20 Mar 2019

Millions of American youth attend schools with police but no support staff

Valery Tsekov

On March 4, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) published a devastating report which exposed the increasingly militarized state of public schools in the United States and chronic underfunding of school support staff.
The report, “Cops and No Counselors: How the Lack of School Mental Health Staff is Harming Students” provides a state-level student-to-staff ratio of employed student counselors, nurses, psychologists, and social workers and contrasts these numbers to the increasing presence of police officers in public schools, especially in lower-income neighborhoods. The statistics revealed in this report are harrowing.
The ACLU found that over 90 percent of individual schools in the US do not meet the one to 250 counselor-to-student ratio recommended by professional standards and the US Public Health Service. On average, all of the schools in the country employ close to half of this number of counselors: one for every 444 students, with Arizona having the worst ratio in the country at one counselor for every 758 students. Only three states out of 50 meet the recommended ratio.
Student-to-counselor ratios
The report went on to note that there are 1.7 million students in the US who attend schools where there are police on campus but no counselors at all; 6 million students attend schools where police are present but not a single school psychologist is employed; and finally, 10 million students have police in their schools where not a single social worker is employed.
Many schools in the US do not have any nurses on campus. The nurse-to-student ratio recommended by professional standards is one nurse for every 750 students. Twenty-nine states do not meet this standard. Michigan and Oregon employ the fewest school nurses in the country. The ratios of students per nurse provided in the report for these two states are downright criminal: both are above 4,100 students per nurse. Three million children in the country attend schools where there are police officers on staff but not a single nurse.
Student-to-nurse ratios
These statistics are staggering. Even as they are being starved of much needed funds, working-class schools are being turned into armed camps replete with metal detectors, online video surveillance and even military equipment.
Examples can be found throughout the country.
· The impoverished Detroit Public Schools spent $41.7 million on a district-wide security upgrade in 2011, creating a 23,000 square-foot Police Command Center and Headquarters for the school system.
· Just last week in Chicago at a mayoral forum, Democratic candidate and former president of the Chicago Police Board Lori Lightfoot suggested turning the city’s 38 recently shuttered schools into police-training sites.
· Capitalizing on last year’s horrific massacre at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, the Florida state legislature recently passed a bill allocating $58 million toward arming teachers throughout the state.
Detroit Public School Control and Command Center
While millions of dollars are easily found to militarize public schools, teachers and students are told by Republican and Democratic politicians alike that there is no money for much needed resources like nurses, counselors and other support staff. These conditions have compelled hundreds of thousands of teachers to go on strike, in a wave of teachers struggles across the US and internationally. In every case, teachers have made the demand for more support staff a central issue, and in every case the unions have facilitated the ramming through of concessionary contracts that do nothing to address the fundamental issues.
Most recently in Oakland, in a state dominated by the Democratic Party, the union rejected demands by rank-and-file teachers to include opposition to budget cuts in the strike demands, even though the district planned to pay for any pay increases by slashing millions of dollars from educational services and closing schools. The contract the union hailed as “historic” left untouched the staffing ratios for nurses in the district, which currently stand at one for every 1,350 students.
The effect of these dual processes, the chronic underfunding of education and the further militarization of schools, has devastating effects on students. The ACLU report notes that there is no research to substantiate the claim that having police present in schools has any positive effect on delinquent behavior and school safety. On the contrary, the report notes that "in many cases, [the presence of law enforcement staff in schools] causes harm. When in schools, police officers do what they are trained to do, which is detain, handcuff, and arrest. This leads to greater student alienation and a more threatening school climate."
The ACLU found that schools where police are always present have reported 3.5 times as many arrests per 10,000 students as schools without police.
To the extent that the American government invests in public schools, hiring additional police is promoted by the political establishment as a necessary response to increasingly frequent school shootings. However, filling school campuses with cops does nothing to address the underlying societal ills that are the root causes of violent and antisocial crimes committed in the first place.
Student-to-social worker ratios
Outbursts of mass violence, along with other causes of early death among teens such as drug overdoses and suicides, are bound up with the growth of social inequality and the miserable conditions under which the bulk of the working class is living. Since the economic recession of 2008 and the decline of full-time employment that followed as a result of the restructuring of many major industries under the Obama administration, economic uncertainties in working-class families have no doubt plagued millions of children in the last decade.
Children in the US today are growing up in a country that has been at war during the entirety of their lives; wars that have destroyed entire societies and whose victims are treated with callous indifference in the bourgeois media. These experiences sweep into social consciousness in innumerable ways.
In fact, the ACLU report cites a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which found that the suicide rate among children ages 10 to 17 increased by 70 percent between 2006 and 2016. Approximately 72 percent of children in the US will have experienced at least one major stressful event—such as witnessing violence, experiencing abuse, or experiencing the loss of a loved one—before the age of 18.
Under such conditions, the need for school nurses, psychologists, and counselors can quickly become life and death questions for students.
The authors of the report note the substantial amount of research done on the benefits of having health care professionals trained to work with children in schools: “School counselors, nurses, social workers, and psychologists are frequently the first to see children who are sick, stressed, or traumatized.” The report goes on to state that “schools with such services see improved attendance rates, better academic achievement, and higher graduation rates as well as lower rates of suspension, expulsion, and other disciplinary incidents.”
The data cited in the report shows that school-based mental health and special learning needs services, when made available, improve the overall safety of schools and promote student participation in interactive educational initiatives.
The resources to provide all of these services and much more exist in society. However, to secure a healthy and productive learning environment for teachers and students requires a frontal assault on the wealth of the ruling class and the social and economic system it defends, capitalism.
The defense of public education requires a fight for socialism, which above all means the establishment of a society based on social need, not private profit, in which the wealth produced by the working class is owned and controlled democratically, and in which every individual has the right to an education, a decent job, a livable income, health care, a healthy environment, and access to culture.

Nationwide strike by primary school educators in the Netherlands

Harm Zonderland

More than 100,000 primary school educators joined a nation-wide strike in the Netherlands on Friday, March 15, closing more than 2,600 primary and several middle schools across the country. Some 40,000 teachers and support staff traveled to The Hague, where the Dutch parliament sits, to protest horrendous conditions in schools, low wages and high workload caused by years of austerity carried out by all the major parties.
The determination among educators to fight is part of a wave of teachers strikes spanning five continents and a rise in working class struggle around the world. There is a growing opposition after more than a decade of deep cuts to education budgets and other areas of social spending, overseen by the trade unions. In many cases educational spending has not returned to levels seen prior to the global financial crash of 2008 even as endless resources are spent to re-inflate the stock markets, military spending is massively increased and social inequality continues to rise.
The past year has seen strikes by educators across the US, in West Virginia, California, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky and Indiana, involving over 450,000 teachers, the largest number in decades. In Latin America, teachers have struck in Brazil, Mexico and Argentina to protest against pension cuts and “school reform.”
Dutch teachers rally in The Hague Friday (Credit: AOb)
In Europe, teachers in Germany held a protest march in Berlin last month, Portuguese teachers joined a general strike and “Red Pen” teachers organized on Facebook in France supported “Yellow Vest” protesters against Emmanuel Macron. In Africa, teachers have struck in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Zimbabwe, against declining education budgets and school privatization. Indian teachers as well as teachers in Iran and Israel struck against poverty wages, in the face of state repression.
A recent nation-wide survey of 10,000 teachers in the Netherlands gave an indication of the conditions that have pushed them to the breaking point. They reported going to work while sick, described training one temporary teacher after another, and said they could not provide the individual attention and guidance pupils require. More than 80 percent of primary schools report a lack of substitute teachers, with 20 to 29 percent of job vacancies unfilled in 2018.
Indeed, on the day of the strike, news emerged of a primary school in the university city of Leiden forced to close its “Group 8” class, the highest class before students advance to middle-school, because there was no teacher for them. This is one of many such cases. Often children are transferred to other schools, increasing their class sizes and workload, or are put back down one class lower. Other schools have resorted to a four-day school week.
During the demonstration at The Hague, teachers gave short speeches and shared their own experiences, which painted a devastating picture of school conditions.
One teacher said: “I know children who are afraid to go to the toilet at school, because there is no money to have them cleaned.”
A primary school teacher from Almelo, near the German border, came to The Hague to call for more funding. “We can no longer provide individual attention to our pupils. We came here because the workload is way too high. We and other teachers are striking for a good cause.”
A trainee teacher from Amsterdam said she experiences high work pressure. “Classes are sent home regularly because there are no substitute teachers. In many cases, unqualified personnel teach pupils, trainees such as me.” She wants more funding for primary education, “to equalise wages with teachers in middle schools. It is strange that there is a difference.”
The teachers’ strike and demonstration were called by the Dutch Association of Teachers (AOb), part of the FNV union federation. Its aim is not to conduct a struggle against these conditions, but to dissipate anger even as the union continues to collaborate with the government’s austerity program. The teacher unions have overseen decades of cuts, including under the former Labour Party (PvdA) government.
The CNV education union, the FNV’s Christian counterpart, opposed any participation in the strike, declaring that they were still in negotiations with the government. The unions kept high school and university teachers on the job during the strike.
According to the AOb’s own figures some four billion euros are required in additional funding for education. However, the coalition government headed by Mark Rutte of the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy has proposed an increase of just 270 million euros in this year’s budget.
Education Minister Arie Slob, of the Christian Union, declared his “sympathy” for the striking teachers, and proceeded to reiterate the government’s refusal to increase funding. “Financially, we already do a lot,” he said. “People want more, and that is alright. But this is the money we have, and I am trying to get it to them as soon as possible.”
Slob proposed to increase the annual budget per school by the paltry amount of 50,000 euros, up from the previously agreed 35,000 euros. This increase, assuming it actually materializes, would do nothing to resolve the crisis of staffing in most schools. In fact, the funding increase is being promised over the four-year budget and may never arrive.
There is immense anger against these conditions. But to conduct a struggle, this fight must be taken out of the hands of the union apparatus, which is determined, now that the strike is over, to work out a rotten deal with the government, just as they have for decades. Teachers should form workplace action committees in every school to outline the demands for what they and their students need, not what the government and the unions say is affordable. These committees should organize a real struggle and appeal for the broadest support from students, parents and the working class.
The fight by teachers against austerity places them in direct conflict with the entire political establishment, both the right-wing Rutte government and the Labour Party, and their allies in the trade unions. The PvdA’s record of cuts saw it punished by workers in the last elections, with its vote collapsing from 25 to 6 percent.
The entire political establishment declares that there is “no money” for schools, hospitals and social services, while the Dutch military saw its funding increased by 1.5 billion euros in the last budget. The government has pledged to meet the NATO-demanded military spending of 2 percent of GDP in coming years.
The fight against austerity and militarism being pursued by the European Union and capitalist governments around the world requires the fight for socialism and the taking of political power by the working class. Only in this way can the economy be reorganized according to social need, rather than private profit, and tens of billions poured into education, healthcare and other social services.

Median CEO pay in US tops $1 million a month

Patrick Martin

The median income for 132 CEOs of major US corporations jumped to $12.4 million in 2018, more than $1 million a month, according to an analysis published Sunday by the Wall Street Journal. The CEOs, representing about one-quarter of the S&P 500 firms for which figures have thus far been released, saw pay rises of about 6.4 percent apiece compared to 2017.
The CEO gains were driven by rising stock prices for the year, despite a sharp drop in December 2018, the worst December for the financial markets since the Great Depression. Assuming the pay rises for the remaining CEOs in the S&P 500 match those of the first group, 2018 would mark the third consecutive year of record CEO pay in the United States.
Bob Iger, CEO of Disney
Among the biggest payouts were $66 million for Robert Iger, longtime CEO of Walt Disney Co., $44.7 million for Richard Handler, CEO of Jefferies Financial Group, and $42 million for Stephen MacMillan, CEO of medical equipment maker Hologic Inc. Patrick McHale of Minneapolis-based manufacturer Graco Corp. made $34.9 million in 2018.
Some CEOs outside the S&P 500 received even bigger windfalls, topped by the $125 million for Nikesh Arora, a former Google executive who became CEO of Palo Alto Networks, a cybersecurity company, only in June 2018.
Corporate criminals like the CEO of Boeing and the heads of the major banks suffered no consequences from the devastation that their actions have caused for their own workers and the population as a whole.
Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg received $23.4 million after a year that ended with the crash of a 737 Max jetliner operated by Lion Air of Indonesia, killing 189 people. Two weeks ago, a second crash of a 737 Max, this time in Ethiopia, killed 157 people and led to the worldwide grounding of all the 737 Max 8 and Max 9 jets made by the company. Boeing stock plunged 10 percent, wiping out $25 billion in stock market value.
Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase
Among bankers, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase topped the list with $31 million, while Brian Moynihan of Bank of America received $23 million. Along with Goldman Sachs, these banks played central roles in precipitating the 2008 Wall Street crash.
Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan saw a pay rise to $16.4 million, including his first-ever bonus, despite the company’s stock plunging 24 percent due to the scandal involving the creation of millions of false accounts for customers, leading to fines and regulatory penalties.
Ford President and CEO Jim Hackett received a 10 percent raise in 2018, raking in $17.75 million, while the company continues to slash jobs both in the United States and internationally. According to press reports, the Ford CEO received 276 times the median pay for all Ford employees. General Motors has yet to report the 2018 compensation for CEO Mary Barra, who made $21.9 million in 2017.
Jim Hackett, CEO of Ford
A study reported last month in the magazine Institutional Investor found that median CEO pay at major US corporations has soared over the past four decades—from $1.8 million in the 1980s to $4.1 million in the 1990s, reaching $9.2 million in the early 2000s.
Following a drop after the 2008 Wall Street crash, when CEO compensation was driven down by falling share prices, the combined compensation from pay, stock options and bonuses for corporate bosses has returned to the level that prevailed before the financial crisis. In contrast, most workers have seen no significant recovery.
CEO pay has risen nearly 72 percent since the low point in 2009 and is now just 3.3 percent below the record levels set in 2007, on the eve of the financial collapse. According to the study reported in Institutional Investor, CEO pay grew 17.6 percent between 2016 and 2017 alone, while average pay for workers rose by only 0.3 percent.
The ratio of CEO pay to the pay of the average worker has risen from 20-1 in 1965 to 30-1 in 1978, 58-1 in 1989, 112-1 in 1995 and a record 344-1 in 2000. After the dip following the 2008 crash, the CEO-to-worker pay ratio rose back to 312-1 in 2017.
One corporate CEO’s record pay package deserves particular attention: Daniel Loepp, CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, the largest insurer in the state, covering the majority of autoworkers and other industrial workers, as well as auto retirees. Loepp has seen his annual compensation rocket from $1 million in 2006, when he became CEO, to $9 million in 2015, $13.4 million in 2017 and $19.2 million in 2018, including a staggering bonus of $16.2 million.
Daniel Loepp, CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan
Loepp’s bonus was “only” $10.4 million in 2017, and the $5.8 million raise in his bonus was due to meeting “performance targets” set by the corporate board. These targets included slashing corporate expenses by $360 million over the past three years, through cuts in jobs and employee compensation. Loepp also pushed through a cut in the health care coverage for Blue Cross retirees, who had expected, having worked for a health care company, that their benefits would be secure.
Loepp is by far the best-paid chief executive officer of a company that is still nominally not-for-profit—but posted an “operating margin” last year of $605 million—and which, because of its longstanding relationship with the auto industry, the UAW and the AFL-CIO, has eight union executives on its board of directors.
These union officials approved the bonus and other compensation for Loepp and set the “targets” that Loepp had to meet, which were achieved by cutting the jobs and benefits of Blue Cross Blue Shield workers, many of them members of the UAW, as well as benefits for workers insured by the company, which is the principal health insurer for unionized workers across the state.
The Detroit Free Press contacted the eight union officials, including those from the UAW, Michigan Education Association, Michigan Building Trades Council, and Michigan AFL-CIO, to question them about the basis for Loepp’s whopping bonus and raise. Seven did not respond, while the Teamsters Union representative on the board of directors defended the $19.2 million payout.
William Black, executive director of Michigan Teamsters Joint Council 43, said in an email to the newspaper: “We at the board are sensitive to compensation issues, and we have emphasized that pay be tied to performance... His compensation is heavily weighted against company performance, as it should be. That performance has been very strong in recent years.”
This statement underscores the scurrilous and thoroughly corrupt role of the unions in supporting the profit system and the gouging of union members to enrich the capitalists and the corporate bosses. The union executives have far more in common with Loepp than with the workers they claim to represent. In institutions like the UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust, the union officials preside over multibillion-dollar corporate entities with salaries and bonuses that are modeled on those of the Loepps, Hacketts and Jamie Dimons.

The New Zealand terrorist attack and the international danger of fascism

Tom Peters

The death toll from last Friday’s fascist terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand was revised upward to 50 over the weekend. The youngest person killed was a three-year-old boy. Thirty-four people remained in hospital on Sunday, with 12 in a critical condition, including a severely injured four-year-old girl.
People throughout the world are horrified by the cold-blooded, racist massacre, which targeted defenceless Muslim men, women and children while they were praying. Tens of thousands of people joined vigils over the weekend in New Zealand and internationally to show solidarity with the victims and their families and to defend Muslims, immigrants and refugees.
New Zealand police are now saying that Australian-born, 28-year-old Brenton Tarrant was the only gunman and had no assistance from others. He has appeared in court on murder charges. Authorities in both New Zealand and Australia claim that he at no time came to the attention of either the intelligence agencies or the police, and was therefore not under any form of monitoring
This attempt to portray Tarrant as a disturbed “lone wolf,” and especially the claim that he was “off the radar,” is simply not credible. The 74-page manifesto issued by Tarrant makes clear that he prepared and carried out the terrorist atrocity on behalf of an international network of fascists and white supremacists, with whom he had openly collaborated for several years.
Tarrant’s manifesto is a modern-day Mein Kampf. It combines calls for genocidal violence and civil war to force non-European “invaders” from Europe, the US, Australia and New Zealand—including all people of Muslim, Jewish, African, Asian and Roma background—with pathological hatred of socialism. It is steeped in the white racist and ultra-nationalist nostrums of “blood and soil” that animated Nazism and other fascist movements in the 1920s and 1930s.
The gunman wrote that he had “donated to many nationalist groups and… interacted with many more.” Since 2012, he has visited Bulgaria, Hungary, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, France, the UK, Spain, Turkey, Pakistan and even North Korea, as well as returning to Australia and traveling to New Zealand.
He claims he decided to turn to terrorism during a two-month tour of Europe in 2017 and following the defeat of the far-right National Front in the French election. Tarrant contacted the so-called Knights Templar, an organisation allegedly linked to Norwegian fascist mass murderer Anders Breivik, and asserts that he received its “blessing” for the Christchurch attack. He was active on ultra-right social media and blogs and joined a gun club not long after arriving in New Zealand. He declared that he chose New Zealand as the country to stage his attack in order to demonstrate that “nowhere in the world was safe” for “non-whites.”
If all of this did go “under the radar” of security agencies around the world, Tarrant’s manifesto provides one explanation as to how. He boasted that fascist groups are deeply integrated into the state apparatus, the military and the police. He wrote: “The total number of people in these organisations is in the millions… but disproportionately employed in military services and law enforcement. Unsurprisingly ethno-nationalists and nationalists seek employment in areas that serve their nations and community.” [Emphasis added]. Tarrant estimated that “hundreds of thousands” of European soldiers and police belong to “nationalist groups.”
The Christchurch attack—and the conceptions that inspired it—must be taken as a deadly warning by the international working class and progressive sections of the middle class. It is the product of the deliberate cultivation, at the highest levels of the capitalist state in country after country, of the most extreme right-wing nationalism. As the working class internationally comes forward in a mass, resurgence of class struggle against unprecedented levels of social inequality and the danger of war, the ruling class is once again, as it did in the 1920s and 1930s, seeking to use fascist forces to divide, intimidate and suppress the opposition to the bankruptcy of capitalism and the nation-state system.
Political parties and individuals espousing views that are not far from those of Brenton Tarrant can be found in the governments and parliaments of every European country, in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and in the US Congress and White House.
In Germany, Merkel’s coalition government has adopted the policies of the fascist Alternative for Germany (AfD), which sits on the opposition benches of the German parliament. Interior Minister Horst Seehofer lined up behind a neo-Nazi demonstration in Chemnitz last September, saying he would have marched alongside the fascists if he had not been a minister. The then-president of the German secret service, Hans-Georg Maassen, likewise defended the Chemnitz mob and denied its blatant anti-immigrant and fascist character.
A secret right-wing terrorist network has been exposed within the German armed forces, with hundreds of members. The network, whose members have been protected by the judicial system, had detailed plans to murder prominent figures in the government and attack Jewish and Muslim organisations.
In the US, both the Democrats and Republicans have sought to scapegoat immigrants for the social crisis in America. They both use racial politics in an effort to divide the working class.
President Trump, whom Tarrant described as “a symbol of renewed white identity,” has sought to nurture a fascist constituency. In a message of solidarity to his fascist base, Trump told reporters after the Christchurch attack that he did not consider “white nationalism” a threat. Two days before the New Zealand massacre, he made a clear threat to mobilise his supporters in the military, police and thuggish groups like “Bikers for Trump” against his opponents, telling Breitbart News that they were “tougher” than the “left.”
This followed the arrest in February of fascist US Coast Guard officer and Trump supporter Christopher Paul Hasson, who planned to kill prominent African-American and Jewish individuals and members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
In the weeks leading up to the Christchurch attack, a campaign of slander was unleashed against left-wing critics of the Israeli government’s brutal treatment of Palestinians. Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar, a Muslim, was branded an “anti-Semite” for pointing to the influence wielded by the pro-Zionist lobby over both parties. This campaign echoes the witch-hunt accusing UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and hundreds of Labour members of “anti-Semitism,” which is aimed at delegitimising and purging left-wing opposition to British imperialism.
In Australia and New Zealand, where politicians are making hypocritical statements condemning racism and violence, the establishment has, since 2001, demonised Muslim refugees as a threat and potential terrorist fifth column, and blamed immigration for every social problem.
The New Zealand First Party, which controls the ministerial portfolios of defence and foreign affairs in the Labour Party-led coalition government, has repeatedly demanded measures to stop “mass immigration” from Muslim and Asian countries—using language not very different from that used by Tarrant and other right-wing extremists.
The barbaric attack in Christchurch underscores the warning made by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) in its January 3, 2019 statement: The Strategy of the International Working Class and the Political Fight Against Capitalist Reaction in 2019. While fascism is not yet a mass movement, it is receiving support from sections of the ruling class, the state and the establishment media.
Extreme right-wing organisations, the statement noted, have been allowed to “exploit demagogically the frustration and anger felt by the broad mass of the population.” It stressed: “All historical experience—and, in particular, the events of the 1930s—demonstrates that the fight against fascism can be developed only on the basis of the independent mobilization of the working class against capitalism.”
The ICFI has spearheaded the struggle to bring the crucial lessons of history to bear in the struggle against the promotion of fascist forces in Germany, across Europe and internationally.
This fight is at the centre of the election campaign by its European sections and a series of public meetings across the United States titled “The Threat of Fascism and How to Fight It.” The meetings will be addressed by Christoph Vandreier, a leading member of the Socialist Equality Party in Germany and author of the book Why Are They Back? Historical Falsification, Political Conspiracy and the Return of Fascism in Germany.
The ICFI must be built as the leadership of a unified, international and socialist working class movement capable of preventing the horror of fascism from overtaking society on an even greater scale than in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s.

16 Mar 2019

AIMS/Mastercard Foundation Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Fund ($10,000 Seed Grant) 2019

Application Deadline: 18th March 2019

Eligible Countries: African countries


About the Award: The MCF – SIEF aims to better prepare AIMS Mastercard Foundation scholars and alumni with knowledge and skills to innovate and generate creative solutions to social challenges. Participants will collaborate and create inspirational entrepreneurial projects that contribute to improving their lives and that of others.
The program brings together Mastercard Foundation Scholars, alumni and other AIMS Scholars and alumni to learn how Design Thinking works and how to apply it to real-world challenges. Participants will work on a specific design challenge in one of the following broad areas:

Improving existing livelihoods;

Enabling diversification of income; or

Creating dignified and fulfilling work (jobs).

By the end of the program, participants will have developed innovative entrepreneurial solutions ready to be pitched to others.

Type: Entrepreneurship

Eligibility: The applications are open to AIMS Mastercard Foundation Scholars, Alumni and other AIMS students based in Rwanda who are interested in being catalysers of socio-economic transformation. Applicants should be interested in learning how to become creative problem solvers and be committed to generating innovative entrepreneurial solutions to help improve their lives and those of others.
Applicants can apply as individuals or in teams of 2-3 people. At least one individual (preferably the one assuming the position of team leader) per application should be a Mastercard Foundation Scholar or Alumni.

Applicants can apply to the program with OR without an existing solution idea.
  • Applicants who do not have an existing idea but are passionate and committed to solving a social challenge can generate a new idea as they go through the program.
  • Applicants that already have an existing solution idea in mind should be flexible to adapt it as they go through the program’s facilitated process of innovation.
All applicants must be able to attend all training sessions and dedicate time additionally to continue developing their solution ideas

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award:
  • Skills and knowledge in Design Thinking and social innovation
  • Certificate of completion for participants attending all training sessions
  • Seed funding grants of up to $10,000 for winning solutions
  • Mentorship support for winning solutions
  • Opportunity to collaborate with other Mastercard Foundation Scholars and Alumni
Duration of Programme: 
  • 21 March: Accepted students will be notified
  • 29 March: Training sessions start
  • 17 May: Training sessions end
  • 31 May: Final Challenge
  • June – July: Follow up and mentorship support
How to Apply: 
  • It is important to go through all application requirements on the Programme Webpage (see link below) before applying

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

International Astronomy and Astrophysics Competition 2019 for Secondary/University Students ($700 Prize+More)

Application Deadline: 14th April 2019

Eligible Countries: All


About the Award: The International Astronomy and Astrophysics Competition gives you the unique opportunity to show your knowledge and astronomy skills! The IAAC is the biggest online astronomy competition for students from all countries. Win awards and cash prizes worth over 700 USD or become official IAAC ambassador in your country!

Type: Contest

Eligibility:
  • You have to be a high-school or university student to participate in IAAC 2019. There are two age categories:
    • Junior: under 18 years on 14. April 2019 (submission deadline)
    • Youth: over 18 years on 14. April 2019 (submission deadline)
  • Students from all grades and all countries are invited to participate!
  • You should be smart, open-minded, and creative to solve the science problems.
Selection: 
  1. Qualification Round: The qualification round 2019 consists of five astronomy problems and you can submit your solutions online until 14. April 2019. All participants receive certificates.
  2. Pre-Final Round: Successful participants can register for the pre-final round: You have one week to solve the ten challenging problems of the pre-final round.
  3. Final Round: Successful finalists can participate in the final round: You will take a supervised exam of 60 minutes. The winners receive certificates and cash prizes worth over 700 USD.
Value of Award: Successful participants receive many certificates, awards, cash prizes, and honors:
  • All Participants: Official Participation Certificate
  • All Finalists: Special Finalists Certificate
  • 1. Prize: 200 USD Cash Prize, Special 1. Prize Certificate
  • 2. Prize: 150 USD Cash Prize, Special 2. Prize Certificate
  • 3. Prize: 100 USD Cash Prize, Special 3. Prize Certificate
  • Special Regional Awards:
    • 1, 2, 3. Regional Award of Africa
    • 1, 2, 3. Regional Award of Europa
    • 1, 2, 3. Regional Award of Greater Middle East
    • 1, 2, 3. Regional Award of South Asia
    • 1, 2, 3. Regional Award of South East Asia
    • 1, 2, 3. Regional Award of America
We understand the crucial role of teachers and schools for scientific education. Because of that, we award several school awards to honor the efforts of the teachers and the schools:
  • IAAC School Award for Most Participants: This award receives the school with the most overall participants of the qualification round to honor the efforts of the teachers for encouraging students to participate in scientific competitions.
  • IAAC School Award for Most Finalists: This special award receives the school with the most students that have shown an outstanding performance and have participated in the pre-final and/or final round.
  • IAAC School Award for Excellence: This award receives the school with many outstanding students that have achieved high results throughout the overall competition to honor the quality education in general.
The IAAC Network: Winners and former participants of IAAC become automatically part of the IAAC network: This network consists of outstanding and talented students from all around the world!

How to Apply:     Participate Now
  • It is important to go through all application requirements on the Programme Webpage (see link below) before applying
Visit Programme Webpage for Details

UN Human Rights Fellowship 2019 for People of African Descent – Switzerland

Application Deadline: 30th April 2019

Offered annually? Yes


Eligible African Countries: Applicants of African Origin

To be taken at (country): Geneva, Switzerland

About the Award: The Human Rights Fellowship Programme for People of African Descent provides the participants with an intensive learning opportunity to deepen their understanding of the United Nations human rights system, instruments and mechanisms, with a focus on issues of particular relevance to people of African descent. The Fellowship Programme will allow the participants to better contribute to the protection and promotion of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of people of African descent in their respective countries.

Offered Since: 2011

Selection Criteria: The selection of the fellows will reflect gender and regional balance. The human rights situation of People of African Descent in the respective countries will also be taken into consideration.

Eligibility: To be eligible for the Human Rights Fellowship:
  • The candidate must be an individual of African descent living in the Diaspora. · The candidate must have a minimum of 4 years of work experience related to the rights of People of African Descent.
  • The candidate needs to have sufficient command of the English language to be able to participate fully in the programme.
  • The candidate has to submit a letter from an organization working on issues related to People of African Descent or minority rights certifying their status.
  • The candidates must be available to attend the full duration of the programme. The selected fellows will be expected to participate in different activities and to strictly follow the programme.
Number of Awards:  Not Specified

Value of Awards: Each fellow is entitled to a return ticket (economy class) from the country of residence to Geneva, basic health insurance, and a stipend to cover modest accommodation and other living expenses for the duration of the Programme.

Duration of Programme: In 2019, the Fellowship will be held from 25 November to 13 December in Geneva, Switzerland.

How to Apply: Applicants are requested to submit the following documents in one single e-mail to africandescentfellowship@ohchr.org:
  • A Curriculum Vitae
  • A completed, signed and scanned Application Form in one single document.
  • A Personal Statement (maximum 500 words) in which the candidate will explain his/her motivation for applying, and how he/she will use the knowledge gained from the fellowship to promote the interests and rights of people of African descent.
  • An Official Letter from the nominating organization or community certifying the status
  • A copy of the applicant’s passport.
  • Please note that submissions with more than five attachments will not be accepted.
Important: Please mention in the subject header of your e-mail: “Application for the YEAR Fellowship Programme for People of African Descent.”
Name the attached document as follows:
LAST NAME First name – Type of document
Example: SMITH Jacqueline – Application form.doc
SMITH Jacqueline – A Personal Statement.doc
SMITH Jacqueline – Letter certifying Status.pdf
SMITH Jacqueline – Passport.pdf



Visit Programme Webpage for details

OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) Scholarships 2019/2020 for Students in Developing Countries

Application Deadline: 14th April, 2019

Offered annually? Yes


To be taken at (country): Any recognized University in the world

Accepted Subject Areas: The Scholarship is open to those students who wish to pursue studies in a relevant field of Development or Energy Studies such as: economics of development (poverty reduction, energy and sustainable development), environment (desertification), or other related science and technology fields.

About Scholarship: The OPEC Fund for International Development – OFID Scholarship Award 2019/2020 is open for qualified applicants who have obtained or are on the verge of completing their undergraduate degree and who wish to study for a Master’s degree, to win up to $50,000.
OFID scholarships will be awarded to four students or candidates for master’s degree studies. Applicants must be from a developing country (except OFID Member Countries),  and he/she must first obtain admission to pursue a Master’s degree studies in a relevant field of development, from any recognized university/college in the world.
Through its scholarship scheme, OFID aims to help highly motivated, highly driven individuals overcome one of the biggest challenges to their careers – the cost of graduate studies. The winners of the OFID Scholarship Award will receive a scholarship of up to US$50,000. The funds will be spread over a maximum of two years, toward the completion of a Master’s degree, or its equivalent, at an accredited educational institution, starting in the autumn of the academic year 2018/2019.

Type: Masters

Selection Criteria: Applicants are responsible for gathering and submitting all necessary information. Applications will be evaluated based on the information provided. Therefore, all questions should be answered as thoroughly as possible. Once an application has been submitted, no changes will be allowed on it.

Eligibility: To be eligible to apply for the OFID Masters Scholarship, applicants:
  • Must be between the ages of 23-32 at the time of submitting his/her application.
  • Must have obtained or be on the verge of completing their undergraduate degree with a Baccalaureate from an accredited college/university, or its equivalent.
  • Must have a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher on a 4.0 rating system, or its equivalent.
  • Must be matriculated at an accredited university for the upcoming academic year starting August/September 2018, and must maintain full-time status for the duration of the Master’s Degree.
  • Must be a national of a developing country—please refer to the list of eligible countries. Please note that nationals of OFID Member Countries (Algeria, Ecuador, Gabon, Indonesia,  Iran, Iraq, Kuwait,  Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela) are ineligible to apply.
  • Must select a subject of study that pertains to OFID’s core mission, such as: economics of development (poverty reduction, energy and sustainable development), environment (desertification), or other related science and technology fields.
Number of Scholarship: Four

Scholarship Benefits: The winners of the OFID Scholarship Award will receive a full tuition scholarship of up to US$50,000. The funds will be spread over a maximum of one year, toward the completion of a Master’s degree, or its equivalent, at an accredited educational institution.

Duration: one year masters degree programme

Eligible African Countries: See the list of eligible developing countries for OFID Masters scholarship from the link below

How to Apply: Applicants must complete the online application.
Within the on-line application, applicants must upload the required documents as listed below. All materials including the on-line application, recommendations, and other required information must be received no later than the deadline date.

Required Documents
  • A completed on-line application form.
  • A scanned copy of the applicant’s passport.
  • A scanned copy of the transcripts/certificates from the highest level of education completed.
  • A scanned letter of acceptance from chosen educational institution, confirming your admission, subject of study and duration of the Master’s degree program.
  • A proof of meeting any prerequisites, including language proficiency.
  • A short essay – of about 500 words in English – giving reasons for applying for the OFID scholarship, explaining your educational goals, and clearly describing how you will use the experience gained from your Master’s degree studies to help in the development of your home country.
  • Two letters of recommendation from professors and/or lecturers at applicant’s present university (or present employer).
  • Curriculum Vitae (CV).
Only the winner will be notified via OFID website at www.ofid.org.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Sponsors: The OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID)

Chatham House Academy Robert Bosch Fellowship 2019 for Young Africans

Application Deadline: 28th April 2019 midnight (BST) 

Eligible Countries: The fellowship is open to citizens of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa comprising of Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, DRC, Republic of Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Africa, South Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

About the Award: The fellowship is open to a young African scientist with a focus on transition processes and developments in relations between Central Europe and sub-Saharan Africa.
The fellow will be based full-time at Chatham House, London for the initial three months and final three months of the fellowship.  For the intervening three months the fellow will be based full-time at a research institute in Prague.

A fellow’s time will be split between three key areas:
  • Completing a personal research project of the fellow’s own design undertaken with the guidance of a Chatham House expert, (approximately 50%).
  • Contributing to the ongoing research activities of their host research team and other Chatham House teams as appropriate (approximately 20%).
  • Participation in the Academy’s Leadership Programme (approximately 30%). The Leadership Programme is a key part of the Academy fellowships. It provides fellows with the opportunity to develop their knowledge, skills, network and self-awareness, which they can then draw upon in their future careers as effective leaders in their field.
Eligibility: 
  • Applications will be accepted from applicants holding dual nationality which includes one of these countries above.
  • It is required that the applicant holds a completed BA degree or equivalent, Masters degree with an international focus is preferred.
  • The fellowship is aimed at candidates at the mid-stage of their career and who come from academia, NGOs, business, government departments, civil society or the media.
  • They should possess knowledge of, and an interest in, one of the policy-related challenges related to global governance laid out on the Fellowships page.
Value of Fellowship: The fellow will receive a monthly stipend of approximately £2,295. Modest provision is made for the costs of relocation, fieldwork, and possible publication costs.

Duration of Fellowship: The fellowship is for a 10-month term from mid-September 2019 to mid-July 2020.

How to Apply: Applications must be submitted via the online application portal.
  • It is important to go through all application requirements on the Programme Webpage (see link below) before applying
Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Chatham House

Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev) Global Management Trainee Program 2019 for Young African Leaders

Application Deadline: 31st May 2019

Eligible Countries: African countries


To be taken at (country): 

About the Award: AB InBev offer a Global Management Trainee Programme that will help you develop and accelerate your career at one of the world’s most successful organisations.
Type: Job

Eligibility: You own your future and the speed of your career growth will depend on your talent, efforts and results. Should you meet the following minimum requirements we encourage you to apply immediately:
  • Recent University student; or
  • No more than 3 years TOTAL of full-time formal working experience by the programme start date. (Internship, vac work, short duration contracts and co-op experiences does not apply
  • Minimum GPA (Gross Point Average) of 60% and above at university
  • By programme start completed bachelors’ degree (from a recognised tertiary institution) achieved within requisite  time-frame
  • Legal work authorization (full citizenship) in the country for which application is being submitted
  • Geographical mobility – you will move to different locations during the 10-month training program, and you should be willing to relocate throughout your career (a valid passport is required)
  • Fully proficient in English
  • Proficiency in Microsoft Office (especially Excel) and ability to quickly adapt to new systems
  • Appointments will be made in line with AB InBev employment equity plan (where applicable) and talent requirements
  • Legal work authorization (completed National Youth Service) where applicable (by start of program)