05 Jun 2005 04:28:24 GMT
Source: Reuters
BEIRUT, June 5 (Reuters) - Polls opened in southern Lebanon on Sunday for the second round of general elections, with Syria's staunchest allies Hizbollah and Amal set to cruise to victory on a joint slate dubbed the "steamroller".
Voters began to trickle to the ballot box in the Shi'ite Muslim heartland bordering Israel, local television showed.
A lack of challengers meant the joint ticket won six of the 23 seats up for grabs in the south before a single vote was cast.
Lebanon's general elections, the first since Syria ended its 29-year military presence in April, are spread over four weekends by region.
About 675,000 people are eligible to vote in the south, which is divided into two large constituencies.
AlertNet news
Sunday, 05 June , 2005
Baghdad: Kassim used to teach geography in the morning and spend afternoons repairing shoes in the streets of the central Iraqi town of Azizyah. Those days are over.
Iraq's 300,000 teachers have seen vast changes since the regime of Saddam Hussein fell in April 2003, and Kassim can now feed his four children without having to cobble a living together.
From an average monthly salary of 10,000 dinars plus food subsidies, they can now earn 300,000-400,000.
The result, says 40-year-old English teacher Jawad Mizhr, is that they can now do their job.
Such is the difference that retired teachers want their old jobs back, if only for a year or two so they can qualify for vastly improved pensions.
Groups like the United Nations children's fund UNICEF and USAID are renewing infrastructure and training teachers to get the level of Iraqi education beyond where it was 25 years ago.
"Iraq's educational system used to be among the best in the region," the UN Development Program (UNDP) said in its 2004 survey of living conditions in Iraq.
But though deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein initially sought to eradicate illiteracy, the combined effects of wars and economic sanctions since 1980 took their toll on teachers and students alike.
In rural areas and among girls in particular, illiteracy is now widespread, but a 5.8-million-dollar USAID program is aimed at turning things around at 84 "model" primary and secondary schools across the country.
In-service training of 100,000 teachers and administrators will "promote child-centered teaching techniques, and introduce state-of-the-art instructional methods in science, math, English and social studies," a statement by the group said.
Computer and science labs are to be installed in many of the "model" schools -- not in the sense of being exceptional, but rather with the goal of setting a standard for future development.
The program has set a modest budget of 70,000 dollars per school to demonstrate what can be done and to encourage future donors to extend the program across Iraq.
From Azizyah, 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of Baghdad, Mizhr told AFP by phone that in the past, families felt school was not important because harsh economic conditions rendered future prospects bleak regardless of one's qualifications.
"Now many families are thinking about having their children continue their education because jobs are much more important."
Teachers are also more motivated. Those sent to neighboring Jordan for training to be shared with colleagues back home consistently spent evenings in optional workshops, a USAID program director said.
"It was the first time someone was investing in them," he told AFP. UNICEF is using a "double cascade" approach whereby 25 people selected by Iraq's ministry of education go through a six-week program before training 440 others who train still more in turn.
Its Accelerated Learning Program targets areas with the lowest enrollment rates and aims to provide out-of-school youth with the equivalent of six years of primary education in roughly half that time.
The goals are ambitious but program officials are aware of certain limits. One of the ministry's priorities was to create a curriculum that included Islamic studies, an area that USAID did not feel was appropriate for them to work on.
Help is available to reform what will be taught and how, but Iraqi officials are to take the lead in curriculum content.
Among the things that Mizhr said remained to be improved were practical issues such as who was posted where.
Within the ministry, the atmosphere is much better and teachers can now speak their minds, but there is a surplus of specialised teachers in areas like English and science in some schools and not enough in others, he said.
Some materials were also now out of date. "We're still using old textbooks, we've just removed the pictures of Saddam."