Interesting documentary

Last night I watched an interesting documentary on the PBS series Wide Angle entitled “Back to School” which checked in with seven children from around the world after completing a documentary on them entering school in 2003. The seven children profiled are from all around the world including Romania, Japan, Kenya, Brazil and India. The most interesting aspect to the documentary was a view into education in developing countries and the obstacles many children face to receive an education. For instance, in India Neeraj is permitted to attend night school only after completing a full day of chores for her family but then is repeatedly taken out during cattle season to cook and feed for her brothers in the fields. Joab a boy in Kenya is 13 years old and only entering the 4th grade because in his country education only became free three short years ago. Due to the huge enrollment in Kenya after school became free class sizes are huge and in fact his class has 72 students. Links to the PBS website and NY Times article are below. I encourage you to check listings and watch this documentary.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/shows/school2/

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/05/arts/television/05gate.html?ref=television