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This is Meena. She’s 17 years old. She’s a student in Balkh province in northern Afghanistan. Meena is also one of the 687 Afghan students interviewed for Oxfam’s new report, High Stakes: Girls’ Education in Afghanistan, published today. Since the fall of the Taliban, girls’ enrolment in education has increased from an estimated 5,000 under the Taliban, to a current total of 2.4 million girls. Obviously, this is a significant gain, but there’s still a long way to go.

In April 2012, following the celebration of International Women's Day, the Swedes formally introduced the genderless pronoun "hen" to be used in place of he and she (han and hon).

Egalia, a new state-sponsored pre-school in Stockholm, is dedicated to the total obliteration of the male and female distinction. There are no boys and girls at Egalia—just "friends" and "buddies."

Classic fairy tales like Cinderella and Snow White have been replaced by tales of two male giraffes who parent abandoned crocodile eggs. The Swedish Green Party would like Egalia to be the norm: It has suggested placing gender watchdogs in all of the nation's preschools. "Egalia gives [children] a fantastic opportunity to be whoever they want to be," says one excited teacher.

I completely underestimated how much the girls would enjoy playing with shadow puppets. Whenever something so simple makes them so happy, I can’t help but smile!! And this was SUPER simple. Added bonus — the perfect entertainment for whenever a power outage occurs. Our little shadow puppet theater was made from an empty cardboard box with the bottom cut out, and replaced with two sheets of white tissue paper held in place with packaging tape. As for the shadow puppets — you didn’t think I sat there and cut them all out by hand did you?? I am far too lazy for that! Instead, we attached some fairy tale foam stickers to toothpicks with a bit of tape. Of course, just about any kind of foam sticker would work well for this, and they are available in so many different themes: Under The Sea, Dinosaurs, and Fairies to name a few. Very very easy, and the girls LOVED their shadow puppets! They could not wait to put on a show!! A bit of styrofoam (recycled from some left over packaging) inside the box made it easy for them to position their puppets. Dim the lights, turn on a flashlight (my girls adore this Melissa and Doug Mollie Ladybug Kids’ Flashlight), and enjoy the show for hours of creative playtime fun! Have fun!!

even if one were to believe that the sanctity of the courts is so fragile that a punitively deterrent punishment is required for the flinging of footwear, it is impossible to ignore the incongruous disparity in the punishments meted out to these two men for crimes of such vastly different seriousness.

Much has been said about the judge’s unbelievable comment when sentencing Noor Afizal. Apparently being a national bowler with a bright future is enough to let you escape jail time for rape.

what is this “bright future” the judge is thinking about? The man is a child rapist; he confessed to it. He should not be allowed to represent the country in anything at all.

50/50: Confronting the Inevitable by Ryan.Paine (This teen struggled dramatically with the thought of death)

  A Beautiful Mind inspired me to explore the world’s mysteries by Jonesy1106 (“I need to believe that something extraordinary is possible”)

A Goofy Movie taught me how to be a better daughter by jklawls (Parents have their kids’ best interests at heart)

away from the classroom, stupidity and smartness are really only relative to what it is one actually needs to know. Because, yes, Gemma hasn’t much of a grip on Ukraine – neither have I, but I’m a damn good bluffer – and neither can she nail the spelling of Barack Obama without making it sound like a delicious vitamin C drink. But as a beautician, Gemma is one of those girls I am constantly giving money hand over fist to.Gemma has a skill. Gemma will most probably have a thorough understanding of Shellac nail procedures and skin exfoliation. She’ll probably know how to remove excess upper-lip hair, push back cuticles and spray a Fantasy tan without missing elbows or staining knees. So, yes, Gemma seemingly can’t spell Barack Obama. But she will always be in employment.

We deride the differently skilled and slap down the not quite as sharp, but the country’s cogs turn via the energies of people not quite as bookish as you.

Gemma’s slight confusion that Obama is a high-level influencer in British politics – no Westminster pundit in the land would quibble at this suggestion. Also, her worry about provoking Russia and her fear of war aren’t silly in the slightest, they’re absolutely bang on the money

The latest prevalence studies of autism indicate that 1.1% of the population in the UK may have autism. This means that over 695,000 people in the UK may have autism, an estimate derived from the 1.1% prevalence rate applied to the 2011 UK census figures.

Emerson and Baines (2010) in their meta-analysis of prevalence studies found a range of people with learning disabilities and autism from 15% to 84%, with a mean of 52.6%.

Following the assassination of Osama bin Laden by American forces in Pakistan, a high school teacher in Clear Brook, Texas was placed on administrative leave after he allegedly told an American Muslim girl in his 9th grade Algebra class "I heard about your uncle's death" and "I bet that you're grieving." More than 2,000 Change.org members took a stand against racism towards the American Muslim community, sending a clear statement that it is completely unacceptable for an American Muslim student to be targeted and publicly insulted in front of her peers out of the ignorance and hatred of her teacher.

NAS welcomes the overall proposed approach to streamline diagnostic criteria and make them simpler, to develop dimensional measures of severity and recognise the range of full health problems someone is experiencing, as well as any other factors that impact on their diagnosis.

the proposed severity levels are not fit for purpose and potentially very unhelpful as they are currently drafted

need to be much more detail to make the severity levels appropriate and widely applicable.

Over the past 30 years there has been a greater effort, backed up by law, to integrate disabled children into mainstream education. But in the Victorian era they often attended educational institutions supported through philanthropic fundraising.

To encourage donations, schools emphasised the "miseries" of sensory deprivation.

Unhappy about these negative representations of disabled people, an un-named "intellectual blind man" of the era said: "I assure you it is not blindness, but its consequences, which we feel most painfully, and those consequences are often laid on us most heavily by the people who are loudest in their expressions of pity."

“We must have higher ambitions than staying around the average level among OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries,” declared the Minister at Tuesday’s press conference in Oslo.

Norway is within the OECD (mean) average bracket when it comes to the sciences (494), and slightly below it in math (501). But these are still not results, “we can be satisfied with,” added Minister Isaksen.

The PISA 2012 survey results were slightly different when it came to Norwegian students’ reading skills. They have improved since the last time, albeit just slightly, with 503 in 2009, against 504 now – though female pupils still did better than their male peers.