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While the improved 2023 matric pass rate is cause for celebration, consider the almost 500,000 children who started grade one in the same year but dropped out of school along the way. What can be done to ensure that more learners stay in the system until grade 12?

Niclette Mundabi of Atlanta wanted to do something special for her 35th birthday. Instead of receiving presents, she decided to give books—thousands of books—to children in her native country, the Democratic Republic of Congo.

BRAINERD — The community is invited to attend the next Rosenmeier Forum, "Filling a Continent of Libraries: ¿ìèÊÓƵ," happening at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 28, in Central Lakes College’s Chalberg Theatre on the Brainerd campus. The speaker is Pat Plonski, executive director of ¿ìèÊÓƵ.

"The toughest job you'll ever love" was the old slogan in Peace Corps PSAs. The public service announcements still ring true for former and future volunteers, Peace Corps Director Carol Spahn says. It "resonates with anyone who has ever served in the Peace Corps, because it so directly speaks to not just how challenging it is, but just how transformational it is." Including for Spahn herself, who served in post-Cold War Romania from 1994 to 1996 as a small-business adviser. Later, before her 2022 ascension to director, she held other organizational roles, including chief of operations in the Africa region.

United States Peace Corps Director Carol Spahn said during a recent Minnesota visit that she’s focused on reinvigorating the Corps after operations were suspended as the pandemic unfolded in March of 2020, leading to the evacuation of over 7,000 volunteers across the world. 

At last week's summit in India among the top 20 industrialized nations, the G-20 made the African Union a member, just as it had previously done with the European Union. The move reflects Africa's economic trajectory, which, if demography is destiny, will only grow, since it's the youngest continent. With that youth comes an ever-increasing need for education — and an ever-increasing need for books. It's a need that for 35 years the St. Paul-based organization Books for Africa has heroically tried to address.