Our research work in urban instructional environments, arts-integrated classrooms, and the different styles of assessment resulted in helping our partners create more powerful learning environments. It also turned up thousands of school sites that have been destroyed by natural or man-made disasters, or are simply in need of new classrooms, a problem we had not predicted we would have to address. One of our responses is providing a portable classroom that delivers the power of learning to children who have lost all hope of learning.
Education for All (EFA) is an international initiative first launched in Jomtien, Thailand, in 1990 to bring the benefits of education to “every citizen in every society.” In order to realize this aim, a broad coalition of national governments, civil society groups, and development agencies such as UNESCO and the World Bank committed to achieving six specific education goals: