CHILD
FRIENDLY SCHOOL
WHAT IS CHILD FRIENDLY SCHOOL: A school is
considered “child friendly” when it provides a safe, clean, healthy and
protective environment for children. At Child Friendly Schools, child rights
are respected, and all children – including children who are poor, disabled,
living with HIV or from ethnic and religious minorities are treated equally.
ACHIEVEMENT
OF A CHILD FRIENDLY SCHOOL IN NIGERIA
Child-friendly school must reflect an environment of
good quality characterized by several essential aspects:
Introduction of School feeding programme as a means
of improving Child Friendly Schools
Two main strategies have been used to improve the
nutritional status, attendance rates and cognition of school age children
1. The provision of meals and snacks for eating in
school
2. Food for Education (FFE) interventions in which
food given at school may be taken home.
These strategies are underpinned by hypothetical
pathways that link the provision of school meals with improved education access
and achievement, in two ways. Firstly, educational outcomes may improve through
increased enrolment and time in school due to reducing the cost to the parent
of sending a child to school and benefits to the family from providing take
home food. Secondly, educational outcomes may improve through enhanced
attention, cognition and behaviour resulting from relief of hunger and from
better nutritional status (if the quality and quantity of food is adequate and
the supply continues for some time).
Inclusive of children
• Does
not exclude, discriminate, or stereotype on the basis of difference.
• Provides
education that is free and compulsory, affordable and accessible, especially to
families and children at risk.
• Respects
diversity and ensures equality of learning for all children (e.g., girls,
working children, children of ethnic minorities and affected by HIV/AIDS,
children with disabilities, victims of exploitation and violence).
• Responds
to diversity by meeting the differing circumstances and needs of children
(e.g., based on gender, social class, ethnicity, and ability level).
Effective for learning
• Promotes
good quality teaching and learning processes with individualized instruction
appropriate to each child's developmental level, abilities, and learning style
and with active, cooperative, and democratic learning methods.
• Provides
structured content and good quality materials and resources.
• Enhances
teacher capacity, morale, commitment, status, and income — and their own
recognition of child rights.
• Promotes
quality learning outcomes by defining and helping children learn what they need
to learn and teaching them how to learn.
Healthy and Protective of children
• Ensures
a healthy, hygienic, and safe learning environment, with adequate water and sanitation
facilities and healthy classrooms, healthy policies and practices (e.g., a
school free of drugs, corporal punishment, and harassment), and the provision
of health services such as nutritional supplementation and counseling.
• Provides
life skills-based health education.
• Promotes
both the physical and the psycho-socio-emotional health of teachers and
learners.
• Helps
to defend and protect all children from abuse and harm.
• Provides
positive experiences for children.
Gender-sensitive
• Promotes
gender equality in enrolment and achievement.
• Eliminates
gender stereotypes.
• Guarantees
girl-friendly facilities, curricula, textbooks, and teaching learning
processes. socializes girls and boys in a non-violent environment.
• Encourages
respect for each others' rights, dignity, and equality.
Involved with children, families, and communities
• Child-centred
- promoting child participation in all aspects of school life.
• Family-focused
— working to strengthen families as the child's primary caregivers and
educators and helping children, parents, and teachers establish harmonious
relationships.
• Community-based
- encouraging local partnership in education, acting in the community for the
sake of children, and working with other actors to ensure the fulfillment of
childrens' rights.
Experience is now showing that a framework of
rights-based, child-friendly schools can be a powerful tool for both helping to
fulfill the rights of children and providing them an education of good quality.
At the national level, for ministries, development agencies, and civil society
organizations, the framework can be used as a normative goal for policies and
programmes leading to child-friendly systems and environments, as a focus for
collaborative programming leading to greater resource allocations for
education, and as a component of staff training. At the community level, for
school staff, parents, and other community members, the framework can serve as
both a goal and a tool of quality improvement through localized
self-assessment, planning, and management and as a means for mobilizing the
community around education and child rights.
Effective and high-quality learning environments
A quality learning environment promotes high-quality
teaching of relevant knowledge and skills through instruction that is adapted
to meet students’ needs and that encourages children’s active engagement,
rather than relying on traditional rote learning approaches (AIR, 2009). When
teachers encourage student to be actively engaged in the learning process and
to do well, and when students are presented with interesting learning
opportunities, they are more likely to stay in school and succeed academically
(Lockheed & Lewis, 2007).