International Development: Education

David Linden Excerpts

Thursday 29th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham.

Before summing up for the Scottish National party, I want to commend the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) for opening the debate eloquently. It was a fine speech. My hon. Friend the Member for Dundee West (Chris Law), a member of the Committee, had hoped to be here today. He has had to return to Scotland, so I am afraid that hon. Members are lumped with me to provide the third party summing up for the SNP.

With your indulgence, Sir Graham, I would like to acknowledge some of the students from Eastbank Academy in Shettleston, in my constituency. It is fitting that as we discuss education we have children from Shettleston and Glasgow here. The education that our constituents get should always be at the forefront of our minds. We should strive every day to ensure that what they get in Shettleston is what they would get in Senegal.

It is difficult to sum up this debate, because Members have largely all said the same thing. As each one stood up, I found myself hacking bits of my speech out. The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) was absolutely right to speak about safety on the way to school. The hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) put strong emphasis on girls going to school. There will be a certain amount of that in my own speech. The hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) spoke about the cost per head to educate, and about his experience in Liberia. I expect that he will continue to question the Government on their use of statistics.

One thing that the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) mentioned was how we justify the 0.7% target to our constituents. I remember having a few very difficult hustings in June with people asking why we were committed to the 0.7% target. It is important that those of us who believe in fairness and equality argue strongly for that. I know it is not always popular, but sometimes it is better to be right than popular.

As someone who is not a member of the International Development Committee, I must say that I feel like a bit of an intruder in this debate, but I want to bring some personal experience to this afternoon’s discussion. Last year I had the pleasure of visiting Tanzania with RESULTS UK—I also refer the House to my entry in the register—and I am glad to see that the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Tanzania, has joined us for the debate. Tanzania has always had a special place in my heart, and finally getting the opportunity to visit was invaluable. During our visit we focused on education and nutrition. For the purposes of today’s debate, I will focus my remarks primarily on education.

To start on a positive note, I was quite impressed when I visited Benjamin Mkapa Secondary School in Dar es Salaam, which has a rapidly emerging middle class. During the tour of the secondary school we visited a chemistry class, and I was struck by the number of girls studying chemistry. It would have put a lot of our schools to shame and was really encouraging. I will return to girls’ education later.

As might be imagined, the challenges in an urban context were vastly different from those in a rural context. I remember being quite shocked on the first day to learn that there were only 17 computers to serve a school of 2,000 pupils. Unfortunately, later in the week, by the time we reached the Bahi district near Dodoma, the situation in the primary schools was considerably worse. Children were being taught in a packed mud hut where there was literally no room to move. I remember looking down at the faces of kids lined up next to each other with no room to move, and the impact that had on me as I reflected on the schools in Glasgow that I go around on a weekly basis. It really moved me. My wife is a primary school teacher, and we regularly have discussions about class sizes. Class sizes of 60 to 150 are not unusual in Tanzania. As a naive new MP, I came away thinking about how we can fix these things.

The first major challenge is supporting children with additional support needs and those with physical disabilities. Alongside the noble Lord Watts, I remember being quite struck when we learned that a girl with a hearing impairment had no hearing aid and was sitting at the back of the class trying to lipread. She was about 17 rows back, and that struck me as absolutely bizarre.

Owing to Tanzania’s famously conservative views towards family planning—the President actually said that family planning should take a holiday—teenage marriage and subsequent teenage pregnancy are major issues that mean young girls frequently do not finish their studies. That has been brought out in the debate, but the main issue I want to touch on is period poverty.

It is estimated that girls lose between one and two months of the year because of menstruating, all because they do not have access to sanitary products. According to the Netherlands development organisation’s survey on schoolgirls’ menstrual hygiene management, 84% of schools in Tanzania had no hand washing facilities, 86% had no access to clean water, 99% had no hand soap for washing in toilets, and an average of 56 girls used a single pit latrine in schools. Just 2% of schoolgirls, mainly in the urban environment, have access to disposable pads. In the villages, girls were using inappropriate materials to manage menstrual flow. We can have all these great strategies to try to engage young girls in the education system, but something as simple as a lack of tampons and decent sanitary facilities is clearly stopping them. Like the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire, I hope the Minister will address period poverty when she winds up the debate.

We all agree that schools should be safe and happy places where children can benefit from a good education. Unfortunately, millions of children around the world are not safe at school. That is why this year’s “Send My Friend to School” campaign aims to make schools safe, calling on the UK Government to sign the safe schools declaration, as outlined by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby. The safe schools declaration is an intergovernmental political commitment by which countries express support for protecting students, teachers and schools from attack in times in war. Thousands of young campaigners are already raising this important issue in schools across the country through the Send My Friend to School campaign.

The International Development Committee report suggested that DFID needs to establish a long-term, integrated strategy for supporting education in emergencies, especially in long-term crises. DFID’s new policy report sets out the Department’s plans to promote equitable education systems that include the most marginalised children and address the challenges posed by conflict and instability. It recognises the scale of violence against schools and commits to deliver for children whose education is disrupted by conflict.

Around the world, 15 life-threatening attacks on education take place every single day. Signing the safe schools declaration at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting next month would further showcase the UK’s leadership on global education and bolster DFID’s commitment to supporting education in emergencies. So far, 73—more than one third—of the world’s countries have endorsed the declaration, including the majority of NATO and EU members. The UK’s failure to sign, when it has some of the most respected armed forces in the world, sends the wrong message to countries that more readily operate outside the bounds of global humanitarian norms.

In conclusion, I hope the Government will take action to sign the safe schools declaration. We have had a good debate today. The time for talk is over; the time for action is now.