“The right to education is our most treasured, yet most disrespected right”, children complain

“The right to education is our most treasured, yet most disrespected right”, complain the 25 members of the Working Group for the Monitoring of Children's Rights in Moldova in the third issue of the Official Gazette of Children's Rights, Info-Prim Neo reports. The latest number of the Gazette was issued to mark the 19th anniversary of the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and centers on the right to education. The children in the Working Group that monitored the observance of this right in Moldova addressed the problems of the Moldovan educational system and found, among other, that many Moldovan children have no access to the Internet, face a shortage of school desks, limited access to libraries, which are almost always closed, no supplies and equipment in physics and chemistry labs, poorly fitted gyms, and what is the worst of all, no teachers. At the same time, the children say that they are forced to study the lesson all by themselves, because “some teachers appear in the classroom at the middle of the lesson to tell us that they will not be able to teach us the new material, which we'll have to study individually at home”. Also, the Official Gazette of Children's Rights writes about two teenage girls from Moldova who went to Geneva to read the First Children's Report on the observance of the UN Convention, themed “Life as Seen by the Children”. A highlight of the Children's Report was the need for the children themselves to permanently monitor the observance of their rights. The next assignment for the children representing the Working Group before they go on the winter holidays is to monitor the observance of the right to protection against violence. The Official Gazette of Children's Rights represents the joint effort of 25 children who are part of the Working Group for the Monitoring of Children's Rights in Moldova, established by the Child Rights Information Center in July 2008.