School fees an obstacle to African development

As she traveled through western Africa last month, stopping at crowded clinics and impoverished classrooms, Laura Bush had a message: If this region of AIDS and poverty wants to lift itself out of Third World woe, then more African girls need to enroll in school. And if countries want their girls educated, then something needs to be done about school fees, the money many children here must pay to enter public classrooms. For more on this issue see the San Francisco Chronicle.