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During disasters, girls fare worse than the rest of the population, according to a new report released on 11 October by child rights NGO Plan International. “Men, women, boys and girls experience disasters in different ways. Pre-existing inequalities and vulnerabilities will be exacerbated in disasters and will affect girls and women more,” said Plan International regional director Gezahegn Kebede at an event for the launch of the report.

“In emergencies, given their gender, age, and humanitarian status [girls] experience triple disadvantage,” said Kebede. However, education can be a powerful mitigating tool, and can significantly improve their livelihoods.

The report entitled The State of the World’s Girls 2013: In Double Jeopardy: Adolescent Girls and Disasters argues that a combination of political, economic, social and cultural attitudes can lead to discrimination of girls during disasters.

In a bid to accelerate the empowerment of women, the General Assembly today voted unanimously to create a dynamic new entity merging four United Nations offices focusing on gender equality, a move hailed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other senior officials. “The newest member of the UN family has been born today,” Mr. Ban told the Assembly after it passed the resolution setting up the new UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, to be known as UN Women.

“By bringing together four parts of the UN system dedicated to women’s issues, Member States have created a much stronger voice for women and for gender equality at the global level,” said the Secretary-General. “It will now be much more difficult for the world to ignore the challenges facing women and girls – or to fail to take the necessary action,” he added.

One of the main goals of UN Women will be to support the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) and other inter-governmental bodies in devising policies. The new body will also aim to help Member States implement standards, provide technical and financial support to countries which request it, and forge partnerships with civil society.

about 500 people had died in weekend ethnic violence near the central city of Jos, considerably more than what had initially been reported.

The victims were Christians killed by rampaging Muslim herdsmen, officials and human rights workers said, apparently in reprisal for similar attacks on Muslims in January.

The head of a leading Nigerian rights group, Shehu Sani of the Civil Rights Congress, said in a telephone interview on Monday that his organization had counted 492 bodies, mainly in the village of Dogo Nahawa.

U.S. teachers are more interested in school reform and student achievement than their paychecks, according to a massive new survey. The survey of 40,090 K-12 teachers — including 15,038 by telephone — was likely the largest national survey of teachers ever completed and includes the opinions of teachers in every grade, in every state and across the demographic spectrum.

Teachers don't want to see their students judged on the results of one test and they also want their own performances graded on multiple measures.

Most value non-monetary rewards, such as time to collaborate with other teachers and a supportive school leadership, over higher salaries. Only 28 percent felt performance pay would have a strong impact and 30 percent felt performance pay would have no impact at all.

A national survey of more than 40,000 public school teachers suggests that while higher salaries are far more likely than performance pay to help keep top talent in the classroom, supportive leadership trumps financial incentives.

To retain good teachers, 68 percent called supportive leadership "absolutely essential," 45 percent said the same of higher salaries and 8 percent listed performance pay.

Fifty-nine percent said establishing common standards across states would have a strong or very strong impact on achievement, and 73 percent said clearer academic standards would produce such benefits. But 69 percent said the rigor of their own state's standards was "about right," and teachers were nearly evenly split on whether their own state has "too many standards" or "the right amount."

Addressing the nation to mark the implementation of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 that makes elementary education an entitlement for children in the age group of 6-14 years, Dr. Singh said the States should join in this national effort with full resolve and determination. “Our government, in partnership with the State governments will ensure that financial constraints do not hamper the implementation of the Right to Education Act. “Today, our government comes before you to redeem the pledge of giving all our children the right to education.

“I call upon all our teachers across the country to become partners in this effort. It is also incumbent upon all of us to work together to improve the working conditions of our teachers and enable them to teach with dignity, giving full expression to their talent and creativity.'' He said parents and guardians, too, had a critical role to play having been assigned school management responsibilities under the Act. The needs of every disadvantaged section of our society, particularly girls, Dalits, Adivasis and minorities must be of particular focus as the Act is implemented.

Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal said the biggest challenge to the implementation of the Act would be lack of infrastructure and teachers. Bringing children from the disadvantaged sections into the net would also be challenging, he said.

FORMAL approval is being awaited from the Ministry of Education for the reintroduction of Bible study in public schools as part of the existing Religious and Moral Education (RME) subject.

“The purpose of Government’s RME curriculum is to develop knowledge of the diversity of religious beliefs as a source for moral education, while the purpose of CCN’s curriculum is to use the Bible as source for moral education.  This will help prevent the growing threat of moral decay in Namibian society and strengthen Biblical instruction in the school curriculum,” said Kapere.

She told The Namibian that Bible study at schools was done away with in Namibia after Independence, and the main reason for this is because the Constitution classifies Namibia as a ‘secular state’.“To focus on one specific religion would have been objectionable by the other religions,” she said. “Christianity is taught now, but it’s more historical than theological. With the new programme, children will go deeper into what the Bible says.”

According to top officials of the state education department, government is all set to effect thorough changes in the curriculum of primary and upper primary education in accordance with the Right to Education Act (RTE). Instead of the current curriculum which focuses more on writing answers, the new syllabus will focus more on activity-based learning.Outdated subjects and chapters will be removed and more informative and knowledgeable ones will be added.

Almost 350 teachers from all over the state will be trained and eventually will be given the responsibility of suggesting changes

The Bauchi State government is to reintroduce teacher training colleges in the state with the aim of reviving the standard of education.

Teachers in Swaziland are engaged in an ongoing protest from today

As well as fighting against pay cuts being imposed by the Swazi government, the teachers are calling for an end to the political system where a king rules the state and where political parties are illegal. The leader of the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT), Muzi Mhlanga told the Times of Swaziland: “We want a freeze of the money belonging to certain individuals who steal and hide it in foreign banks that are in countries like Switzerland and the United States.”

The teachers have decided to travel to the protest – which will centre in Manzini – by public transport because when they demonstrated last month their hired buses were attacked by security forces. Many leading trade unionists were arrested and the headquarters of SNAT were raided by police.

(Reuters) - China has shut down 24 schools for the children of migrant workers in Beijing forcing more than 14,000 students to drop out, state media said, sparking anger among parents who say they face discrimination. Local officials told the migrant schools that they had not met safety and hygiene standards.

While the overwhelming majority of China's 150 million rural migrant workers see their future in cities and towns, they are often treated as unwelcome "interlopers" and have few rights.China's residence permit (hukou) system, which channels most welfare, housing support and healthcare to urban residents, means that migrant workers do not have access to state-subsidized schools.

"Our school has closed, forcing some 800 students to drop out," said a representative of the New Hope School, who declined to be named. "There are still 500 students with nowhere to go although the local government has relocated 300 of them."

ACAPULCO, Mexico — The message is delivered by a phone call to the office of one school, a sheaf of photocopied papers dropped off at another, a banner hung outside a third.

The demand is the same: teachers have until Oct. 1 to start handing over half of their pay. If they do not, they risk their lives. Extortion is a booming industry in Mexico, with reported cases having almost tripled since 2004. To some analysts, it is an unintended consequence of the government’s strategy in the drug war: as the large cartels splinter, armies of street-level thugs schooled in threats and violence have brought their skills to new enterprises. But the threat to teachers here in this tarnished tourist resort has taken the practice to a new level. Since the anonymous threats began last month, when students returned to classes after summer break, hundreds of schools have shut down.

“We are all scared,” said a high school drawing teacher who would give her name only as Noemi. “We are targets because we have a salary that is a bit more stable than the rest.”

Researchers at Public Agenda conducted a cluster analysis of the survey results, revealing three distinct groups of teachers. Based on their individual characteristics and attitudes about the profession, teachers naturally fell into three broad categories, which the researchers call the “Disheartened,” “Contented,” and “Idealists.”

The view that teaching is “so demanding, it’s a wonder that more people don’t burn out” is remarkably pervasive, particularly among the Disheartened, who are twice as likely as other teachers to agree strongly with that view. Members of that group, which accounts for 40 percent of K-12 teachers in the United States, tend to have been teaching longer and be older than the Idealists.

Only 14 percent rated their principals as “excellent” at supporting them as teachers, and 61 percent cited lack of support from administrators as a major drawback to teaching. Nearly three-quarters cited “discipline and behavior issues” in the classroom, and seven in 10 cited testing as major drawbacks as well.