Education

My daughter Rosa has just started school. She loves it. She loves her teacher, she gets on well with her classmates and she has a real sense of achievement every time she learns a new letter or does one of her detailed, laborious drawings. The school has been doing 'movement' as a theme, and she has made skeletons out of straws, written a story about the journey to school, and been to the local playground to watch how the swings and roundabouts move.

It is easy to lose this sense of joy as an adult. As I sifted through children's drawings from all over the world with Claire, the designer, we felt a sense of awe at the scope and variety of colour and design. The range of those children's imaginations made us both feel the limits of our own vision. The photos too, were an inspiration; from the delicate amber light and concentrated expression of the Cambodian girl on the front cover to a group of tiny, brightly clothed children in Ecuador sitting in the dust and studying the same magazine; the children's dedication and their enjoyment shone through.

I knew that I wanted to hold onto that sense of endless possibility, of serious joy, in the magazine as a whole. It seemed somehow appropriate that I should be producing my first issue as an editor of the New Internationalist at the same time as Rosa started school - and even more so that its subject should be education. Like her, I am launching myself on a new venture - one which involves new ways of working and a new style of communicating. Education should not stop at school - it should be something that goes with us throughout our adult lives as well. But all too many people never even get the chance to start down that road. They are forced to drop out of school in the first few crucial years - and then miss out on opportunities for the rest of their lives.

I believe in education. I believe that more and better education is a way of promoting equality in an unjust world. All children should be given the chance to go to schools that help them grow and learn throughout their lives. Like the children in the photos, they should be given the chance to apply and develop their talents. Like my daughter, they should come home each day with the joy of learning in their faces.

Back to the drawing board
Crumbling classrooms, death by a thousand cuts: what happened to the dream of education for all? Nikki van der Gaag investigates.

The sharks move in
Business is booming. Jonathan Kozol reports on the privatization of US schools.

Kura Whakapumau i te reo Tuuturu
Glenn Inwood examines the revival of Maori education.

The taste of the moon
A poem by Brian Patten illustrated by children's paintings from around the world.

Peanuts and prayers
Geoff Sayer explains why parents in East Africa are making ever greater sacrifices to ensure an education for their children.

Drumbeats of hope on the hill
Where the state won't provide, communities are stepping in, as Didier Bloch reports from a school in North-East Brazil.

EDUCATION - THE FACTS

Make education your husband
South African writer Sindiwe Magona reflects on the extra chances in life that fell to her thanks to her mother's urging.

The devil or the dustbowl
The foreign private school or the cash starved local one? Egyptian playwright Karim Alrawi looks at the options for his daughter.

Simply - the right to read
You think learning to read is easy? You may not after this activity.

Lives of Love and Hope
Chris Searle focuses on an inner-city school which is fighting back against conservatism.

ACTION

Letters
Letter from Lahore
Updates
Reviews: plus Fritz Lang classic
Curiosities
Endpiece: by Liêu Truong
Country profile: Burma

FRONT COVER PHOTOGRAPH: INSIDE AN ISLAMIC SCHOOL IN CAMBODIA, BY CLAUDE SAUVAGEOT
ONLINE MAG MAINTAINED BY SIMON LOFFLER