Magazine - ESHA

of the study was that, whether a child is in a confl ict or coming out
of a confl ict, what the overwhelming majority of children want most
is to go to school. The message was the same when he worked
in northern Uganda, Rwanda, Afghanistan: children want to go to
school.
He reminded delegates that school leaders work in a profession that
alters the minds, the hopes, the futures and the aspirations of chil-
dren. The Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Millennium
Development Goals could almost be used as a school curriculum,
he maintained. One of the goals is to achieve gender equality. We
can’t leave out 50% of the world’s population. If only boys could
be taught to treat girls with respect, the pattern of gender-based
violence would be much reduced. He remarked that the patterns of
sexual violence throughout the world are overwhelming. Quoting
a study which revealed that the highest levels of violence against
women occur in rural Ethiopia (at 90%) and the lowest level was in
Japan (at 14%). However, the level of violence against women was
in the range of 30-35% in developed countries, he revealed to sur-
prised delegates. How much gender-based violence and brutality
could be reduced, how much hardship eliminated if schools could
get young people to respect each other’s gender. As school lead-
ers, he challenged the assembled gathering to adopt this message
and to spread the word as we return to our own countries.
His address set a perfect context for the launch at the end of the
Meeting Michael Fullan: Dónal Ó Buachalla (Vice-President) and
Patricia O’Brien (President) of NAPD
hold governments to account, to ensure that every child receives
an education in the sure and certain knowledge that school is a key
factor in eliminating poverty worldwide. (See page 32 and also the
website)
ICP 2011 TORONTO, CANADA
ESHA MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 2011 15