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Teachers Without Borders

Launch of World Atlas of Gender Equality in Education - 0 views

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    To mark International Women's Day, UNESCO and the UIS have jointly released the World Atlas of Gender Equality in Education, which includes over 120 maps, charts and tables featuring a wide range of sex-disaggregated indicators.   The vivid presentation of information and analysis calls attention to persistent gender disparities and the need for greater focus on girls' education as a human right.   The atlas illustrates the educational pathways of girls and boys and the changes in gender disparities over time. It hones in on the gender impact of critical factors such as national wealth, geographic location, investment in education, and fields of study.     The data show that: Although access to education remains a challenge in many countries, girls enrolled in primary school tend to outperform boys. Dropout rates are higher for boys than girls in 63% of countries with data. Countries with high proportions of girls enrolled in secondary education have more women teaching primary education than men. Women are the majority of tertiary students in two-thirds of countries with available data. However, men continue to dominate the highest levels of study, accounting for 56% of PhD graduates and 71% of researchers.
Konrad Glogowski

BBC News - UK education sixth in global ranking - 2 views

  • The UK's education system is ranked sixth best in the developed world, according to a global league table published by education firm Pearson. The first and second places are taken by Finland and South Korea. The rankings combine international test results and data such as graduation rates between 2006 and 2010. Sir Michael Barber, Pearson's chief education adviser, says successful countries give teachers a high status and have a "culture" of education.
  • Looking at the two top countries - Finland and South Korea - the report says that there are many big differences, but the common factor is a shared social belief in the importance of education and its "underlying moral purpose".
  • The report also emphasises the importance of high-quality teachers and the need to find ways to recruit the best staff. This might be about status and professional respect as well as levels of pay.
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  • The rankings show that there is no clear link between higher relative pay and higher performance.
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    "The UK's education system is ranked sixth best in the developed world, according to a global league table published by education firm Pearson. The first and second places are taken by Finland and South Korea. The rankings combine international test results and data such as graduation rates between 2006 and 2010. Sir Michael Barber, Pearson's chief education adviser, says successful countries give teachers a high status and have a "culture" of education."
Teachers Without Borders

A New Face of Education: Bringing Technology into the Classroom in the Developing World... - 0 views

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    Our goal is to provide a broad overview of some of the common education challenges facing the developing world and the range of different technologies that are available to help address them. We look closely at the different enabling conditions that frequently shape the success or failure of technology interventions in education and derive a set of seven basic principles for effective technology use. These principles can provide guidance to decision-makers designing, implementing or investing in education initiatives. In doing so, we look both at the primary and secondary, as well as at the higher levels, of education systems.
Themba Dlamini

NON EMPLOYEE BURSARIES FOR FULL TIME STUDY AT HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS - Phuzemtho... - 0 views

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    NON EMPLOYEE BURSARIES FOR FULL TIME STUDY AT HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS
Teachers Without Borders

Student Drop Out Rate on the Increase Despite Free Education - IPS ipsnews.net - 1 views

  • The free primary education, which is also compulsory, saw many children, particularly from poor families; enjoy an opportunity to be in school. Based on reports by the Ministry of Education, the number of boys and girls enrolled in primary school has risen from five million to a staggering eight million.
  • According to the latest Kenya Demographic Health Survey (KDHS), 40 percent of adolescent girls without any education are either pregnant or have already become mothers. In addition, for those girls with only a primary school education, 26 percent are mothers compared to an eight percent of those who have a secondary school education or higher.
  • "This shows that the impact of secondary and even college education can delay child- bearing and therefore give girls an opportunity to pursue their dreams," expounds Nelly Mwangi, a teacher in Nairobi.
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  • According to the findings of a national survey of secondary school students, over 13 percent of students will have experienced their first pregnancy by the time they celebrate their fourteenth birthday.
  • "Although there is sexual education incorporated into the curriculum, it is too basic and may not be an effective intervention, based on all the explicit messages that children are exposed to from such an early age," explains Paul Kipkorir, a teacher in Nairobi.
  • To fill the gap, various stakeholders have begun supporting the ‘Return to School’ programme, which has faced numerous challenges. " Pupils taunt and mock those who come to school after giving birth. Schools therefore need to be more sensitive to teenage mothers if they are to continue with their education," explains Paul Kipkorir.
  • Further, there have been various efforts towards more preventive measures. The Ministry of Education is now working closely with organisations that have vast experience in the field of adolescents’ reproductive health and are able to provide more comprehensive information on sexuality in schools.
Teachers Without Borders

Education |P6 in Uganda pupils cannot do fractions - report - 2 views

  • Although the introduction of Universal Primary Education (UPE) has boosted enrollment in primary schools (Uganda boasts 8.3 million children in primary schools compared to 2.3 million before 1997), numerous pupils continue to perform poorly at one of the most important aspects of basic education.
  • The report stated that, “Few primary six pupils demonstrated skills in other competences of ‘measures.’ Only about a third of the pupils (35.2 per cent) could for example tell the time shown on the clock face and merely 4.1 per cent of the pupils could apply the concept of capacity in real life situations.”The tests sampled pupils in 1,098 schools from all the districts in Uganda between the ages of nine and 15 and over.
  • Findings indicate that the main reason why pupils cannot practically apply what is taught in class is the teachers failure to identify the weakness of the pupils in the various areas of study.
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  • The report says: “the cause of this is failure to use assessment to diagnose pupils’ and to guide teaching and inadequate practice as these pupils do their work. Primary Six pupils, whose teachers had a university degree or Grade III teaching certificate, performed better than those whose head teachers had a Grade V teaching certificate. Pupils with head teachers who reside at school performed poorer than those whose head teachers live outside the school.”
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    It is evident that the sources of these problems must be sought in earlier grades, and even in the experiences of Ugandan pre-schoolers. Compare them with what I describe at http://replacingtextbooks.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/higher-mathematics-for-children/ for children in the US. There are excellent materials on fractions online. See http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Open_Education_Resources for links to some sites that have as many as 100,000 e-learning resources available. Even if students do not have computers, teachers who can access these lessons can adapt them for the classroom or for individual practice, and share them with teachers who do not have Web access. On the issue of fractions, see also http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/TurtleArt/Tutorials/Fractions for an approach that requires no computers, but will be enhanced with software activities fairly soon. If your students have trouble with these exercises, and you can tell us why, we will work with you and them to develop materials that meet their needs. You will also have to tell us if there are circular Ugandan foods that we can use in lessons for children who are not familiar with European/American cakes, pies, and pizza. ^_^ When you have a 4.1% success rate on a particular topic, and thus a 95.9% failure rate, it cannot be said that individual teachers have failed to recognize individual difficulties. This is evidence that the entire curriculum is misdesigned. I assume that this is some part of the holdover colonial education system from before independence, designed originally for European children, with no relation to the prior experi
Teachers Without Borders

allAfrica.com: Kenya: Nation Wins Praise for Its Education Budget - 2 views

  • Tunis — Kenya has been cited as one of the best spenders in education in Africa, signalling its commitment to international development goals. An international education conference in Tunis, Tunisia, heard at the weekend that Kenya commits 7 per cent of its total income to education annually, surpassing the continental average of 5 per cent.
  • The figure this year is Sh180 billion, with basic education taking Sh150 billion and Sh30 billion for higher education. As a result, school enrolment has increased by more than 20 per cent in the past five years, putting the country on good stead to realise education for all goals.
Teachers Without Borders

Vietnam demands English language teaching 'miracle' | Education | Guardian Weekly - 0 views

  • More than 80,000 English language teachers in Vietnam's state schools are expected to be confident, intermediate-level users of English, and to pass a test to prove it, as part of an ambitious initiative by the ministry of education to ensure that all young people leaving school by 2020 have a good grasp of the language.
  • But the initiative is worrying many teachers, who are uncertain about their future if they fail to achieve grades in tests such as Ielts and Toefl."All teachers in primary school feel very nervous," said Nguyen Thi La, 29, an English teacher at Kim Dong Primary School in Hanoi."It's difficult for teachers to pass this exam, especially those in rural provinces. B2 is a high score.""All we know is that if we pass we are OK. If we don't we can still continue teaching, then take another test, then if we fail that, we don't know."
  • "No teachers will be sacked if they are not qualified because we already know most of them are not qualified. No teachers will be left behind and the government will take care of them. But if the teachers don't want to improve, then parents will reject them because only qualified teachers will be able to run new training programmes."
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  • The state media recently reported that in the Mekong Delta's Ben Tre province, of 700 teachers who had been tested, only 61 reached the required score. In Hue, in central Vietnam, one in five scored B2 or higher when 500 primary and secondary teachers were screened with tests tailored by the British Council.
  • "B2 is achievable enough. The teachers I know want to improve their English but want their salaries to be higher so that they can have an incentive to try harder to meet the standard," said Tran Thi Qua, a teacher trainer from the education department in Hue.
  • A new languages-focused curriculum delivered by retrained teachers should be in place in 70% of grade-three classes by 2015, according to ministry plans, and available nationwide by 2019. English teaching hours are set to double and maths will be taught in a foreign language in 30% of high schools in major cities by 2015.
  • "The government needs to fund courses to help improve the quality of the teachers, and pay them more money, but I think if teachers don't want to improve, then they should change jobs," she said.
  • Rebecca Hales, a former senior ELT development manager at British Council Vietnam, said: "The ministry is taking a phased approach, which is commendable, but there are issues with supply and demand. They don't have the trained primary English teachers. The targets are completely unachievable at the moment."
  • "The teacher trainers we trained up are now at the mercy of the individual education departments. There's no evidence at this stage of a large-scale teacher training plan," Hales said.
  • "There are many challenges. We are dealing with everything, from training, salaries and policy, to promotion, how to train [teachers] then keep them in the system. I'm not sure if [Project 2020] will be successful. Other countries have spent billions on English language teaching in the private sector but still governments have been very unhappy with the outcomes."
Teachers Without Borders

allAfrica.com: Rwanda: Wanted - 4,000 English Teachers - 0 views

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    The Ministry of Education will recruit 4,000 teachers to teach in the English language in secondary schools, as part of its strategy to put the country at the same level with its EAC partners of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania in creating higher education and job opportunities. In an exclusive interview with The New Times, the State Minister-in-charge of Primary and Secondary Education, Dr Mathias Harebamungu, said the recruitment will be done in January 2012 to coincide with the new academic year.
Teachers Without Borders

allAfrica.com: East Africa: EAC States to Harmonise Education - 0 views

  • Kampala — Higher education in East African Community states is to be harmonised by May this year. Minister of State for Higher Education Mwesigwa Rukutana told Daily Monitor last week that a number of meetings will be conducted in the next three months to discuss the similarities and differences in the current education system among the partner states.
Teachers Without Borders

Soon, tougher eligibility for school teachers - The Times of India - 0 views

  • MUMBAI: Becoming a primary school teacher will get tougher. Beginning from next academic year (2012-2013), the state government is making passing graduation compulsory for those aspiring to be educators.
  • Admitting that with change in education system such as virtual classes, e-library, internet learning and other hi-tech education methods, it is a need of the hour to change the decade old rules and qualification needed to take up the job of required a teacher. But, the minister refused to reveal details of the department plans on the issue.
  • Some teachers have supported the move, while few have objected it. "Raising the qualification limit for becoming a primary schoolteacher will not help in improving the quality of education. There is need to change their mindset of teachers in view of Right To Eductaion (RTE)," said Ramesh Joshi, who heads Brihanmumbai Mahapalika Shikshak Sabha, the largest BMC teachers` union.
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  • However, Aruna Pendse, associate professor with the Mumbai University`s department of civics and politics, supported the move. "Raising the pre-qualification condition (for a primary schoolteacher`s job) may result in children getting quality education," she said.
  • According to the existing rules, to become a primary schoolteacher one needs to pass the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) exam and then enrol for a diploma in elementary education (DEd).
Teachers Without Borders

Teach soft skills in schools to reduce unemployment - 0 views

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    Statistics show more than half of the 1.3 million candidates who sat for Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) obtained between E and D+, 596,895 candidates attained D+ and below. Over the past four years, at least 100,000 candidates of the 300,000 who sat the KCSE examinations annually do not attain the minimum entry grade for higher education. Half of the 304,000 candidates who took the KCSE exams in 2008 scored below a mean of grade of D+. What happens to these literate 'failures' who leave school believing they are failures?
Martyn Steiner

http://elearning.qataracademy.wikispaces.net/file/view/57.pdf - 1 views

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    An example of implementing PBL in a higher education setting
Konrad Glogowski

Japan: Family and nation grapple with teen bullies - CNN.com - 1 views

  • Her mother, Setsuko, lights another candle at her daughter's altar and says a prayer for her, as she does every day. She is convinced bullying at school was one of the main reasons Yumi killed herself. In the months preceding her suicide, Yumi told her mother she was being taunted by some of her classmates. "I called the school and spoke to her teacher," she says. "The teacher said, 'I'll deal with this problem' and never got back to me, so we assumed it was solved."
  • investigating the cause of her suicide, hearing from her parents, collecting as much information as possible including the possibility of bullying." The school also spoke to students, but school officials found no information that connected to her suicide, they said. A recent court case ruled in the school's favor. Yumi's parents filed an appeal to a higher court on Monday.
  • Real-life 'mean girls' 'Mean girls' grow up Living with cyber bullying Yumi hinted at bullying in the note she left behind, writing that her decision to take her life "may be because of some of my classmates, studies and exams." But the parents are still fighting a legal battle with the school and the Kitamoto Board of Education. The family alleges the school was negligent in bully prevention and investigating her suicide. Shinji Nakai claims the school only showed him a fraction of the investigation they carried out -- a claim the board of education rejects. In a statement to CNN, the Kitamoto Board of Education said it was "co-operative
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  • The case has prompted the government to set up a special team to help schools and board of education curb bullying. The new anti-bullying task force will be responsible for identifying cases of serious bullying at an early stage and giving advice to education boards and schools, said Hirofumi Hirano, Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, at a press conference Tuesday.
Teachers Without Borders

South Korean students' 'year of hell' culminates with exams day - CNN.com - 0 views

  • Seoul (CNN) -- Most South Korean students consider their final year in high school "the year of hell." It is when all students are put to the ultimate test. About 700,000 test applicants sat down in classrooms across the country Thursday to take their college entrance exams -- also known as the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT).
  • For many, this one test -- which lasts a good eight hours -- will determine which university they enter. It is considered the chance to make or break one's future. In a country where more than 80% of high school students move on to higher-level education, getting into a prestigious school is all the more competitive. The final year leading up to the test is one of most intense periods students will ever experience.
  • Many test-takers will give up sleep, living sometimes on only five hours of rest a day throughout the year. Family members live nervously in fear that they will disrupt the mood of their high-school child.
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  • South Korea's obsession with education and academic success is rooted in Confucianism. The long practice of equating social status with academic achievement has left behind a tradition of pouring everything into studying.
  • From elementary school ages, South Koreans will spend many hours in cram schools after their regular classes. Almost 75% of the student population last year took up private education, according to the Ministry of Education.
  • For a senior high school student, a study routine will include self-study sessions at school, cram school classes and more self-studying hours late into the night at private cubicles. This is all on top of their regular class hours.
  • The psychological burden is such that South Korea suffers from high student suicide rates. More than 200 students committed suicide in 2009 and about 150 the following year, according to Ahn's Presidential Advisory Council on Education, Science and Technology.
Teachers Without Borders

allAfrica.com: Africa: Abolishing Fees Boosts African Schooling (Page 1 of 2) - 0 views

  • UNICEF, the UN children's agency, reports that the abolition of school fees has had the intended effect of vastly increasing access to education. The number of primary students in Kenya has increased by nearly 2 million.
  • Encouragingly, the dropout rate, an important measurement of affordability and educational quality, has also fallen. The share of students completing primary school jumped from 62.8 per cent in 2002, the last year fees were charged, to 76.2 per cent two years later as fewer poor children were forced out for nonpayment.
  • the lifting of fees in Kenya and other countries in sub-Saharan Africa has proved to be a giant step forward for access to education by millions of the region's poor. It has helped Africa make progress towards its goal of finding a place in school for all its children. GA_googleFillSlot( "AllAfrica_Story_InsetB" ); var ACE_AR = {site: '768910', size: '180150'}; Over the last 15 years a number of other countries, including Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Ethiopia, Malawi and Mozambique, have also experienced explosive growth in primary school enrolment following the elimination of fees. The UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) estimates that between 2000 and 2007 overall primary school enrolment in sub-Saharan Africa rose by 42 per cent - the greatest rate of increase in the world. As a result, the percentage of African children in primary school increased from 58 to 74 per cent. A few African countries, including Botswana, Cape Verde, Togo and Mauritius, could achieve universal primary enrolment by 2015
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  • But the increase in school attendance is only a start. Despite the surge in enrolment, almost half of the 72 million children out of school worldwide in 2007 lived in sub-Saharan Africa.
  • The UN's MDG Monitor website, which tracks progress towards the goals, estimates that school fees and other mandatory charges, such as uniform costs and dues for parent-teacher associations, consume an average 25 per cent of poor families' household budgets in Africa. But except for the costly fees often assessed on parents in wealthy districts, the sums collected are too small to dramatically improve the quality of learning.
  • Malawi primary school: The abolition of school fees greatly increased school enrolment, but without sufficient teachers or adequate funding, educational quality suffered.
  • Despite the huge increase in students, the number of teachers in Kenyan primary schools has increased slowly amidst government concerns that hiring large numbers of unqualified teachers would lower instructional quality and increase costs. By reassigning teachers from overstaffed areas to understaffed districts and running some schools in double shifts, Kenya kept its national pupil-to-teacher ratio from rising beyond 40 to 1 in 2004. Ratios were much higher in some provinces, however.
  • The government also managed to reach its target of one textbook for every three students in most subjects - an improvement in many poorly performing, largely rural districts that were not given priority for teachers and supplies before 2003
Teachers Without Borders

allAfrica.com: Uganda: A Successful Year in Education - 0 views

  • The increased funding has enabled the education ministry to implement a number of projects. The ministry distributed over sh8.8b to the Universal Secondary Education programme to purchase laboratory equipment.
  • The construction and renovation of 217 secondary schools countrywide started this year. The 217 schools are part of the 1,400 schools which will be repaired under a World Bank funded project. About 4,297 classrooms, 41 administration blocks, 144 libraries, 405 science rooms and 71 staff quarters are to be constructed.
  • In a bid to improve quality, the P6 and P7 curriculum was reviewed. The new upper primary curriculum is to focus on "what a child can gain from a lesson, other than what a teacher can complete in a syllabus". Illustrations like graphs and tables have been simplified.
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  • For close to 15 years, national examinations in Uganda were synonymous with late deliveries and leaking of question papers, missing papers, and cheating. However, this year's examinations have arguably been the best organised. The examinations body hired over 7,000 scouts on top of thousands of invigilators and supervisers, who ensured the exercise's success. However, cases of candidates sitting using candles at night and late deliveries of examination material were reported in some examination centres.
  • New pledges for 2011 The Government has issued several pledges that it says will be implemented come next year. The pledges include the following: The number of government sponsored students in public universities to increase from 4,000 to 6,000. Free A' level education, which is to cost over sh85b next financial year Rolling out the long-waited tuition loan scheme for privately sponsored university students Construct and renovate more teachers houses, classrooms, science laboratories and latrines About 20,000 teachers will get jobs in the Government over the next five years Government to offer housing loans to teachers who have taught for about 20 years.
  • Poor quality in UPE schools UPE has led school enrollment to soar from two million pupils in 1997 to almost 8 million today. However, it came with other challenges which include lack of lunch for pupils, low pay for teachers, inadequate accommodation, laxity in school inspections and teacher absenteeism.
  • e National Council for Higher Education closed Lugazi University over alleged failure to meet the minimum standards in the last four years of its operation.
  • For over two weeks, lectures were suspended at Kampala International University this year when students rioted, protesting a new rule subjecting them to fines if they delay to pay tuition fees.
Teachers Without Borders

Jiang Xueqin: The Test Chinese Schools Still Fail - WSJ.com - 1 views

  • It's ironic that just as the world is appreciating the strengths of China's education system, Chinese are waking up to its weaknesses. These are two sides of the same coin: Chinese schools are very good at preparing their students for standardized tests. For that reason, they fail to prepare them for higher education and the knowledge economy.
  • So China has no problem producing mid-level accountants, computer programmers and technocrats. But what about the entrepreneurs and innovators needed to run a 21st century global economy? China's most promising students still must go abroad to develop their managerial drive and creativity, and there they have to unlearn the test-centric approach to knowledge that was drilled into them.
  • Both multinationals and Chinese companies have the same complaints about China's university graduates: They cannot work independently, lack the social skills to work in a team and are too arrogant to learn new skills. In 2005, the consulting firm McKinsey released a report saying that China's current education system will hinder its economic development.
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  • Even Shanghai educators admit they're merely producing competent mediocrity.
  • This year the Chinese government released a 10-year plan including greater experimentation. China Central Television's main evening news program recently reported on Peking University High School's curricular reforms to promote individuality and diversity.
  • Shanghai's stellar results on PISA are a symptom of the problem. Tests are less relevant to concrete life and work skills than the ability to write a coherent essay, which requires being able to identify a problem, break it down to its constituent parts, analyze it from multiple angles and assemble a solution in a succinct manner to communicate across cultures and time. These "critical thinking" skills are what Chinese students need to learn if they are to become globally competitive.
  • One way we'll know we're succeeding in changing China's schools is when those PISA scores come down.
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