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Pakistan is pushing to educate more of its children, amidst financial woes and a struggle for more funding. Their goal: 100% enrollment. Of course, there is a great effort also to build a firewall in Pakistan much like the "great firewall of China." That said, there are many lovely educators from Pakistan who contribute and connect increasingly online and I wish this country well as well as the many countries working to increase enrollment. "As schools returned to session in Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province this fall, the newly elected provincial government - with the help of the non-profit campaign Alif Ailaan - launched an enrollment drive. In its first month, the drive managed to enroll nearly 245,000 out of school children - about 65% male and 35% female - across 25 districts of the province, according to figures provided by Alif Ailaan. But considering Pakistan's education woes, where more than 25 million children between the ages of 5-16 remain out of school, it is a small step. "In order to provide schooling to all the kids, we need about Rs. 138 billion (roughly $1.2 billion) just in KP - for school infrastructure, classrooms, teachers so on and so forth," Joudat Ayaz, the province's education secretary, told me over dinner. Ayaz estimates the number of out of school children in KP between 2 to 3 million, about 20% to 30% of the school-age children in the province. "You can't do this [reaching 100% enrollment] in one go - you have to do it progressively, over six or seven years.""

Web 2.0 Web Quest from Bernie Dodge today -- India and Pakistan conflict resolution.

Excellent Webinar opportunity this Thursday from edutopia. The Power of One: Greg Mortenson's Crusade to Promote Peace through Project Learning Thursday, April 15, 2010 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM PDT Webinar Registration Host: Suzie Boss, journalist and Edutopia.org blogger Presenter: Greg Mortenson, best-selling author of Three Cups of Tea Can one person really make a difference in the world? Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea, describes his own unlikely path from mountaineer to humanitarian. His best-selling story has inspired thousands of students to contribute to school-building efforts in remote regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan through a service-learning program called Pennies for Peace. Supported by a multimedia, standards-based curriculum for grades K-12, Pennies for Peace culminates with student-driven projects that develop leadership skills and build cross-cultural understanding. Mortenson explains how the program works, how teachers can get involved, and why students benefit from authentic opportunities to make their own difference in the world.

"How girls in an area of Pakistan are quietly fighting for their right to get an education."

"Any research based or inquiry-based project seems to work well for me. I enjoy leading the children through the process of developing a research question. It's always interesting to hear what goes on in the minds of these inquisitive learners. Last year my grade 8 (14-year-olds) were working on the impact of government systems on individual and Societies. Students took up the case studies of India and Pakistan, some of them worked on Arab-Israeli conflict, and yet another group picked the Berlin Wall and its impact on the population."

Great article about the partnership between University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and our latest Flat Classroom Project, NetGenEd. This sort of arrangement in which preservice teachers served as expert advisors and judges for the project provided real, authentic learning experiences for both students and participants. We skyped into Eric's classroom a few times to talk to his students about pedagogy and they did a great job providing feedback and input on the project. It would make sense that many more preservice programs are going to want to put in authentic distance learning experiences for their preservice teachers and there are many teachers who need high quality feedback and educator review and interaction for their projects.