Education

December 1st comes around again. Grateful to witness it once more. So many memories - the most vivid from Campion Days of old...pushing for almost glory or just plain survival through fields of mud, up frosted hills, leading or trailing friends of yore.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were eight time-bound goals providing concrete, numerical benchmarks for tackling extreme poverty in its many dimensions.

The MDGs included goals and targets on income poverty, hunger, maternal and child mortality, disease, inadequate shelter, gender inequality, environmental degradation and the Global Partnership for Development.

Adopted by world leaders in the year 2000 with the attention of being achieved by 2015, the MDGs were both global and local, tailored by each country to suit specific development needs. 

The eight MDGs below in turn broke down into 21 quantifiable targets that were measured by 60 indicators.

The Tinkering School allows children to build, experiment, become deeply immersed in and committed to projects (decoration has a special and surprising role to play).

Do many mainstream schools (still) offer such opportunities? If not, how can we help them do so?

Imagine too how many adults remain short of confidence about their own practical skills, and how such an approach might help them too.