Skip to main content

Home/ Teachers Without Borders/ Group items tagged school data

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Teachers Without Borders

Making vulnerable children come first in Tunisia - AlertNet - 0 views

  • TUNIS, 9 February 2011 – He says he’s 16, but he looks 14, if he is a day. I met him at the fish market in central Tunis, on a weekday, at a time when he should have been in school. Hamza left school two years ago. He says the school principal kicked him out, for no valid reason. According to recent data, 98 per cent of children of primary-school age in Tunisia are entering primary school. Thousands of them, however, drop out every year, although education is compulsory between the ages of 6 and 16. In 2009, an estimated 69,000 children left school.
  • “I would like to sign up for a vocational training class,” he says. “I would still work at the market on my days off so that I can make some money. But I would really like to learn a skill.”
  • Until Hamza really turns 16, the minimum legal age for work, he will not be able to fulfill his wish. The principal at his former school will not give him the school certificate necessary to sign up for vocational training classes.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • According to Mehyar Hamadi, a child protection officer in the Governorate of Ariana in Greater Tunis, children who left school before the age of 16 and who are unable, or unwilling, to resume their education, usually stay in limbo. Some go to social integrations centers, known as CDIS, where they can learn some basic skills, attend some cultural activities, or learn how to use computers. Most, however, prefer to work, and hide their age to be able to do so.
  • “Money, or rather lack of it – is most often the cause of the problem,” he says. “Poverty, especially when combined with lack of education or awareness, is a breeding ground for violence, exploitation, deprivations, abandonment and all sorts of abuses against children.”
  • TUNIS, 9 February 2011 – He says he’s 16, but he looks 14, if he is a day. I met him at the fish market in central Tunis, on a weekday, at a time when he should have been in school. Hamza left school two years ago. He says the school principal kicked him out, for no valid reason. According to recent data, 98 per cent of children of primary-school age in Tunisia are entering primary school. Thousands of them, however, drop out every year, although education is compulsory between the ages of 6 and 16. In 2009, an estimated 69,000 children left school.
Teachers Without Borders

Afghan girls' education backsliding as donors shift focus to withdrawal | Global develo... - 0 views

  • Education has long been held up as a shining example of reconstruction in Afghanistan. Donors have ploughed approximately $1.9bn into rebuilding the Afghan education system since 2001. The Back to School campaign, launched in 2002 as a joint Afghan government/UN Initiative, was labelled an "inspiration" and the flagship of reconstruction and development efforts in Afghanistan.
  • The achievements of the Back to School campaign were undeniably impressive. In just the past two years, 2,281 schools have been built across the country. Around 5,000 Afghan girls were enrolled in school in 2001. Now there are 2.4 million, a staggering 480-fold increase.
  • Now, according to the report, Afghanistan's education system is sliding backwards and becoming crippled by poverty, increasing insecurity and a lack of investment in infrastructure and trained staff.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The report's research claims that far fewer of the 2.4 million girls enrolled in school are actually in the classroom. In 2009 approximately 22% – around 446,682 – of female students were considered long-term absentees.
  • While 2,281 schools have been built in the past two years, data from the Afghan Ministry of Education shows that 47% still have no actual building. A lack of investment in female teachers is proving a significant obstacle to girls attending school.
  • In the past years schools and girl students have been targeted by anti-government forces or other extremist groups, prompting teachers to leave their jobs and parents to keep their children out the classroom. In 2009 there were 50 attacks on schools across Afghanistan every month.
Teachers Without Borders

Which countries spend more on arms than primary schools? | News | guardian.co.uk - 1 views

  • "When wars break out, international attention and media reporting invariably focus on the most immediate images of human suffering. Yet behind these images is a hidden crisis. Across many of the world's poorest countries, armed conflict is destroying not just school infrastructure, but the hopes and ambitions of generations of children."
  • According to the report's data, 21 developing countries spend more on arms than on primary schools. Meanwhile, only 2% of humanitarian aid goes towards education (with the vast majority of aid requests for education in conflict-affected states left unfulfilled).
  • The consequences are stark. In poor countries affected by conflict: 28 million children of primary school age are out of school (42% of the world's total) a child is twice as likely to die before their fifth birthday (compared with a child born in a poor but stable country) about 30% of the young people aged 15-24 are illiterate (compared with 7% in other poor countries)
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • But while the Unesco report examines the effects of conflict on education, it criticises donor countries for skewing assistance towards a small group of "strategic" countries while neglecting the world's other equally poor and equally conflict-affected countries. While aid for basic education increased more than fivefold in Afghanistan during the past five years, for example, it stagnated or declined in other conflict-affected countries, such as Ivory Coast.
  • Globally, more children are going to school than ever before but, according to the report, the number of children out of school is falling far too slowly, and progress is far too varied across the different regions of the world.
  • Half-of the world's out-of-school children live in just 15 countries. The largest population of out-of-school children is in Nigeria (8.3 million), followed by Pakistan (7.3 million), India (5.6 million), Ethiopia (2.7 million), and Bangladesh (2 million)
  • In sub-Saharan Africa, about 10 million children drop out of school every year
  • It also points to key capacity gaps – for example, that another 1.9 million teachers will be needed by 2015 to achieve universal primary education
Teachers Without Borders

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

  •  
    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?
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
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • 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

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

  •  
    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.
Teachers Without Borders

AFGHANISTAN: Avoid using schools in elections, say agencies - 0 views

  • KABUL, 17 June 2010 (IRIN) - Putting a polling station in a school would be run-of-the-mill in most countries, but in Afghanistan it can be an invitation to an attack by Taliban insurgents, opposed to the government and western-style democracy. Taliban rocket, grenade, gun and arson attacks on schools averaged about 50 a month last year. During the August 2009 elections, which the Taliban vowed to disrupt, the number hit 250 in that month alone, according to data compiled by aid agencies.
  • Since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, student numbers have surged from less than one million in 2001 to about seven million in 2010. More than 30 percent of the students are female, according to the Ministry of Education (MoE).
  • According to research by Care International, in 2006-2008 about 1,153 attacks on educational facilities were reported. Some 230 people were killed in armed attacks on schools in 2006-2007, according to the MoE. Schools are an easy target for the Taliban, looking to demonstrate the government's impotence. "Girls' education is clearly targeted more than boys," stated Care's report of September 2009, which blamed the insurgents and other community members for the attacks.
Teachers Without Borders

Global Campaign for Peace Education Newsletter: July 2012 (Intro by Matthias ... - 0 views

  • TWB and Tijuana Department of Education completed Technical Assistance Mission (Mexico) With the support of the Office of Education and Culture of the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Inter-American Program on Education for Democratic Values and Practices, Teachers Without Borders (TWB) and the Baja California Department of Education recently completed a Technical Assistance Mission focusing on Peace Education in Mexican schools. As a result of this program, TWB’s Peace Education program has been endorsed as an official teacher professional development program throughout the state of Baja California. In the coming months, the program will be scaled through a partnership between Teachers Without Borders and the Baja California Department of Education and will reach 12,000 state teachers and, initially, 1,500 schools in the city of Tijuana. The Department also plans to work with Teachers Without Borders to develop Peace Education as a middle school subject.
  • Intro to Peace Ed Part I: Core Concepts – Teachers Without Borders (TWB) and National Peace Academy (NPA), online (June 19 – July 17, 2012) For more information click on the link above.
  • Intro to Peace Ed Part 2: The Scope of Peace Education – Teachers Without Borders (TWB) and National Peace Academy (NPA) – online (July 24 – August 19, 2012) For more information click on the link above.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Intro to Peace Ed Part 3: Pedagogy & Practice – Teachers Without Borders (TWB) and National Peace Academy (NPA), online (September 3-30, 2012) For more information click on the link above.
Teachers Without Borders

Broken schools breed S.Africa's 'lost generation' - TrustLaw - 0 views

  • Despite pouring billions of dollars into education, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) has little to show for its money except for public primary schools regarded as among the worst in the world and millions of students destined for a life in the underclass. "If you don't have an education, you don't have a chance in life," said Netshiozwe, who is unemployed with little prospect of finding regular work. She and her HIV-infected aunt live together and scrape by on about $100 a month in welfare benefits. Nearly half of South Africa's 18 to 24 year olds -- the first generation educated after apartheid ended in 1994 -- are not in the education system and do not have a job, according to government data. Academics have called this group the "lost generation" and worry it will grow larger unless the government fixes a system riddled with failing schools, unskilled educators and corruption that stops funding from reaching its intended destinations.
  • Corruption eats away at money. Teachers are poorly trained and challenged by a constantly shifting curriculum. Schools are often shut by teachers' strikes.
  • Once almost exclusively white, universities now reflect the racial composition of the country with more people from groups disenfranchised by apartheid climbing the ladder with a degree or diploma. But at the same time, the number of people living in poverty has changed little since apartheid ended, with no remedy in sight given the structural problems in education.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • This month, the central government said Limpopo, which has recorded some of the country's worst results in standardised testing, had unauthorised expenditure of 2.2 billion rand ($275 million). The province had more than 2,400 teachers on the payroll, including 200 "ghost teachers" who were not in classrooms but were still paid.
  • Hundreds of schools do not have electricity or running water and absenteeism has become such a concern that President Jacob Zuma has begged teachers to show up for classes. A study by graft watchdog Transparency International last year pointed to massive local level corruption resulting in millions of students not having desks, chairs or books.
  • A cosy relationship between the ANC and organised labour, formed in their partnership against apartheid, has hampered apprenticeship programmes.
Teachers Without Borders

Missing link: OECD's PISA report ignores teacher voice - 0 views

  • OECD’s influential Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report, which gathers information on education systems, schools, families and students through surveys of school leaders, students and parents is launched, but where – asks EI – is the voice of teachers? Despite the triennial report claiming ‘good educational policy is informed educational policy in which all responsible actors (policy makers, school principals, teachers, students and parents), are provided with the knowledge that they need to make good educational decisions,’ EI cannot understand why the perspective of teachers, who are the first actors to be called upon to implement education policy in schools, continues to be ignored. EI has long argued that a questionnaire to survey the views of teachers in those schools that are sampled for the study will generate data that can augment the views of students and parents, and provide a robust understanding of the learning context in which findings can be interpreted.
  • The continuing exclusion of teacher voice from this report is a missed opportunity and undermines PISA’s aim of offering informed policy guidance to governments, or using the results to show what countries can learn from each other to set and achieve measurable goals.”
Teachers Without Borders

Countries struggling to meet rising demand for secondary education - UN - 0 views

  • 25 October 2011 – The global demand for secondary education has risen exponentially, says a new United Nations report, which adds that governments, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, are having a hard time keeping up and many children are being left out. The 2011 Global Education Digest, released today by the Institute for Statistics of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), says there are only enough seats for 36 per cent of children who want to enrol in secondary education in sub-Saharan Africa.
  • “There can be no escape from poverty without a vast expansion of secondary education,” said UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova. “This is a minimum entitlement for equipping youth with the knowledge and skills they need to secure decent livelihoods in today’s globalized world.”
  • Yet, the agency adds, a child in the last grade of primary school only has at best a 75 per cent chance of making the transition to lower secondary school in about 20 countries, the majority of which are in sub-Saharan Africa. The region also has a shortage of secondary school teachers.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • “Nevertheless, more than 21.6 million children of lower secondary school age remain excluded from education across the region and many will never even spend a day in school,” states UNESCO. Girls are the first to suffer from this inequality, the report says. In sub-Saharan Africa, the enrolment ratio for girls in lower secondary education is 39 per cent compared to 48 per cent for boys. Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region in which the gender disparities against girls are getting worse at the upper secondary level, with 8 million boys enrolled compared to only 6 million girls, according to the report.
  • “All of these data underscore a central message: secondary education is the next great challenge,” states Hendrik van der Pol, Director of UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics. “According to the Digest, about one third of the world’s children live in countries where lower secondary education is formally considered to be compulsory but the laws are not respected. We need to translate the commitment into reality.”
Teachers Without Borders

The Condition of Education 2012 - 0 views

  •  
    Description: The Condition of Education 2012 summarizes important developments and trends in education using the latest available data. The report presents 49 indicators on the status and condition of education, in addition to a closer look at high schools in the United States over the past twenty years.. The indicators represent a consensus of professional judgment on the most significant national measures of the condition and progress of education for which accurate data are available. The 2012 print edition includes indicators in three main areas: (1) participation in education; (2) elementary and secondary education and outcomes; and (3) postsecondary education and outcomes.
Teachers Without Borders

Are schools ready for English? | The Japan Times Online - 0 views

  • While many parents and other Japanese welcome the government's move to provide English education at an early age, some experts are concerned that most teachers are being forced to venture into uncharted waters with little preparation. In addition, devoting just one period a week to English won't be near enough to nurture children's language ability.
  • Japan has lagged behind its neighboring countries in introducing English lessons at an early age, and its impact is obvious in various statistics.
  • TOEFL data for 2004-2005 put Japan next to last in Asia, with an average score of only 191 points — just one point higher than North Korea. Afghanistan exceeded Japan by seven points, while Singapore had the top score at 254.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Education ministry officials stressed that the new English lessons, Gaikokugo Katsudo (Foreign Language Activities), will be different from English lessons at the junior high level, and students won't be drilled on comprehensive grammar rules or vocabulary.
  • The goal of the new program is to help children experience and understand other languages and cultures, motivate them to actively communicate with foreigners and become familiar with the sounds and basic expressions of another language, the ministry says.
  • According to a survey last July and August by the think tank Benesse Educational Research and Development Center on 4,709 elementary school teachers nationwide, 68.1 percent of classroom teachers said they don't have much confidence or they have no confidence in teaching English.
  • The teacher, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said one of his colleagues told him he was afraid of giving lessons with his broken English, while another pointed out the possibility that this will merely cause children to dislike English.
  •  
    Come April, English classes will become mandatory for fifth- and sixth-graders, but a 29-year-old elementary school teacher in Tokyo has heard the concerns of her overwhelmed colleagues, especially the older ones, who have neither taught the language nor studied it since their university years decades ago.
Teachers Without Borders

Global teacher shortage threatens progress on education | Global development | guardian... - 0 views

  • The world urgently needs to recruit more than 8 million extra teachers, according to UN estimates, warning that a looming shortage of primary school teachers threatens to undermine global efforts to ensure universal access to primary education by 2015.At least 2m new teaching positions will need to be created by 2015, the UN said in a report published this week. An additional 6.2 million teachers will need to be recruited to maintain current workforces and replace those expected to retire or leave classrooms due to career changes, illnesses, or death.
  • According to Unesco's projections, the greatest challenges lie in sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 1m teaching posts will need to be created by 2015 to meet the needs of a growing number of primary students. Population growth and the push to get all children into school by 2015 has led enrolment rates to soar in many countries, but quality of education will remain a prime concern if countries fail to get enough teachers into classrooms. A total of 350,000 teachers should be hired in sub-Saharan Africa each year until 2015 to fill new posts and compensate for teachers expected to leave the workforce, said the report.
  • "In many regions a low proportion of female teachers will mean fewer girls at school and consequently even fewer women teachers in the future," said Unesco's director general, Irina Bokova, in a statement on Wednesday,
Fred Mednick

ISRAEL: Researchers see Tunisia as a textbook revolution | Babylon & Beyond | Los Angel... - 0 views

  • an Israeli research group suggests Tunisia's was a textbook revolution. Not in the sense that it was a perfect storm or that it followed a certain formula -- no two revolutions are the same -- but in the sense that it may actually have begun in school textbooks.
  • A comprehensive study of the Tunisian curriculum, completed in 2009 and presented before the European parliament, found that education in Tunisia cultivates equality and is much more progressive in teaching tolerance than any other Arab country.
    • Fred Mednick
       
      Incredibly interesting!
  • The material still takes the Palestinian side in their conflict with Israel, researchers found, but not in a way that negates Jews or Israel. Above all, the study found the educational system to have a "profound understanding of equality and democracy."
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • According to the group's research, Egypt is another story. With school curricula still very much under control of clerics and shaped largely by Muslim clerics and religious authorities, it does not encourage independent thinking and emphasizes war narratives, not peace. While textbooks do urge tolerance to minorities such as the Copts, according to the study, Manor says they have obliterated any mention of historic injustices they have suffered.
  • Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Belarus and even China should read the study when it comes out, as the data indicate they could be looking at civilian unrest in the near future, too. Jordan and Algeria, where democratization is low but the people's aspirations are likewise, appear to be more stable, according to the study.
Teachers Without Borders

UNGEI - News and Events - Invest in the Future: Empower Girls Now - 0 views

  • First, investing in adolescent girls benefits everyone. When they flourish, their families and communities flourish as well. The benefits will go a long way in a girl’s lifetime, and for generations to come.
  • As One UN, we will support national development efforts to invest in adolescent girls’ rights, health, education, protection, livelihoods. We can no longer afford to exclude the millions of adolescent girls left behind. They are central to the MDGs and we must make them visible in national action plans and budgets. We must improve our data systems to track the change we aspire to see in their lives.
  • This is because investing in adolescent girls is both the best and smartest investment a country can make. Educated, healthy and skilled, she will be an active citizen in her community. She will become a mother when she is ready and invest in her future children’s health and education. She will be able to contribute fully to her society and break the cycle of poverty, one girl at a time.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Multiply this by 500 million girls in the developing world and imagine the possibilities. These girls are part of the largest youth population in history, and when they enter the workforce educated, skilled, and healthy, they can help put countries on a path to greater prosperity, peace, and progress, provided the right policies are in place.
  • We must act now before it is too late. Adolescence is a tumultuous time, especially for the youngest, poorest, most marginalized girls. Without the right opportunities, these girls experience too much too soon. They leave school too early; they are married off and become pregnant before they are ready, and have children while children themselves, often at significant risks to their lives. In shocking numbers, they experience violence and harmful practices, are infected by HIV at alarming rates, and join the labor force often under unsafe conditions.
  • The UN Adolescent Girls Task Force aims to change this. A year ago during the Commission of the Status of Women, six UN agencies committed to five key actions: (1) educate girls; (2) improve adolescent girls’ health, including their sexual and reproductive health; (3) keep adolescent girls free from violence; (4) promote adolescent girl leaders and (5) count adolescent girls, so they are no longer invisible and we can measurably see the difference to be made in their lives.
1 - 18 of 18
Showing 20 items per page