85 morestudents will come for afternoon classes. There is an average of 150 students to each teacherat
4、Dixin Elementary.But U.N. Childrens Funds representative to Guinea Julien Harneis says UNICEF is just asconcerned about the growing numbers of children who are not in these crowded classrooms.There has been a lack of investment in the education sector in this country for several yearsnow, and so as
5、a result, the percentage of children who go to school has dropped over the lasttwo years, which is very unusual for anywhere in the world and is particularly unusual for thiscountry, which has had rising education for the last 20 years, he said.He said the political crisis that has racked Guinea sin
6、ce 2008 has blocked funding and stalledmuch-needed reform to the education sector.It is not that the children do not want to come, he added. It is not that the parents do not1want to send their children to school. It is that there is not enough classrooms. There is notenough classrooms, there is not
7、 enough benches for kids to sit on. There is not enoughteachers to train them.At Dixin Elementary, three classrooms sit empty. Their roof blew off in a storm in 2006 andhas yet to be replaced. There are no desks and chairs for another classroom so it sits unusedas well. There are no bathrooms, cafet
8、eria or clean drinking water for students.But there are signs of hope. Last week in Washington, D.C., the Catalytic Fund of theinternational Fast Track Initiative Education for All campaign, managed by the World Bank,approved the disbursement of $64 million to Guinea.Of that money, $24 million will
9、be managed by UNICEF, during a two-year period, to build asmany as 1,000 classrooms, train teachers and improve curriculum in Guinea.Visiting Dixin Elementary last week, UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and celebrated Americanactress, Mia Farrow, crouched in the crowded rows of students to listen to them
10、read.Oliver Asselin / Courtesy of UNICEFUNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow meets with children in a third grade classat the Dixinn Centre 2 primary school in Conakry, Guinea, 6 May 2010I sense that I am seeing the best this morning, and the best is not good enough for the kids,said Farrow. I unde
11、rstand that this is a time of transition, so money is scarce, but it is tragicwhen a scarcity of funds is taken out on the children, who are, of course, the future of Guinea.The school was one of Farrows first stops on a five-day visit to highlight the education and health-care needs of Guineas children before next months presidential poll.2