Education Around the World

Keeping the language and the culture through education, Chengbei Gang'en community, in Yuexi county, Sichuan Province,China (EPA)

The heat of learning in the indigenous community in San Miguel Amoltepec Viejo in the mountains of southern Mexico.(AFP)

Primary school students forming a smile face on the playground in Taizhou, China (Xinhua)

Mobile classroom in the Santa Cruz del Quiche farming community in Guatemala's western highland (Aljazeera)

Open-air school in Doodhpathri, Kashmir

A boy attends a tuition session in a French Colonial House, Bangui, Central African Republic (Seigfried Modola)

Elderly Thai students attending an English class

Children studying inside a weaving factory in Panipat, India

Internally displaced boy does his homework in Atmeh camp, near the Turkish border, Syria Reuters/Khalil Ashawi

A young girl browses through books while sitting on a railway track in New Delhi, India.

School girls wearing pink turbans wave during celebrations to mark International Day of the Girl Child 2018 in Chandigrah, India.

Indonesian students parade to mark the Islamic new year, in Banda Aceh.

Displaced Syrian children attend class at a makeshift school in the village of Muhandiseen, in the southwestern countryside of the Aleppo province.

Students cross a bamboo bridge, above a garbage-filled stream branching off the Ciliwung River, in Bogor, Indonesia.

Children line up for a flag-raising ceremony on their first day back to school after the summer holidays, at the playground of a middle school in Shanghai, China.

A displaced girl studies the alphabet and numbers at a makeshift school at the Badbado IDP camp in Mogadishu, Somalia,

Nine-year-old Tenzin Kunphen performs a somersault during lunch break at Namgyal Monastery School in Dharmsala, India.

A group of teachers and some oftheir students use a makeshift raft as they cross the flooded street in Ranomeeto Barat village in Konawe Selatan, Sulawesi island, Indonesia.

Students use a bamboo raft to cross the Ciputrahaji River in Sukasari Village, Ciamis Regency, West Java, Indonesia. (Antara Foto)

Students from Harvest Collegiate High School stand in Washington Square Park in New York to take part in a national walkout to protest gun violence, one month after the shooting in Parkland, Florida, in which 17 people were killed.

High school senior D'Angelo McDade, front right, leads a march in Chicago's North Lawndale neighborhood, Illinois, during a walkout to protest gun violence.

Primary school students wear virtual reality (VR) headsets inside a classroom in Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Hunan province, China.

School children walk as Mount Sinabung erupts in Karo, North Sumatra, Indonesia.

A man holds onto a rope as he takes children to a school on a makeshift raft across a river in Paranaque city, south of Manila, Philippines.

Students use a bamboo raft to cross the Ciputrahaji River in Sukasari Village, Ciamis Regency, West Java, Indonesia. (Antara Foto)

In Bangladesh, thousands of children learn on floating classrooms. The floating schools collect children from stops along the river. (BBC)

In Cambodia, lessons are brought to remote villages by the Book Book Tuk Tuk. Children get a chance to see books from the mobile library and to get help from volunteer staff. Bringing books to rural villages helps communities which can miss out on schools. (BBC)

Students at the Takarazuka Music School in Takarazuka, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan pose for photos on Thursday, following their graduation ceremony.(Kyodo, Japan Today)

School girls stand in front of the stock display board during their an educational visit to Colombo Stock Exchange in Sri Lanka. (Dinuka Liyanawatte)

Children play at an elementary school as the Mount Sinabung volcano spews smoke in Karo, Indonesia.

Rohingya refugee children attend recitation classes of the holy Quran in a newly opened madrassa, or religious school, in a Balukhali refugee camp, Bangladesh.

Pupils from the Mathare North Primary School take the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) exam in the Mathare slums of Nairobi.

 Schoolgirls with homework, Pokhara, Nepal ( Dennis Carlyle Darling)

 Schoolgirls stop at a kiosk selling flowers in Pyongyang, North Korea. (Wong Maye-E)

Students wearing traditional opera masks attend an exercise session in Wuhan, Hubei province, China.

Indian students who got their faces painted in blue take a selfie ahead of Janmashtami celebrations at a college in Mumbai.

Students play Chinese chess during a school competition in Shenyang, Liaoning province, China.

Pre-school children look at the Gloriosa, the trinity bell from 1721 and the world's largest free-swinging medieval bell, in the Erfurt Cathedral, in Erfurt, Germany.

Students from a martial arts school attend a training session as they perform Shaolin Kung Fu and other practices in Dengfeng, Henan Province, China.

A young monk in Myanmar's ancient city of Bagan has found a quiet spot to read. The archway behind him offers shade and neatly frames a nearby pagoda, thousands of which dot the Bagan landscape. (Nuttawut Jaroenchai)

Palestinian Bedouin students carry their chairs to a tent after attending a class outdoors near the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim, in the West Bank village of Al-Eizariya, east of Jerusalem.

Iranian schoolgirls follow debates of lawmakers in an open session of the outgoing parliament in Tehran.

Indonesian residents wade through a flooded street in Bandung, West Java. Thousands of people fled their homes as the Citarum river overflowed in Bandung regency.

Students from a martial arts school practice Shaolin Kung Fu on cliffs in Dengfeng, Henan Province, China.

A member of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent administers a vaccination to a girl at a school in the rebel held Douma neighborhood of Damascus.

Students hold earthen pitchers filled with water as they take a holy bath ahead of the Magh Mela festival during a ceremony in Ahmedabad, India.

School children cross a makeshift pedestrian bridge over a drain covered with garbage at a slum in Karachi, Pakistan.

Pupils hold sheets with kanji characters they wrote during a calligraphy contest to celebrate the New Year in Tokyo, Japan.

Mothers and grandmothers pray for success for their family members in the college entrance examinations at a Buddhist temple in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday. About 630,000 students sat for the annual exams that could lead them to one of the country's top universities. In South Korea, there is no higher achievement than to be accepted by a prestigious university. As a result, many students prepare for these entrance exams from an early age, often studying up to 16 hours a day for years to take this test. (Kim Hong-Ji)

Teachers and students exercise on the playground located on the roof of a kindergarten building in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, China.

Pakistani school children sit in a trolley as they cross a polluted stream on the outskirts of Islamabad.

Students wash their hands before eating at the school's canteen in N'zikro, Aboisso, Ivory Coast. (Thierry Gouegnon)

A boy studies at a window of his house at Dadri in Uttar Pradesh, India. (Anindito Mukherjee)

Students from Junior Secondary School Dutse Alhaji participate in a cultural dance performance during celebrations to commemorate Nigeria's 55th Independence Day in Abuja, Nigeria. (Afolabi Sotunde)

University students dressed in traditional costumes perform during the grand Confucian ceremony of Seokjeon at a shrine at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, South Korea. Seokjeon is a biannual ritual to consecrate Chinese philosopher Confucius and his disciples as supreme teachers at civil temples.

Henan, China: Freshmen from the Zhengzhou Institute of Aeronautical Industry Management balance bottles of mineral water to improve their posture. (ChinaFotoPress)

A teacher conducts a German lesson for children in a welcome class for immigrants from Syria, Egypt and South Korea at the Katharina-Heinroth primary school in Berlin, Germany. (Fabrizio Bensch)

South Korean elementary school students in a traditional Korean costume participate in "Gwageo" or "state examination" as reenactment during Guro Book Festival in Seoul, South Korea. The Gwageo examination, first took place in A.D. 958, to select national government officials, who studied Confucian classics, in Korea, was abolished after 1894. (Ahn Young-joon)

Indian students attend a yoga workshop conducted by teachers from the Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Institute at the FD Higher Secondary School in Ahmedabad, to mark World Yoga Day.

Indonesian students attend morning exercise as Mt. Sinabung (R) spews volcanic ash in Karo district, North Sumatra province.  Nearly 3,000 people have been evacuated from their homes after Indonesia upgraded the threat from the volcano to the highest possible level.

A woman and some students wade in the shallow part of a rocky beach to their school on the first day of the classes in Sitio Kinabuksan, Kawag village, Subic, Zambales Province, north of Manila, the Philippines.

Students graduating from the School of Law cheer as they receive their degrees during the 364th Commencement Exercises at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

Hundreds of students of the school of nursing take part in an open-air examination at a playground of an vocational college in Baoji, Shaanxi province, China.

A student of the Krasnoyarsk choreographic college prepares backstage before a dress rehearsal of a performance by graduates of the college at the State Theatre of Opera and Ballet in Russia's Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk.

School girls perform a song during an accordion class in Pyongyang, North Korea.

Thousands of public school teachers march in Bogota demanding better pay and reforms in the education system. Colombia's public education teachers began an indefinite nationwide strike. The move affects about nine million students and is rejected by the government.

Students take an examination on an open-air playground at a high school in Yichuan, Shaanxi province, China.

Paul Alexander Hatyay (C), the headmaster, and teacher of Central School, lays out books to dry in the sun after the roof of the school's library was blown away by Cyclone Pam in Port Vila, the capital city of the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu.

School children wearing padded hoods to protect them from falling debris sit on running track during an earthquake simulation exercise at an elementary school in Tokyo, Japan.

Afghan refugee schoolgirls attend a class at a makeshift school on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan. (Muhammed Muheisen)

Students wearing traditional hanbok dresses bow as they attend a graduation and coming-of-age ceremony at the Dongmyeong girl's high school in Seoul, South Korea.

More than 3,000 students, teachers and nuns from the Catholic-run St. Scholastica's College, wear purple ribbons and dance to take part in the global campaign to end violence against women and girls dubbed One Billion Rising, in Manila, Philippines.

Children are accompanied on their walk to school through Guizhou Province, China (Quirky China News)

Amish children travel to school in their horse and buggy in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States (Alvin Trusty)

Schoolgirls ride bicycles past cherry blossoms on their way to school in Tokyo, Japan (ThirtyFive Millimeter)

Uighur children meander to school in Xinjiang Uyghur, China (Flickr)

Children arrive at their lakeside school on Lake Titicaca in the Uros Islands, Peru (Ladigue99)

High school students travel to school by boat in Indonesia (World Bank)

A Thai father drives his children to school in Chiang Mai, Thailand (drburtoni) 

 

Children trek across a rope bridge to school in El Salvador (Milosz Reterski) 

 

Children ride on horseback to school in rural Uruguay Flickr: Vince Algoni)

Girls avoid sewage on their way to school in Cité Soleil, Haiti (BBC World Service)

A donkey pulls Palestinian children to school in Gaza (IRIN Photos)

A boy ride his bike to school on a flooded street in Cambodia (Lydia Kopecky)

 

Two boys walk to school in the UK (Ivy Dawned)

  

Schoolboys cross a river to get to school in the Philippines (Wikipedia Commons)

Two boys row their way to class in Allapuzla, India (Binny VA)

 

Young boys hop a ride on a train to school in Bangladesh (itinerantobserver)

 

A schoolgirl walks through the desert to class in Ghana (World Bank)

 

Students walk miles to school in rural South Africa (World Bank)

A young schoolgirl is accompanied by a father on her walk to school in Old Havana, Cuba (Pim Horvers)

    

Schoolchildren hike through Gholghola Valley to get to class in Afghanistan (Hadi Zaher)

Students form "2015" standing on snow to welcome the upcoming New Year at Shenyang Agriculture University in Shenyang, Liaoning province, China.

Afghan schoolchildren study at an open-air classroom in the Mohmand Dara district in eastern Nangarhar province.

Top high school students attend an annual award ceremony organized by Yemen's Education Ministry in Sana'a.

Students have lunch outdoors at a primary school in Tongguan village, Liping county, Guizhou province, China.

Students take cover under their desks inside a school during an earthquake drill in Santiago, Chile. (Ivan Alvarado)

Students sing Thailand's national anthem at a school in Bangkok. (Athit Perawongmetha)

Indian schoolchildren perform yoga at a Delhi Public School in Hyderabad.

Students walk on a street covered in Mount Sinabung volcanic ash in Sukandebi village, North Sumatra. (Dedy Sahputra)

Schoolchildren wait for the rickshaw puller along the roadside in the morning at the old quarters of Delhi, India.

Palestinian students inspect their destroyed classroom on the first day of classes in the Shejaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City. (Wissam Nassar)

Students from a primary school attend a traditional elebration to mark the National Teachers' Day at the Confucius Temple in Beijing.  (Xinhua)

Tents are pitched for parents of new students in the gymnasium of Tianjin University in China. The university set up more than 200 tents for parents who accompanied their children to their enrollment. (China Foto Press)

Elementary school children wear fire proof hoods as they gather in a hall during an earthquake drill at a school in Tokyo. (Yoshikazu Tsuno)

Afghan girls attend their graduation ceremony at the Pir Massoudia Islamic madrassa in Kandahar province south of Kabul.

Children of a kindergarten admire the giant mouth of a primeval Megalodon shark model at the Natural History Museum in Schleusingen, central Germany.

Graduates jump as they pose for photographs in front of the Tiananmen Gate and the giant portrait of late Chinese Chairman Mao Zedong, on the Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

Kindergarten children practice at a Peking Opera class in Liaocheng, Shandong province, China.

Nepalese students hug trees during a mass tree hugging event on the World Environment Day on the outskirts of Katmandu.

Students of the Krasnoyarsk choreographic college take part in a dress rehearsal of a performance at the State Theater of Opera and Ballet in Russia's Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk,

Afghan schoolchildren sit outdoors at an open classroom in Ghazni. (AFP)

Students sit astride on a bamboo raft as they are ferried across a river on their way to Casili Elementary School for the first day of classes, in Rodriguez, Rizal province, east of Manila. (Romeo Ranoco}

Yemeni female university students celebrate during their graduation ceremony in Sana'a.

A young monk finds reading light inside a pagoda in Bagan, Myanmar. (Marcelo Castro)

A school in the Kumasi region, Ghana funded by Fairtrade cocoa producers. (James Robinson)

Palestinian schoolgirls stand in front of a mural during an awareness training session on dangers of unexploded ordnance at a school in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. (Said Khatib)

An elementary school boy acting as an young woman performs during a show of an amateur children kabuki theatrical company in Tokyo, Japan.

 Kindergarten students sit in a playground during an earthquake simulation exercise at an elementary school in Tokyo. (Yuya Shino)

Elementary schools in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei province, have devised an unusual idea to deal with a rising number of shortsighted students. Bars similar to those installed on fairground rides have been fixed to pupils' desks to prevent them squinting too closely at their work. (Imaginechina)

Bangalore, India: Students conduct relaxation exercises. (Jagadeesh)

Schoolchildren travel to their school in a rickshaw on a cold morning in the old quarter of Delhi, India.

The whole school in Sijiji village in Ta Liang Mountain, Sichuan province in China where it is freezing cold. This is the home of the Yi minority . 

Students look at the Mount Sinabung eruption from their school in Naman Teran village in North Sumatra, Indonesia. (Beawiharta)

Tajik children review tattered class notes before school. (Michael Yamashita)

A school boy walks past a street mural depicting a school bus and students in Shah Alam, outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (Samsul Said)

Students attend a ceremony in front of a portrait of China's late chairman Mao Zedong at the Democracy Elementary and Middle School in Sitong town, Henan province. (Carlos Barria)

A young woman holds her baby in an elementary school in Bangui, Central African Republic. (Fred Dufour)

Newly-graduated Afghan midwives attend a commencement ceremony at the Governor's House in Jalalabad, Nangarhar province.

Afghan schoolchildren take lessons in an open classroom at a refugee camp on the outskirts of Jalalabad, Nangarhar province, Afghanistan.

An Afghan refugee girl attends a daily class for illiterate refugees set at mosque on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan. (Muhammed Muheisen)

Students cross Ciherang river on a bamboo raft on their way home from school in Cilangkap village, Lebak Regency in Banten province, Indonesia. The raft has been used since the bridge collapsed due to flooding.

Young Sikh boys at a school in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Steve McCurry)
 

Girls attend a class at their primary school in a village in the Yemeni capital Sanaa. (Khaled Abdullah)

Thousands of students are taking part in a mock exam at an art school in Nanjing in China ahead of the national art college exams. (HAP)

Students from President Corazon Aquino Elementary School use their notebooks to cover their heads as they participate in an earthquake drill in Manila, after a 7.1-magnitude earthquake that hit the central Philippine island of Bohol. (Noel Celis)

Faculty of medicine first year students run while seniors spray them with different types of sauces, liquids, flour and eggs as part of an annual tradition during a celebration in honor of their patron Saint Lucas at Granada University in Granada, southern Spain.

Schoolgirls sing with their teacher at their makeshift school on the outskirts of Islamabad.  (Muhammed Muheisen)

A boy recites from a book during a lesson at a school in a slum on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan. (Reuters)

 

Children study in a school in the Swat Valley, Pakistan. (Anja Niedringhaus)

Left to right, nine-year-old twins Camila and Carla Rodriguez, six-year-old twins Asley and Aslen Velazquez, and 11-year-old twin brothers Arian and Adrian Cueto walk together to school in Havana, Cuba. (Ramon Espinosa)

Determined little girls read aloud from books containing short verses from the Koran in a madrasa on the outskirts of Islamabad. (Faisal Mahmood)

Schoolgirls stand in line on the first day of class at a school in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (Dieu Nalio Chery)

Students learn how to make Chinese cold dishes at a privately owned vocational school for chefs in Fuyang, Anhui province. (Wang Biao)

Syrian children in Damascus salute while listening to the national anthem before the start of the school day. (AP)

Afghan schoolchildren at a school in Ghazni province in east Afghanistan. (Rahmat)

Teachers gathered in Bilbao, Spain, at the University of Deusto, a Spanish Jesuit university, for an opening ceremony for the academic year. (Alfredo Aldai)

Students form a heart shape and the Chinese character of the date "September 10" to express their best wishes for their teachers at a primary school in Lin'an, Zhejiang. (icpress)

Elementary school students row a raft to school in Gulong township, Southwest China’s Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. Among 80 students at the Chenshan campus of Chenping Village Elementary School in Gulong, more than 30 live on the other side of a reservoir and have to use bamboo rafts, rowing 500 meters to school. Otherwise, they have to go through a 4-kilometer mountain road that is often closed during flood season.

Parents of freshmen students sleep on mats laid out on the floor of a gymnasium at Huazhong Normal University in Wuhan, Hubei province. (Reuters)

Children eat a snack as they walk to school on a rainy morning in Rangoon, Burma.(Gemunu Amarasinghe)

Misha Blackmon says goodbye to her daughter, Aliyah Young, 5 during the first day of school at Booker T. Washington Elementary School. (Eve Edelheit)

Six-year-old Japanese elemetary student Seishi Nishida walks to school in Tokyo. (Yoshikazu Tsuno)

Palestinian school children stand at the patio of their UNRWA school on the first day of the new school year in Gaza City. (Mahmud Hams)

Leon, 9, walks to school in Moudon, western Switzerland. (Fabrice Coffrini)

Maia, 5 years old, gets a hug from her nanny on her way to school outside her home in Hong Kong. (Philippe Lopez)

Kelvin Leadismo,12, with his schoolbag hanging on his shoulder, tends to his family's cattle at Kisima township of Kenya's nothern county of Samburu before he heads off at tuition. The Samburu community students are usually unable to attend regular daytime classes, at nearby Loltulelei primary school. The school runs a parallel tuition program that enables shepherds to acquire literacy through the two to three hour tuition courses presided over by volunteer teachers. (Tony Karumba)

Guatemalan Margarita Samayoa kisses her six-year-old daughter Valentina Rodas before she enters school in Guatemala City. (Johan Ordonez)

Six-year-old Japanese elementary student Seishi Nishida (C) raises his hand along with classmates at school in Tokyo. (Yoshikazu Tsunoy)

Colombian indigenous child from the Nasa ethnic group Gari Camayo Pito, 12, (2nd-L) and his sister (R) meet two cousins on their way to school in the village of Las Guacas, rural area of Florida, Valle del Cauca department, Colombia. (Luis Robayo)

Salvadorean girl Silvia Alvarado, 10 years old, prepares to go to school in the village of Metalio, in the city of Acajutla, west from San Salvador, El Salvador. (Jose Cabeza)

Nine-year-old South Korean student Lim Jee-Woo walks to school in Goyang, north of Seoul. (Jung Yeon-Je)

Genesis Tuazon, 8 years old, grade three student at the Pangulo Elementary School, works on her school assignment inside her house at the Artex Compound in Malabon City, Manila. (Noel Celis)

Six-year-old monk apprentice Tandi Dorji (C) as he walks to breakfast at a monastery in Thimpu, the capital of the Kingdom of Bhutan. Dorji is the youngest monk at the Buddhist monastery where over 200 monks learn among other things, about meditation, chants, holy scripture and about performing rituals honoring various bodhisattvas. (Roberto Schmidt)

Venezuelan child Leobardo Medina, 8, goes to school in Caracas. (Leo Ramirez)

A Bosnian boy, Aldemar Alikavazovic, 12, walks in his neighborhood in a western suburb of Sarajevo on his way to school. (Elvis Barukcic)

Kenier Alvarado combs her son Geral Sequeira's hair before he goes to school in La Carpio neighborhood, in San Jose, Costa Rica. (Hector Retamal)

Wei Hanqi, 9, packs his bag as he prepares to walk to school in Beijing. (Ed Jones)

Egyptian student Farris Hamid, 6, opens his schoolbag in the hallway at the Egypt British International school in Cairo. (Khaled Desouki)

A child walks to school in Qunu, a village outside the town of Mthatha in the Eastern Cape, where former South African President Nelson Mandela grew up. (Jennifer Bruce)

(Top L): Kelvin Leadismo, 12, empties his schoolbag in Kisima township of Kenya's nothern county of Samburu. (Top R): View of Emma Xerroch's schoolbag taken in La Orotava on the Spanish Canary Island of Tenerife. (Bottom L): View of 9-year-old South Korean student Lim Jee-Woo's schoolbag and accessories at her home in Goyang, north of Seoul. (Bottom R):The contents of a trunk that six-year-old monk apprentice Tandi Dorji shares with a class mate at a monastery in Thimpu, the capital of the Kingdom of Bhutan. (Tony Karumba / Desiree Martin / Jung Yeon-Je / Roberto Schmidt)

Seven-year-old Thai student Chamaya Pamutito (2nd row of children, 2nd L) listens to a teacher in the computer room at a school in Bangkok. (Christophe Archambault)

Seven-year-old Ema Lanska walks with her mother on the Charles bridge on her way to school in Prague. (Michal Cizak)

Genesis Tuazon, 8 years old, rides on a boat to go to school from her house at the Artex Compound in Malabon City, Manila. (Noel Celis)

Six-year-old monk apprentice Tandi Dorji (L) sits in a group with other young monks repeating holy scriptures in front of their teacher at a monastery in Thimpu, the capital of the Kingdom of Bhutan. (Roberto Schmidt)

Senegalese 7-year-old pupil Ndeye Fatou Ndiaye attends a lesson in her classroom, at the Franco-Arab school of Diagnel, 14km south of Kaolack, central Senegal. (Seyllou)

Silvia Alvarado (2nd R), 10, lines up before class at the Bernd Grabs School, in the village of Metalio, city of Acajutla, 50 Km. west from San Salvador, El Salvador. (Jose Cabesas)

Kelvin Leadismo (3rd L), 12, and his classmates attend a tuition class at Loltulelei primary school in Kisima township of Kenya's nothern county of Samburu. (Tony Karumba)

Gerald Sequeira, 8, at school in La Carpio neighborhood, in San Jose, Costa Rica. (Hector Retama)

Valentina Rodas, 6, stretches at school in Guatemala City. (Johan Ordonez)

Six-year-old student Frances McMillan (R) studies with classmates at school in the Coogee suburb of Sydney. (Saeed Khan)

Kelvin Leadismo,12, does his homework by a firelight in his family's manyatta (traditional home plastered with cowdung) with his siblings in Kisima township of Kenya's northern country of Samburu. (Tony Karumba)

Yibanathi Matikinca, 10, does her homework at her home in Qunu, a village outside the town of Mthatha, in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. (Jennifer Bruce)

Hungarian pupil Csongor uses the tram to go to school in Budapest. (Ferenc Isza)

Children sit in their classroom of their UNRWA school on the first day of the new school year in Gaza City. (Mahmud Hams)

Seven-year-old Thai student Chamaya Pamutito rides a scooter as she travels back from school along with her father and mother in Bangkok. (Christophe Archambault)

Autumn Watson does her homework in her dining room in Centerville, Maryland, after class at Centreville Elementary. (Jim Watson)

Omoze Ogwogho, 7, a pupil of the Christower International Schools, one of Nigeria's private schools, sings during morning assembly in the southwestern city of Ibafo, Ogun State. (Pius Utomi Ekpei)

Schoolchildren attend a new term opening ceremony at Tran Quoc Toan Primary School in Hanoi, Vietnam. There are over 18 million children in primary and middle schools in Vietnam. (VNA)

Indian Muslim girls reciting the Qur'an in their classroom at Madrasatur-Rashaad religious school in Hyderabad. (Noah Seelam)

Children lined up at their school on the first day of the new academic year in the Cuban province of Granma. (Agence France-Presse)

A pupil yawns as he takes part in a ceremony marking the start of classes during the traditional opening of the school year known as 'Day of Knowledge', in St. Petersburg, Russia. (Dmitry Lovetsky)

Tibetan students at a primary school in Hefei, Anhui province, throw their paper planes — on which they have written their best wishes — into the air as they welcome the first day of the new semester. (Du Yu)

“My brother does his homework every afternoon in his little cubby in the wall. He only has one book to read, but he reads it every night because he wants to do well in his class. I like this picture because it shows my brother at his happiest.” ~ Hamida, Herat

A Confucian scholar waits for graduation ceremony at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, South Korea. The school was founded in 1398 and considered as the oldest school in East Asia. (Lee Jin-man)

Students play with their iPads at the Steve Jobs school in Sneek. The Steve Jobs schools in the Netherlands are founded by the O4NT (Education For A New Time) organization, which provides the children with iPads to help them learn with a more interactive experience.

Students wait in a school courtyard for the first day of classes to begin in Mexico City. (Ivan Pierre Aguirre)

Afghan boy doing his homework, along side his father who mends shoes for living.

North Korean schoolchildren rub their eyes after having to face into the sun while getting their class photograph taken. (Wong Maye)

School boys carry their tiffin boxes as they wait to receive the free mid-day meal, distributed by a government-run primary school, in New Delhi. (Ahmad Masood)

A kindergarten in Taiwan provides physical training sessions, a series of exercises that combines marine drills and gymnastics for pre-school and school aged kids. The training helps children grow well in both mind and body, according to the principal. (China Daily)

Students cover their heads with notebooks during an earthquake drill at Elena high school in Marikina city, Philippines. (Romeo Ranoco)

Candidates applying for a place at the Medical University of Vienna wait to sit an exam in a hall of the fair grounds in Vienna. Almost 10,000 people applied for the 700 places available. (Patrick Domingo)

 Doctoral robes: Chinese traditional style

Master's robes: Chinese traditional style

Graduates getting bachelor's degrees wear new Chinese-style robes during graduation at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang province. (CFP)

Students prepare to sleep on mats laid out on the floor inside a gymnasium at Huazhong Normal University in Wuhan, Hubei province, China. (Stringer)

Students, one wearing a face mask and the other covering her mouth with her headscarf, leave for home after an early dismissal from school due to the haze in Muar, in Malaysia's southern state of Johor bordering Singapore. (Bazuki Muhammad)

Parents wait outside a school as their children took the National College Entrance Exam in Huaibei, Anhui province, China. (Reuters)

Syria: A student wears a headlight, due to electricity shortage, as he takes his year-end examinations at a school in Aleppo's al-Sha'ar district. (Muzaffar Salman)

An Oxford University student gets 'trashed' after finishing his exams. Trashing is the practice whereby students have all manner of messy items thrown at them by their contemporaries after finishing their exams. (Stefan Wermuth)

Elementary pupils attend the opening day of classes at a school in a remote village in Rodriguez township, Rizal province, east of Manila. (Bullit Marquez)

Filipino students of Batasan Hills National high school gather for morning assembly on the first day of the new school year in Quezon City. Close to 21 million students began a new school year today. (Rolex Dela Pena)

Rizal province, Philippines: Students cross a river on the first day of a new school year in a remote village. (Dennis M. Sabangan)

Elementary pupils cross a river on a raft to attend the opening of classes for the school year at a remote village in Rodriguez township, Rizal province, east of Manila, Philippines.

Nine-year-old Bacho Tsiklauri and his mother Lela Machkhashvili, 39, sit in their home in the village of Makarta, some 100 km north of Tbilisi. Bacho is the only pupil at the primary school in Makarta, which is located in a remote mountain gorge and has about 30 residents. (David Mdzinarishvili)

Students study for the upcoming gaokao exam at Lhasa Middle School, China. (Xinhua)

Schools out for summer....school leavers dressed in Soviet school uniforms attend the Last Bell celebration in Manezhnaya Square. (Novoderezhkin Anton)

Child studying at school in Nighamaniguda village near Dumuriput, Koraput district, Orissa, India. (Marji Lang)

Ukrainian students fool around in a fountain as they celebrate the end of their school term at the Independence square in downtown Kiev. (Sergey Dolzhenko)

College graduates, wearing period costumes and academic dresses, pose for graduation photos at Zhejiang Agricultural and Forestry University (ZAFU) in Lin'an city, China. (Chen Shengwei)

Jose Luis, 7, in his school uniform, falls asleep in a barber's chair, while waiting for his father's work shift to end, in Old Havana, Cuba. (Ramon Espinosa)

Students at Yixian County Senior Middle School in Jinzhou, Liaoning province, China who will take the college entrance exam, play games to ease pressure under the guidance of psychology teachers. (Li Tiecheng)

Final sprint to national college entrance exam at Guyuan No 1 High School in Guyuan city, Ningxia Hui autonomous region in China. (Xinhua)

Beijing, China: Pupils evacuate during an earthquake drill at the Fendou elementary school. (Li Wen)

Educating Burma's migrant children in Thailand. Children not in Thai state schools are sometimes educated in migrant learning centers, such as this one in Muang. (KT Watson)

Children learn tea ceremony at a training class in Changchun, Northeast China's Jilin province. The class, held on weekends, teaches children 3 to 6 years old about traditional Chinese culture, including etiquette and Han Chinese costumes. (Xinhua)

An undergraduate chemistry class at Dagon University, near Yangon. The higher education system in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, was gutted after 50 years of military rule. (Chris McCord)

Students practice martial arts during morning exercises for the first time at Jiujiang Primary School in East China’s Jiangxi province. (Xinhua)

Casual America: A student in flip flops and shorts (C) watches as U.S. President Barack Obama (not pictured) receives an honorary degree during the spring commencement ceremony at Ohio State University in Columbus. (Jason Reed)

Children at a kindergarten in Bozhou, Anhui province, study the correct postures for sleep. (Liu Qinli)

Lalitpur, Nepal: A student, carries his bag while returning home from school at Khokana. (Navesh Chitrakar)

Young Brunei girls practice their writing at Pengiran Anak Puteri Besar primary school which is built on stilts above the water, in Kampung Ayer (the wooden stilt village) near the capital of Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam. It is compulsory for all children to learn Malay and English. (Barbara Walton)

Indonesian high school students celebrate graduation by spray-painting their uniforms after finishing their national final examination in Medan, North Sumatra. (Dedi Sahputra)

Indian school children eat a free midday meal at a government-run school in Allahabad, India. (Rajesh Kumar Singh)

Students attend a lesson at a public school in Gudele, on the outskirts of South Sudan's capital Juba. The literacy rate in South Sudan is about one in four adults, according to local media. (Andreea Campeanu)

Nicaraguan schoolgirls look at their new laptops donated by the Zamora Teran Foundation to elementary students as part of the One Laptop per Child Program. (Esteban Felix)

Qunu, South Africa: Children singing at the Qunu junior secondary school (Chip. Somodevilla)

A Palestinian teacher speaks in class at a school in Gaza City. (Mahmud Hams)

Students walk through the mountains on their way to school in Xinmin village, Weining county, Guizhou province, China. (CFP)

Students toss their caps after the 5th convocation of National Law Institute University in Bhopal, India.

Pakistani schoolchildren attend their daily classes in a makeshift school set in a clay house on the outskirts of Islamabad. (Muhammed Muheisen)

Students at the Jiaxing Elementary Primary School, Zhejiang, China. Dressed in the traditional Chinese Hanfu clothing, they follow their teacher to recite Chinese classics. (Chu Yongzhi)

Afghan boys study at a makeshift school in the village of Budyali, Nengarhar Province, Afghanistan. (AP)

Cambodian schoolchildren walk home after morning lessons at Tnoat Kpoh village in the outskirt of Phnom Penh. (Heng Sinith)

An outdoor class in session, somewhere in Africa.

Floating school in Tonle Sap lake, near Siem Reap, Cambodia. (Zane & Inzane)

Women sit on the floor as they take notes from the teacher at their literacy class in Basundhara. Although there is a wide age range in the class, there are fewer younger women (15 to 24) as the literacy rate among this group is higher. (Niranjan Shrestha)

Primary school students eat fried beans at school in Zaozhuang, East China's Shandong province. (Ji Zhe)

Students walk in the examination site at the Zhongnan University of Economics and Law in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei province to sit for the independent college entrance exam, three months before the national one. (Chu Lin)

Children smile pose for a photograph during their pre-school graduation at Childhood Kindergarten in Phan Thiet, the capital of Bình Thuận province in southeastern Vietnam. (Nguyễn Thái Bình)

 Students and teachers gather to attend a flag-raising ceremony on the roof of a branch of Lingzhi primary school, which is housed inside a rented four-storey residential building, in Wuhan, Hubei province, China. (Stringer)

Syrian refugee girls attend class at the Bab Al-Salam refugee camp in Azaz, near the Syrian-Turkish border. (Hamid Khatib)

A child monk studies at a monastic school in Bhutan. (Jean-Baptiste Lopez)

A Malian schoolgirl stands at the blackboard as schools reopen in Gao, northern Mali. (AP)

A man carrying 5 schoolchildren on his motorcycle near Lahad Datu, Sabah, East Malaysia.(Ahmad Yusni)

An Indonesian teacher checks her notebook as students study during a 3rd grade social studies class in Jakarta, Indonesia. (Ed Wray)

A government run school in Burma. Decades of military misrule has left the country's education in a mess. But change is in the air. (The Independent, UK)

Ndege Basic School, Zambia. The school lacks basic facilities such as desks. (Jason Larkin}

Senior students clad in traditional costumes bow during a joint graduation and coming-of-age ceremony at Dongmyung Girls' high school in Seoul, South Korea. (Ahn Young-joon)

Students attend class at the Musa Neka Public School in Wana, the main town in Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal region bordering Afghanistan. (Faisal Mahmood)

Afghan schoolchildren walk home after classes in an open classroom on the outskirts of Jalalabad. (Noorullah Shirzada)

School children use a boat to cross the Bengawan Solo river to Beton village to school in Sukoharjo, Central Java, Indonesia. (Rudianto)

China: A preschool student looks up as other children take an afternoon nap in a classroom of a school for children of migrant workers in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province. (William Hong)

Islamabad, Pakistan: girls attend class at a school in a slum on the outskirts of the city. (Zohra Bensemra)

China: Students sit in a classroom doing eye exercises at a primary school for children of migrant workers in Shanghai. (Darcy Holdorf)

South Korea: A teacher gives a lecture at a cram school in a Goshichon, which means "exam village" in Korean, in Seoul. (Lee Jae-Won)

Ruzhou, China: Children play at a sparse kindergarten. (Aly Song)

Students from Hongtuwanquan Primary School do exercises in a playground in Yichang city, Central China's Hubei province.  (Zhou Jianping)

Students pray at the morning assembly, Jigme Losel primary school, Thimphu, Bhutan. (Jean-Baptiste Lopez)

These children are enjoying their walk across a new bridge over a river to get to school at Sanghiang Tanjung village in Lebak, Indonesia. The bridge has replaced one that was damaged after flooding in January that left the students with a treacherous daily journey. (Beawiharta)

An Indian schoolgirl yawns as she rides with friends to school on a bicycle rickshaw in New Delhi, India. (Kevin Frayer)

Afghan university students attend an exam in Baharak district in Badakhshan. Three universities in the capital Kabul have been closed for more than a week after sectarian clashes left one student dead and nearly 30 others wounded, an official said. (Sharif Shayeq)

Mali: An Islamic teacher instructs students in Quranic verses in Djenne. (Joe Penney)

Elementary school children wade through a river to go to school in the village of Nagari Koto Nan Tigo in Indonesia’s West Sumatra province. School children from around 46 families in the village are forced to cross the river every day because there is no bridge, villagers said. (Reuters)

Seven-year-old Long Dihao exercises at a primary school in Dazu, China. (Barcroft Media)

Students from No 22 Primary School of Yinchuan take part in a relay during a fire escape competition in Yinchuan, capital of Northwest China's Ningxia Hui autonomous region. Different activities are held across the nation ahead of the National Fire Fighting Day to teach students fire safety skills. (Xinhua)

About 800 schoolchildren and teachers from 14 schools form the shape of a Chinese white dolphin, along with the word ‘Protect’ and Chinese characters ‘Ocean’, at Repulse Bay in Hong Kong. (Reuters)

Students from a high school cheer for their seniors in front of a college entrance examination hall before the exam begins in Seoul. About 660,000 students sat on Thursday for the annual exams that could lead them to one of the country's top universities. In South Korea there is no higher achievement than to be accepted by a prestigious university. As a result, many students prepare for these entrance exams from an early age, often studying up to 16 hours a day for years to take these tests. (Kim Hong-Ji)

Underprivileged Indian children attend a free school run under a metro bridge in New Delhi, India. At least 30 children living in the nearby slums have been receiving free education from this school for the last three years. (Altaf Qadr')

A therapist hypnotizes students retaking the college entrance exams, during a meditation session at Deung Yong Moon Boarding School in Kwangju, some 40 km (25 miles) southeast of Seoul October. South Korea's exam hell is an annual event so full of pressure that many students are driven to despair, with some even taking their own lives. Some 140,000 of the test takers signed up for this year's entrance exam. The really determined, or desperate, may decide to spend nine months at one of 40 private boarding schools like Deung Yong Moon ("Gateway to Success") to dedicate their waking hours for the test. (Kim Hong-Ji)

India: Graduates of the Trivandrum Medical College rejoice after their convocation ceremony in Thiruvanantapuram. (Anand Shinde)

      Students of the Indian Institute of Technology Gachibouli rejoice after their convocation at Hyderabad. (PTI)

Children and their parents take a rest in the tents they have pitched up after participating in after-school classes at the Youth and Children's Center in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. Chinese children are always accompanied by their parents to take part in some interest classes after school to improve their skills. (CFP)

Ulan Bator, Mongolia: Pupils line up during a physical education class at the Khanbogd secondary school. The school has added a new extension to accommodate the growing number of students. (Paula Bronstein)

Hazara schoolchildren in a class at Ummat public school in Mehrabad, Quetta. The Hazaras are almost all members of Pakistan's Shi'ite minority. (Naseer Ahmed)

Martial arts students perform in China.

Elementary students exercise in a school in Nanchang, Jiangxi province, China. (Xinhua)

Learn and grow together: displaced Pakistani students from the country's tribal areas sing with their teacher at a school on the outskirts of Islamabad. (Nathalie Bardou)

Spain: Students are out in force protesting against education cuts at the Sant Jaume square in Barcelona. (Manu Fernandez)

Kalash female students walk to class through the entrance of the Kalasha Dur and community centre in Brun village, located in Bumboret Kalash valley. The Kalash, who number about 3,500 in Pakistan's population of 180 million, are spread over three valleys along the border with Afghanistan and are known for their distinctive dress, vibrant religious festivals, and polytheism. (Rebecca Conway)

Six-year-old Mozama leads a class in a lesson at the Rabia Beulkhi School for girls in Quetta's Hazaratown in Pakistan. (Adrees Latif)

Children learn to identify different kinds of grains to mark World Food Day at a kindergarten in Lianyungang city, East China's Jiangsu province. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization has designated Oct 16 World Food Day since 1981. It has been observed every year in more than 150 countries, raising awareness of the issues behind poverty and hunger.  (Xinhua)

A boy in a school uniform waits for a rickshaw driver to make an adjustment on a cool morning in New Delhi, India. The rickshaw is a common mode of transport in many Indian cities. (AP)

Villagers ride their electric tricycles to pick up their children outside a primary school in Shouxian town, Jiangsu province. At least 15 children from the school were killed when their school bus crashed. (Reuters)

India: Students at Sree Karpagavalli Vidhyalaya school in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, watching Khan Academy math videos. (R Krithivasan)

Students participate in an evacuation drill, in the event that they are caught in a crossfire between the army and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels, at a school in Toribio, Cauca. (Jaime Saldarriaga)

Blindfolded students participate in an activity on Friday to experience being deprived of sight for an hour at a primary school in Guangping county, Hebei province. (Cheng Xuehu)

Delhi, India: Indian schoolchildren sit in the back of a bicycle rickshaw as they head to school. (Kevin Frayer)

The journey to school for these Filipino children from a remote village in Rizal province involves floating across a swollen river. Using inflated rubber tires as rafts, the children brave the waters then walk two kilometers just to reach their community's school. They have asked for a suspension bridge from the local government in order to make the crossing safely. (Dennis M Sabang)

A girl looks from inside a school as she waits for her parents to pick her up in the old part of Rangoon, Burma. (Reuters)

Indian schoolchildren receive a free midday meal at a state school in Jammu. (Channi Anand)

Middle school students sing revolutionary songs as they hold Chinese national flags during a ceremony to celebrate their National Day in Huaying, Sichuan province. (Reuters)

School children dressed as ancient Chinese scholars, perform during a traditional ritual to celebrate Confucius' birthday, or Teachers' Day, at Taipei's Confucius Temple, Taiwan. (Reuters)

Egyptian students ride aboard a truck towards their school, as they approach a road checkpoint during a joint military and police anti-arms and drug traffickers campaign at the governate of Qaliubiya, north of Cairo. (AP)

School children offer prayers inside their school in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad for the victims of a bomb blast outside Delhi's High Court. (Reuters)

Fingertip revolution in India: Boya Babu browses his I-slate, as his father ploughs his field at Mohammad Hussain Pally in Ghanpur Mandal of Jadcharla in Mahbubnagar district (116 km from Hyderabad), Andhra Pradesh.

Students wearing Young Pioneer red scarves practice Chinese calligraphy at Renmin square in Chongqing municipality. (Reuters)

Belarusian school boys hold torches as they stand in front of one of the most important Soviet WWII war monuments marking the heroic resistance of the Red Army against the surprise German attack during a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of Nazi invasion in the town of Brest, 360 kilometers (223 miles) southwest of Minsk. (AP)

Students in graduation robes stand on a stone bridge submerged underwater at the flooded Donghu Lake in Wuhan, Hubei province, China. (Reuters Image)

Children wear headphones as they drum on a simple percussion instrument to explore musical sounds at a tonal exhibition sound workshop at the popular Nicolaus Copernicus Science Center in Warsaw, Poland. (AP)

Taipei, Taiwan: Children dressed as ancient Chinese scholars have their picture taken after a traditional ritual to celebrate Confucius's birthday on Teachers' Day, at the Confucius temple. (Reuters)

Afghan student women attend a maths class under a tent at the Nangarhar University campus in Jalalabad. The students are using the tents because the normal classrooms are full. (Noorullah Shirzada)

Lifelong learning: Villagers read over tea in winter in Padham, Zanskar Valley, India. (Martin Hartley)

Afghan children run to school in a village on the road to Naghlu near the French army base. (Jeff Pachoud)

Baghdad, Iraq: Schoolchildren leave their classroom in Sadr City. Students nationwide returned to school after a three-month summer holiday. (Hadi Mizban)

Students at a middle school use iPads during a history lesson in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu province. (CFP)

Students in Sana'a begin their school day singing the Yemen national anthem.  (Khaled Abdullah)

A man carries benches to a safer place after a school was flooded due to heavy rains at Bassi Kalan village in the outskirts of Jammu. India's monsoon rains were 21 percent above average, the third straight week of heavier-than-normal rains. (Mukesh Gupta)

Guy Thing: Students in an all-boys class at Shanghai No 8 High School on Thursday. (Gao Erqiang)

Burma: Students attend class at Kankone village school that was enveloped in smoke from a sulphuric acid factory at Sarlingyi township in Myanmar. Soe Zeya Tun

Rural China: Zhang Baofu teaches many students in a cornfield in Xiaodianhe village outside Henan province's Xinxiang city because the school is in a remote mountainous area.

A boy writes on a notebook onside his house at a slum area in Mumbai, India. (Rafiq Maqbool)

Newly graduated doctors have their picture taken holding their diplomas after a graduation ceremony at the 'Karl Marx' theater in Havana, Cuba. (Ramon Espinosa)

Known as the wujiao, the half-hour nap is a familiar concept in schools across mainland China and generally happens straight after lunch.  As their buildings are too small to include dormitories and most of the pupils live too far away to go home for lunch, they take their traditional midday nap on top of their desks.

Afghanistan: Rural school. The numbers of educated Afghan children have gone up these past years since the fall of the Taliban

 Rural India: 1.3 million schools are being set up under the the Right to Education Act, 2009

 Sierra Leone, Africa: Regmel Preparatory School in Hastings SL

History: Pupils in Chinese traditional costumes attend a ceremony to learn knowledge and etiquette at Confucius temple in Nanjing, China. - Yang Duoduo


Religion: Indonesian students at the Ar Raudhatul Hasanah Islamic boarding school in Medan city in Sumatra island hold prayers during Ramadan. (AFP)

Monsoon: Schoolchildren walk in the rain in Hyderabad, India. The monsoon rains which usually hit India from June to September are crucial for farmers whose crops feed hundreds of millions of people. (AP)

Education: Muslim girls study in the light of candles at a madrasa or religious school during a blackout in Noida on the outskirts of New Delhi. (Reuters)


Religion: A Pakistani boy, center, listens to his teacher on how to read verses of the Quran in a mosque on the outskirts of Islamabad. (AP)

Education: Students from Pashupatinath Veda Vidya Ashram, a school on Hindu religious teaching, look out from the window of their class, in Katmandu, Nepal. (AP)