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Themba Dlamini

10 x Learnership Opportunities Towards the National Certificate in Professional Driving - 0 views

phuzemthonjeni.com/jobs-indeed

10 x Learnership Opportunities Towards the National Certificate in Professional Driving

shared by Themba Dlamini on 16 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Themba Dlamini on 16 Feb 12
     
    10 x Learnership Opportunities Towards the National Certificate in Professional Driving
Teachers Without Borders

School Bullying and Current Educational Practice: Re-Imagining Theories of Educational ... - 1 views

www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp

bullying research article schools

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 27 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Teachers Without Borders on 27 Mar 12
     
    Background/Context: Bullying within schools continues despite thoughtful and well-researched anti-bullying strategies deployed against it. The bulk of research targeted toward understanding and eradicating bullying within schools is of an empirical nature. In other words, through data collection, questionnaires, interviews, ethnography, observation, case studies, etc., researchers have sought to carefully assess bully/victim characteristics as well as the social processes that fuel bullying within schools. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: This project considers educational transformation (i.e., how we might transform those we educate) through a variety of pertinent, yet diverse, lenses. Specifically this paper is situated in the conviction that in order to stop bullying we must affect desire. We ask, then, how philosophical theories of transformation, specifically those regarding changes in dispositions, might contribute to our understanding of school bullying and current strategies aimed at reducing it. In short, the driving question underlying this project simply asks: how can we help the bully to no longer desire to bully?
Teachers Without Borders

Thailand takes first steps on long road to inclusive mainstream education | Global deve... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...irst-steps-inclusive-education

thailand education inclusive education inclusion disabilities children schools

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 30 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Cultural barriers continue to deny disabled children access to schools, but progress on inclusive education is finally gathering
  • The strict hierarchy of Thai society means the drive for inclusive education needs strong commitment from both politicians and school leaders. In the past decade, there has been significant political progress in moves to implement a system that ensures children with disabilities have access to mainstream schools. However, with cultural barriers and resistance from some headteachers, the journey towards fully inclusive education has only just begun.
  • Some headteachers Lennon spoke to were amenable to the concept of inclusive education, but didn't feel they had the resources or training to implement it effectively. Others, with decades of experience of working in special schools, felt this institutional model was more suitable.
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  • However, many headteachers in Vorapanya's study cited the Buddhist belief in the need for compassion as a reason they support inclusive education. Meanprasat private school in Bangkok, which combines western-style "child-centric" learning with a Buddhist ethos of moral ethics and regular meditation, is recognised as a national leader in integrated educational practices. In total, 130 of its 1,300 students are disabled. The school's philosophy is that children with disabilities "should have the chance to mix with society and be accepted by it". More than 5,000 teachers visit the school annually and attend workshops held to help spread good practice.
  • Nanthaporn (Nuey) Nanthamongkol, a six-year-old girl with Down's syndrome, was due to be sent to a distant boarding school before he intervened. "Without our work, Nuey would have been separated from her parents, sent to a school 80km away," says Lennon. "For kids with Down's syndrome, this is the worst possible thing you could do."
  • State schools, however, which have much less funding, have been described by Vorapanya as having "woefully insufficient resources" to implement inclusive education properly. Headteachers have complained that while schools can now access a minimum of 2,000 baht (approximately £41) funding for each disabled child, this is not enough to cover the required resources or training expenses. Another problem is that this funding can only be given if the child has been officially certified with a disability. Teachers have reported that some parents do not want this social stigma or are fearful that this certification will lead to discrimination.Despite the significant challenges, Lennon is optimistic. "We are making great strides," he says. "If we keep doing good, the results will surely follow."
Teachers Without Borders

IRIN Africa | ZIMBABWE: Thousands of girls forced out of education | Zimbabwe | Childre... - 0 views

www.irinnews.org/report.aspx

Zimbabwe education school girls girls' education Education Under Attack gender

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 16 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • HARARE, 7 November 2011 (IRIN) - Poverty, abuse and cultural practices are preventing a third of Zimbabwean girls from attending primary school and 67 percent from attending secondary school, denying them a basic education, according to a recent study which found alarming dropout rates for girls. ''Sexual harassment and abuse by even school teachers and parents, cultural issues, lack of school fees, early marriage, parental commitments and early pregnancies are some of the contributing factors to the dropout by the girl child,'' said the authors of "Because I am a Girl" by Plan International, a nonprofit organisation that works to alleviate child poverty.
  • According to the Plan International report, the long distances that children in rural areas have to travel to reach school, and the burden that girl children face because they often have to assume the responsibilities of being head of the household after the death of their parents, are other factors contributing to the high dropout rate for girls.
  • A 2005 government programme of forced evictions, known as Operation Murambatsvina (Drive out Trash), which uprooted some 700,000 people from urban areas across the country, compounded the difficulties of accessing education for girls from affected households. Amnesty International, in its report ''Left Behind: The Impact of Zimbabwe's Forced Evictions on the Right to Education'' released in October 2011, documents the ways in which the evictions disrupted the primary and secondary education of an estimated 222,000 children.
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  • The Amnesty International report notes that many girls at Hopley became sex workers, entered relationships with older men, or married at a young age after eviction from their homes, and the government's failure to support them to re-enrol in school.
  • Zimbabwe's education system, once considered a model for other African countries, has been steadily declining over the last decade due to the economic crisis. Many schools lack text books and other supplies.
Teachers Without Borders

BANGLADESH: School's In To Drive Poverty Out - IPS ipsnews.net - 0 views

ipsnews.net/news.asp

Bangladesh education EFA poverty girls girls' education

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 24 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • The poor, who make up some 45 percent of Bangladesh’s 164 million population, are the main beneficiaries of the country’s education efforts. In addition, girls have overtaken boys in rates of enrolment, attendance and completion of primary education. With over 94 percent net enrolment, Bangladesh is one of only a handful of the world’s least developed countries that are close to achieving the U.N. millennium development goals of 100 percent enrolment rate in primary schools by 2015.
  • For example, schools by the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) – whose 1.2 million students account for 76 percent of all students in NGO-operated primary schools – are unique in that local community members decide and implement all academic programmes in consultation with parents and stakeholders. "We enrol drop out (and) non-enrolled children – mostly girls – from poor families, ensure high attendance, child friendly pedagogy and high completion of five-year academic studies in our primary schools," Safiqul Islam, director of BRAC’s education programme, told IPS.
Teachers Without Borders

Consequences of Inaccessible Water in Haiti - Pulitzer Center Untold Stories - 0 views

untoldstories.pulitzercenter.org/...ces-of-inaccessible-water.html

Haiti water sanitation environmental_education statistics

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 01 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Water has been identified as a top priority for aid to Haiti as it struggles to recover. The consequences of not having access to water extend beyond dehydration. Thirst drives people to water sources they would not have considered before - sources contaminated with human waste, garbage, and industrial byproducts. Using this water leads to diseases like cholera and dysentery, which spread rapidly through communities. Aid efforts must place a priority on bringing safe water to Haiti as soon as possible if the country is to quickly move beyond the immediate crisis to long-term recovery efforts.
  • Providing water to Haiti has been troublesome for decades. According to the World Health Organization, only 58% of Haitians had sustainable access to clean water in 2006.
  • Steve Solomon, author of Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power and Civilization, suggests in a New York Times editorial that Haiti focus on local water networks with flexible piping that can be buried and repaired easily.
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  • The tragedy in Haiti has brought to light the consequences of not having access to clean water. Across the globe, 1.1 billion people do not have access to reliable, clean water and 2.6 billion do not have access to adequate sanitation.
Teachers Without Borders

What is a girl worth? | Education | The Guardian - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...tion-girls-attitudes-resources

Africa Ghana girls girls' education education school_fees school tuition developing nations

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 24 Feb 10 - Cached
  • On Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, 12-year-old Abigail Appetey is forced to miss her classes at primary school to sell fried fish door-to-door in Apimsu, her farming village in eastern Ghana. She gets up at 5am to buy the fish three miles away.The little she earns won't go on the exercise books she needs; her parents will spend it on her 20-year-old brother Joseph's education. Abigail wants to be a teacher, she says, but is always tired in class.There are 41 million girls around the world who should be in primary school all week, but aren't, the Department for International Development says. At least 20 million of them are, like Abigail, in sub-Saharan Africa.
  • In Ghana, 91% of boys, but only 79% of girls finish primary school.
  • Here in Asesewa – one of Ghana's poorest districts – Abigail's nearest junior high school has just five girls out of 20 pupils in its most senior class. The school improvement plan is torn, written in felt tip and peeling from a wall in a corridor. It is the middle of the dry season and temperatures can reach 31C, but the school's tap is empty and the toilets don't work. The most the school seems to have is a few exercise and textbooks that look as though they date back to the 1950s.The average income for Asesewa's population of 90,000 is between £11 and £14 a month, according to the international charity Plan, which has a base here.
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  • Ministers in the Ghanaian government abolished fees for primary education in 2005 and boast that they spend the equivalent of £6 in state funds on each primary pupil every year. But parents must pay for exercise books, school uniforms and exams.It is these hidden costs – which can amount to more than £100 per child per year – that dissuade many from sending their girls to school, says Joseph Appiah, Plan's chief fieldworker in Asesewa.Besides, the value of an educated girl is lower than that of an educated boy. "The feeling is that girls will marry and belong to another family; boys bring back what they make to their parents," Appiah says.And, in these rural communities, girls are needed at home. From as young as seven they can be expected to prepare breakfast and lunch for their parents, take it to them in the fields and cook a hot dinner in the evenings. Many will also have to fetch water from several kilometres away and sell what they can to supplement their family's meagre income. That leaves little time for lessons
  • But what these under-tree schools can't match in cash and facilities, they more than make up for in initiative. Word about the girls' football club here in Asesewa has even reached the MPs in Accra, Ghana's capital. Football is a passion for Ghanaians of both sexes and the club only allows girls who are at school or on vocational courses to play. Clever girls, who have dropped out of school through lack of funds, are awarded scholarships, funded by Plan, to return to class and allowed to join one of the 25 teams.
  • The club started only three years ago, but is already thought to have boosted girls' school enrolments in some villages by 15%. It may have been just the catalyst needed to change attitudes – and to change them more quickly than the MPs expect.
  • At Akateng primary school and junior high, not far from Abigail's village, boys and girls have just put on a play they have written about the shortsightedness of parents who deprive girls of school. Among those watching it were the real leaders of these rural communities – the "kings" and "queens". These are highly respected elders who have been selected to preside over villages and keep their traditions going.Sitting on a raised platform, with brightly patterned yellow fabric draped over one shoulder, Kwuke Ngua, one of the kings, tells how attitudes are changing. "We used to think women were not destined for education, but now we believe it does them well," he says. "They have more skills, which they can bring to the community. All girls should go to school." One of the queens, Mannye Narteki, goes even further: "Girls can no longer fit into working society unless they are educated," she says.
  • Just one extra year of full-time primary school can boost a girl's eventual wages by 10% to 20% in sub-Saharan Africa, charities say. An extra year of secondary school can make a difference of 25%.Educated and empowered girls, like those on the football teams, are far more likely to get involved in community decision-making and drive progress of all kinds in their villages and beyond.
Teachers Without Borders

Yemen's Water Woes - Pulitzer Center Untold Stories - 0 views

untoldstories.pulitzercenter.org/...yemens_water_woes.html

Yemen water environmental_education depletion natural_resources

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 02 Mar 10 - Cached
  • water crisis threatens Yemen’s long-term stability.
  • But environmental problems don’t always make for exciting news stories, and amongst the plethora of threats to Yemen’s stability, the water crisis is often lost in the background.
  • Water resources are being rapidly depleted in many countries around the world, including the western United States, and access to clean water is a common problem through out the developing world. But even in the context of worldwide fresh water depletion, Yemen’s crisis is staggering: Yemenis use about a fifth of the amount of water recommended by the World Health Organization for healthy and hygienic living; the capital, Sana’a, may be the first world capital to run out of its own water supplies; and thousand-meter wells have recently been drilled in the country’s highlands to get at so-called “fossil water.”
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  • But anyone who spends some amount of time in Yemen sees pretty clearly the daily impact that the lack of water has on people. Tanker trucks trundle down the streets of the cities carrying groundwater from deep wells drilled in the countryside; families use and reuse water for washing three or four times, and children wander the streets with buckets of water collected from the publics spigots of mosques. On a drive through the mountainous countryside at anytime of day, but especially in the morning, you see dozens of women and children walking down the main roads with donkeys and cans, on their way to find water, and you must imagine the hundreds of thousands of people across the country that spend hours each day on the same search.
  • As one foreign water expert put it to me, there won’t be an hour, or a day or even a year when Yemen runs out of water; it won’t be a headline-making disaster, but it will be disastrous.
Voytek Bialkowski

Human Rights Take Front and Center for the New York City Schools | Learn How to and Whe... - 0 views

www.reviewresearch.com/ity-Schools-article_48326.html

human_rights_education human_rights schools case_study

shared by Voytek Bialkowski on 05 Mar 10 - Cached
  • The New York City schools has taken this directive seriously and to heart by creating its School for Human Rights, a combined middle and high school academy that is built around the concept of human rights.
  • Located in Brooklyn, the School for Human Rights is rare, even for the New York City schools. Its core values are dignity, respect and responsibility, which is the driving force behind its curriculum, how the students learn and the teachers teach, how they treat one another, and the types of adults the New York City schools hope the students become. Human rights are demonstrated to students by how the school meets the educational needs of each and every student; in its practices, such as discipline with dignity; examples given in class, questions raised by teachers, the active discussions, critical thinking and reflection that are part of the project-based coursework; and even in the human rights enriching field trips.
  • The School of Human Rights is the only New York City schools that integrates an academic and social skills-based curriculum. It even immerses human rights into its extracurricular activities, such as film festivals and workshops with human rights defenders.
  • Voytek Bialkowski on 05 Mar 10
     
    Brief article on New York City School of Human Rights -- a combined middle & high school focused on HRE in curriculum, extra-curriculars, & pedagogical approach. Potentially interesting case study.
Teachers Without Borders

The open secret behind the Cherrypal Africa, or, a brand is a promise, or, understateme... - 2 views

cherrypal.com/...comment-page-1

TWB ICT4D Cherrypal developing nations laptops

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 23 Dec 09 - Cached
  • We know how to build inexpensive laptops to get access to the Internet, however, the problem in consumer electronics is that high demand for particular components drives prices up. Success is kind of counterproductive to keep prices low. That’s why we procure components for the Cherrypal Africa in a different way, we buy access inventory, overcapacity, out-of-fashion shells, shells with minor cosmetic flaws, discounted limited batches, and other high quality though discounted components and systems, package them up and sell them under the Cherrypal Africa brand. Bear with me. What this means is that 5 randomly selected people ordering a Cherrypal Africa on any given day theoretically might get 5 different systems, with different configurations. However, their “Africas” would have one particular thing in common, you can browse the Internet, actually pretty fast.
Teachers Without Borders

An international digital library for children | A World Bank Blog on ICT use in Education - 0 views

blogs.worldbank.org/...icdl-1

TWB library children international UNESCO WorldBank ICT4D ICT

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 19 Dec 09 - Cached
  • At the heart of Bederson's wide-ranging talk (and indeed at the heart of the ICDL itself) is a belief in the value and importance of child-centered design. Notably (and rather famously, in some quarters) the ICDL utilizes children as design partners in the development of the digital library, and how it is used.  Adopting this approach sometimes yields approaches that, at least for many in the audience in Hangzhou, were rather surprising.
  • The ICDL (not to be confused with the International Computer Driving Licence, which shares the same acronym) is dedicated to building a collection of "outstanding children's books from around the world and supporting communities of children and adults in exploring and using this literature through innovative technology designed in close partnership with children for children". The ICDL, which is part of the World Bank-funded READ project in Mongolia, currently features children's books in over 50 languages and receives over 100,000 visitors a month to its web site.
  • These are representative questions of some of the desires for books that children express to the ICDL, and its on-line presence is organized and searchable in a way that can help meet such demands.   Observing that children are not well served by most existing dictionaries, Bederson and his colleagues use definitions from children themselves, and then enable children to rate each other's definitions. By incorporating teams of children into all stages of the design and development of the various component parts of the library, the ICDL team is able to be guided by what children want, and how children act.  Given the strong research focus of project principals, findings from the ICDL experience are being well documented and made publicly available.
Teachers Without Borders

India: The Open Defecation Paradox - Pulitzer Center Untold Stories - 0 views

untoldstories.pulitzercenter.org/...e-open-defecation-paradox.html

water_crisis water sanitation developing nations India toilets

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 21 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Open defecation—humans defecating outside—is the ugly stepsister of clean water scarcity, which we commemorate on World Water Day. Two-and-half billion people lack access to even simple pit toilets, which is three times as many people as lack access to clean drinking water and results in two million preventable deaths per year, mostly of children under five from intestinal diseases.
  • Jack Sim, the self-described “evangelist of toilets,” from the World Toilet Organization, theorizes that’s because “every politician wants to be photographed standing next to a new well, but no one wants to be photographed standing next to a new toilet.” And without some portion of the powers that be to drive a story, coverage becomes scarce.
  • India has the largest number of open defecators in the world, over 600 million of them. At a certain level, this fact is inescapable. Within a hundred yards of our five star hotel in New Delhi, we could find expanses of human feces—we could find them because we could smell them. Touring Delhi slum clusters with local activists, we traversed neighborhoods where 5,000 people share 20 public toilets, which is nearly the same as having no toilets, resulting in even vaster expanses of human feces. But in urban areas, open defecation can also be invisible in the way poor people can quickly become invisible.
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  • For example, NGOs can produce statistics indicating that more households in India have cell phones and television than access to toilets. But for rural people to want to put in toilets, they have to be informed.
Teachers Without Borders

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

online.wsj.com/...3766704576008692493038646.html

China PISA standardized tests testing education

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 04 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • 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.
Teachers Without Borders

Duncan calls on black men to become teachers  | ajc.com - 0 views

www.ajc.com/...can-calls-on-black-822680.html

US teachers teaching black students boys

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 03 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and filmmaker Spike Lee teamed up Monday to urge more black men to consider teaching.
  • More than 1 million teachers will retire during the next decade, according to federal estimates, and leaders have embarked on a nationwide drive to build a more diverse teaching force. Duncan on Monday took the campaign to Atlanta's Morehouse College, the nation's only all-male historically black college.
  • Teachers should look more like the people they serve, Duncan said. While more than 35 percent of the nation’s public school students are black or Latino, less than 15 percent of the teachers are black or Latino, according to federal figures. Less than 2 percent of the nation’s teachers are black men.
Teachers Without Borders

allAfrica.com: Namibia: Close to 1 500 Pregnant Girls Drop Out in 2010 - 1 views

allafrica.com/...201101200302.html

Namibia girls girls' education pregnancy education

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 11 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • A total of 1 493 schoolgirls dropped out of school last year because they fell pregnant. Furthermore, a total of 31 teachers "were recorded to have been responsible for some pregnancies". This shocking revelation was made by Education Minister Abraham Iyambo during his New Year's address yesterday.
  • According to him, "current measures to punish those who impregnate learners must be revised urgently and strengthened immediately. We have no excuse to wait. Management must attend to this." Iyambo promised that all the bad apples will be eradicated this year. He said 2011 will be "a year of recommitment, better education outcomes, mass drive and mobilisation".
  • Iyambo emphasised that "education is not an asset if it is not quality education". He said: "We need a serious inventory to pinpoint possible misfits ... before they become a system. We need urgent transformation of our education system from the bottom to the top."
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  • In light of the close to 50 per cent of grade 10s who failed last year, Iyambo said: "We spend too much money on repetition, dropouts, repetition rates and failure rates. We cannot afford to send children into the streets year in and year out."
  • The most important means to address the crisis is to invest more in teachers, he said. "Teachers are the solid backbone of any education system. The determinant factor of the quality of any education system is the quality of its teachers and more importantly the collective capacity of teachers.
Teachers Without Borders

"Teacher training in climate change education is in its infancy" | Education | United N... - 1 views

www.unesco.org/...ge_education_is_in_its_infancy

climate climate_change teacher education teachers teacher development climate environment

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 22 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • UNESCO is launching a Teacher Education Course on Climate Change Education for Sustainable Development (CCESD) in late 2011
  • In a nutshell, the course is designed to give teachers confidence in facilitating  CCESD inside and outside the classroom so that they can help young people understand the causes and consequences of climate change, bring about changes in attitudes and behaviors to reduce the severity of future climate change, and build resilience  in the face of climate change that are already present.
  • First, it helps teachers to understand the causes, dynamics and impacts of climate change through a holistic lens. Second, teachers are exposed to a range of pedagogical approaches that they can use in their own school environment. This includes engagement in whole school and school-in-community approaches. Third, teachers can develop their capacities to facilitate students’ community based learning.  Fourth, teachers can develop future oriented and transformative capacities in facilitating climate change mitigation, adaptation, and disaster risk reduction learning..    
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  • The course is needed precisely because teaching about climate change is such a demanding task. Teachers need to understand what and how to teach about the forces driving climate change as well as its impacts on culture, security, well-being and development prospects. Their role is to show young people how they and their communities can respond to the threat.
  • Teachers Without Borders on 22 Aug 11
     
    "Teacher training in climate change education is in its infancy" ©Fumiyo Kagawa In advance of the tenth anniversary of the Rio Earth Summit (Rio+20), UNESCO is launching a Teacher Education Course on Climate Change Education for Sustainable Development (CCESD) in late 2011.
Teachers Without Borders

Aid donors get an F for education « World Education Blog - 0 views

efareport.wordpress.com/...-donors-get-an-f-for-education

aid funding development education EFA

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 27 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • This is a war zone. Families in the sprawling camp have lost everything – everything that is except a drive to get their kids an education. In the midst of the most abject poverty, parents have come together to build makeshift classrooms, hire a teacher, and buy a blackboard. Many of the kids work in the afternoon, selling charcoal to pay the $1 fee charged every term. “Being in school is fun – and people with an education can have a better life. I’ll be a doctor,” says David Ichange, aged 12.
  • If every girl in sub-Saharan Africa had a secondary education, it would cut under-five deaths by around 1.8 million. The reason: educated mothers are empowered to demand better health and nutrition provision.
  • The same holds for cutting poverty. If every child in a low income country got into school and left with basic reading skills, the growth effects would lift 171 million people out of poverty. That’s a 12% decline.
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  • Here are the facts. We need around $16 billion in aid to achieve the international development targets in education – targets that donors have signed up for. Currently, aid levels are running at around $4.7 billion and stagnating.
  • Education in conflict-affected states is getting spectacularly short shrift. Humanitarian aid could play a vital role in keeping open opportunities for schooling in communities displaced by violence. Yet education receives just 2% of humanitarian aid – and no sector receives a smaller share of the emergency aid requested in emergency appeals.
  • Of course, some countries in conflict do receive substantial support. Afghanistan gets more aid for basic education than the Sudan, the DRC, Ivory Coast, Central African Republic and Chad combined. But the general picture is one of overwhelming neglect.
  • Yet effective aid on education is an investment in creating the hope and opportunity that makes conflict less likely by breaking the link between poverty and violence. Cutting aid for education is the type of cent-wise, dollar-dumb thinking that the Tea Party has brought to the budget reform table.
  • That $16 billion that we need in aid for education represents just six days worth of what donors spend each year on military budgets. Viewed differently, it’s roughly equivalent to the bonuses dished out to investment bankers in the City of London last year.
  • So, here’s the question. What do you think offers the best value for money? A global education initiative that could put over 67 million kids in school, or a week’s spending on military hardware. Do you really think we get a bigger bang for our buck by funding the indulgences of the team that brought you the crash rather than by financing books and schools that offer millions of kids a way out of poverty – and their countries a route into global prosperity?
Teachers Without Borders

BBC News - UK pupils 'among least likely to overcome tough start' - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...education-13794591

UK education disadvantaged children socioeconomics study OECD

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 22 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • The UK performs poorly in an international league table showing how many disadvantaged pupils succeed "against the odds" at school. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has studied how pupils from poor backgrounds can succeed academically.
  • It says that "self-confidence" is a key factor in whether such pupils succeed. The UK comes behind Mexico and Tunisia in the table - with the top places taken by Asian countries.
  • The study from the international economic organisation looks at whether there is an inevitable link between disadvantaged backgrounds and a cycle of poor school results and limited job prospects.
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  • Using science test results from the major international PISA study, which compares the performance of different education systems, it shows that there are wide differences in the levels of resilience.
  • Among countries, South Korea, Finland, Japan, Turkey and Canada are the most successful in terms of poorer pupils achieving high results.
  • But the UK is well below average and at the lower end of this ranking of resilience, with only 24% showing such examples of "resilience".
  • Believing that they are likely to succeed in exams is an important part of how they actually perform. The study argues that mentoring schemes can be particularly beneficial.
  • There is also a link between longer hours in class studying a subject and the improved chances of poorer pupils. It is also says that motivation is important - but in the form of a "personal, internal drive" rather than the promise of a reward or an incentive.
  • "All of these findings suggest that schools may have an important role to play in fostering resilience," says the report. "They could start by providing more opportunities for disadvantaged students to learn in class by developing activities, classroom practices and teaching methods that encourage learning and foster motivation and self-confidence among those students."
Teachers Without Borders

Mandarin has the edge in Europe's classrooms - The Globe and Mail - 0 views

www.theglobeandmail.com/...article2203207

classrooms mandarin europe Chinese China languages education curriculum

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 19 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Asked at the start of their first Chinese class what motivated them to take up the language, the students of the Institut de la Providence, a secondary school outside Namur in Belgium, give their new teacher varied answers. “It’s a big country,” says one. “I’ve been to China and would like to go back,” ventures another. The two dozen teenagers are part of a pilot project started this autumn in nine Belgian schools to promote Chinese language learning. More broadly, they are among hundreds of thousands of students in the West who are opting to learn Mandarin Chinese, often at the expense of traditional languages such as Spanish or German.
  • China’s rapid economic rise is gradually translating into a greater presence in European and U.S. classrooms, from a very small base as recently as 10 or 15 years ago.
  • From a marginal position 15 years ago, Chinese has imposed itself as the fourth major language behind French, Spanish and German, which, on current trends, it will overtake by the end of the decade.
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  • More often than not, it is a perception that knowledge of Chinese will be a vital asset in tomorrow’s job market that is driving demand, he says.
  • In July, Swedish education minister Jan Björklund floated the idea of every school offering Chinese classes to their students. “Chinese will be much more important, from an economic perspective, than French or Spanish,” he told the Dagens Industri newspaper.
  • Another important factor is the financial support from Beijing, which has stepped up the activities of the Confucius Institutes, a network of cultural diplomacy bodies tasked with increasing china’s “soft power” around the globe.
  • hese institutes are often likened to Germany’s Goethe Institute or the Alliance Française but are considerably more aggressive in pushing Beijing’s worldview and shutting down discussion of any topics regarded as politically sensitive such as tibet or China’s human rights record.
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