Skip to main content

Home/ Teachers Without Borders/ Group items matching "classes" in title, tags, annotations or url

Group items matching
in title, tags, annotations or url

Sort By: Relevance | Date Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Teachers Without Borders

IRIN Africa | ZIMBABWE: Pupils might get own textbooks | Southern Africa | Zimbabwe | Children Education | News Item - 0 views

www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx

Zimbabwe school textbooks education shortage

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 04 Jun 10 - Cached
  • Siphiso Nyoni, 15, races home when the final bell rings at Luveve High School in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city because she shares an accounts textbook with five other classmates and needs to get her homework done as soon as possible. "You are sometimes forced to rush through the assignment and in the process make silly mistakes because someone is waiting to take her turn using the same textbook," she told IRIN.
  • In January 2010 the Ministry of Education, Sport and Culture put the ratio of text books to pupils at about one to 10, but teachers in the capital, Harare, have reported instances of 40 pupils sharing one text book at some schools. "It is difficult to teach and motivate pupils when a whole class has to share five textbooks," said Aquillina Dhliwayo, the accounts teacher at Luveve High. The school devised a scheme in which pupils living in the same neighbourhood were put into clusters so they could share textbooks more easily.
Meghan Flaherty

A Culture Of Teaching Peace - 2 views

www.commondreams.org/...0616-01.htm

peace_education culture_of_peace

shared by Meghan Flaherty on 15 Jul 10 - Cached
  • Teaching peace also places importance on the process of education, i.e. the structure of the classroom, shared power between teacher and student, and a cooperative, co-creative learning process where factors like race, religion, background and learning ability are honored as swaths of fabric in a colorful cultural quil
  • he case of the Program Pendidikan Damai , a peace education program specifically designed for the province of Aceh, Indonesia, is a good example of a culture of teaching peace. In response to the pandemic brutal war between the Free Aceh Movement and the Indonesian military which has caught tens of thousands of civilians in the crossfire, local educators solicited the advice of international non-governmental organizations in creating a curriculum rooted in principles of nonviolence. The curriculum incorporates tenets of Islamic teaching as well as Acehnese culture, and is thus aptly relevant to the students who, frustrated with the level of violence in their cities and countrysides, decided to participate in workshops and trainings to learn how they can be agents of positive change in their communities. The local schools have adopted the curriculum and have begun teaching the lessons during school hours.
  • teaching peace gives students the tools to constructively deal with the problems they encounter on both a personal and global level, and it helps them understand their responsibility for elevating the collective human experience.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Since formal education often leads to future job prospects, a culture of teaching peace ought to offer dynamic examples of careers with a conscience, or choosing a vocation which utilizes their unique gifts and talents and which is ecologically sound, morally upright and globally-minded. Giving evidence that peace is a viable and tangible career option can open doors and broaden students' perspectives.
  • Science teachers can teach peace by promoting environmental awareness and ecological thinking. Foreign language teachers can read and/or translate primary-source texts from the target language which detail experiences in personal, local, national and global peacemaking efforts. Physics classes can learn about the subatomic exchange of matter and energy which binds all humans to one another. Themes of peace and justice can be infused in every content subject so that peace is pervasive in the curriculum.
  • A comprehensive global network of educators promoting peace will create waves of new teachers who are motivated to teach peace
Teachers Without Borders

AFGHANISTAN: Struggling to improve education - 0 views

www.irinnews.org/report.aspx

Afghanistan Education Under Attack schools

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 04 Sep 10 - Cached
  • KABUL, 29 August 2010 (IRIN) - Education in Faryab Province, northern Afghanistan, has never been as good as it is now thanks to the dozens of new schools built by Norway.
  • Faryab is a success story in a country where almost half of the 12,600 schools nationwide do not have a building (classes are held in the open or in tents), officials said.
  • Norway’s flag and other official symbols are not used on the schools which, according to some experts, have helped keep them immune from armed attacks. Schools, students and teachers have often been attacked and harassed by gunmen allegedly associated with Taliban insurgents.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • n terms of education, the southern province of Helmand, severely affected by the insurgency, appears to lag far behind Faryab Province.
  • Though it has roughly the same population as Faryab, Helmand has only 282 schools of which over 150 have been closed due to insecurity and lack of teachers, provincial officials said.
  • “Building schools does not mean improving education - any more than building a hospital means improving health care,” adding that the focus on education was good but not at the cost of other important issues.
  • Up to seven million students are currently enrolled at schools across Afghanistan, according to the Education Ministry, indicating significant progress since 2001 when only two million (boys only) were enrolled.
  • However, about five million school-age children, mostly girls in the insecure southern and eastern provinces, are still being deprived of an education due to war, poverty, lack of schools and social restrictions, the Education Ministry said.
Teachers Without Borders

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

allafrica.com/...201002181133.html

Kenya Malawi Africa developing nations schools tuition girls girls' education

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 23 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Malawi struggles to cope GA_googleFillSlot( "AllAfrica_Story_InsetB" ); GA_googleCreateDomIframe('google_ads_div_AllAfrica_Story_InsetB' ,'AllAfrica_Story_InsetB'); Other countries have been less successful. Malawi eliminated its school fees in 1994. But with less than half of Kenya's gross domestic product per person and fewer financial and human resources to draw on, it still faces difficult challenges in providing universal primary education.
  • As in many other African countries, notes the UN study, "the adoption of universal primary education was triggered by political demands rather than by rational planning processes." Although Malawi had lifted some fees for Standards 1 and 2 and waived primary education fees for girls prior to 1994, the decision to eliminate all fees coincided with the return of multiparty elections that year. The focus, the researchers found, was on increasing enrolment. "Very little attention was paid to quality issues."
  • One immediate response was to hire 20,000 new teachers, almost all of whom were secondary school graduates who were given only two weeks of training. Plans to provide on-the-job training failed to materialize. Instructional quality declined sharply as the pupil-teacher ratio climbed to 70 to 1.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • The lack of facilities meant that many classes met under trees, and books and teaching materials arrived months late, if at all. Despite increases in the education budget, spending per student, already low, declined by about 25 per cent and contributed to the decline in quality. As a result nearly 300,000 students dropped out during the first year, and high dropout rates continue to this day.
  • Overall, reports the UN study, only about 20 per cent of boys and girls successfully complete eight years of primary education in Malawi. This is largely a function of the country's deep poverty, the researchers say, and the lack of resources, such as nutrition programmes, to help poor children remain in school.
  • The abolition of school fees is a precondition for getting large numbers of poor children into school, but it must be accompanied by strong public and political support, sound planning and reform, and increased financing.
  • fter systems adjust to the surge in enrolment, they argue, resources must be directed at improving quality and meeting the needs of the very poor, those in distant rural areas and children with disabilities. The analysts say that a particular focus should be girls, who face a range of obstacles to attending and staying in school, including cultural attitudes that devalue education for women. Improved sanitation and facilities and better safety and security conditions can make it easier to keep girls in school.
Voytek Bialkowski

breakthrough: educational materials - 0 views

breakthrough.tv/...educational-materials

human_rights_education human_rights OER

shared by Voytek Bialkowski on 01 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Educational Materials
  • ICED Curriculum Download PDF Curriculum | Posted: 02/09/2009 Get your students’ attention with the standards aligned ICED curriculum to teach immigration, due process and human rights lessons. More...
  • Rights Advocates: A Resource Guide on HIV/AIDS Awareness Download PDF Discussion Guide | Posted: 02/05/2009 A colorful guide for youth trainers to implement HIV/STD education programs in schools and organizations. More...
  • Voytek Bialkowski on 01 Mar 10
     
    Sparse but varied education materials dealing with topics such as domestic violence, racism, HIV/AIDS from an educational/institutional perspective. Searchable by issue, campaign & country. PP.
Teachers Without Borders

UNICEF - At a glance: Haiti - Field Diary: A long-term commitment to children affected by the earthquake in Haiti - 0 views

www.unicef.org/...haiti_52872.html

schools Haiti earthquake education reconstruction UNICEF

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 05 Mar 10 - Cached
  • School brings hope“I like to draw, sing and play with my friends. I am so happy today,” said Yolanda, who lost both her home and her old school in the quake. Yolanda’s teacher, Onickel Paul, told me that the opening of the tent school had helped bring children and parents hope that things would get better in Haiti.
  • Despite only a handful of schools being open in the Haitian capital and outlying areas, everyone is working to support the Ministry of Education in its efforts to resume classes on 31 March. To achieve this goal, tents will be set up for immediate use as classrooms, and teachers will be identified and trained. An accelerated learning programme will be also be put in place to ensure that students do not fall behind.
Meghan Flaherty

Gender Dynamics of Conflict, Peace-building and Reconstruction | UNESCO - 0 views

www.unesco.org/...ce-building-and-reconstruction

peace.edu gender unesco peace-building

shared by Meghan Flaherty on 20 May 10 - Cached
  • n March 2000, the UN Security Council, in its Proclamation on International Women's Day, recognized that gender equality is an integral component of peace
  • On 31 October 2000 it passed Security Council Resolution 1325 [PDF, 35 Kb], calling on governments – and the Security Council itself – to include women in negotiations and settlements with respect to conflict-resolution and peace-building. The resolution reaffirms the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts, and the need to implement fully international humanitarian and human rights law that protect the rights of women and girls during and after conflicts.
  • Increasing the representation of women at all decision-making levels
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Integrating a gender perspective into peacekeeping missions
  • Supporting women's grassroots organizations in their peace initiatives
  • Involving women as participants in peace negotiations and agreements;
  • Ensuring protection of and respect for human rights of women and girls;
  • Protecting women and girls from gender-based violence;
  • Integrating a gender perspective into disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of former combatants.
  • In many conflict areas, a culture of "hegemonic masculinity" prevails among the major political actors,
Teachers Without Borders

Institute for Economics & Peace - Teacher Guides - 1 views

www.economicsandpeace.org/page.aspx

peace_education resources lesson_plans guidebook lessons peace teaching

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 17 Dec 10 - No Cached
  • Teachers Without Borders on 17 Dec 10
     
    "The Building Blocks of Peace is composed of four thematic modules on global peace. Downloadable in PDF format, the guide comes complete with teacher notes, lesson plans, student handouts, assessment suggestions and extension activities. Each module contains a range of activities that are both stimulating and challenging - offering a uniquely broad view of global peace. While these materials are designed to build upon each other to provide an extensive understanding of these important issues, they can also be used as separate exercises or to support existing class work."
Teachers Without Borders

TWB holds capacity building workshop in Nigeria - 1 views

www.newsdiaryonline.com/capacity.htm

TWB Nigeria Nasarawa teacher professional development Teachers Without Borders

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 24 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • The upcoming workshop will attract over 1,200 teachers according to the list of schools and number of teachers provided by the Nasarawa State Ministry of Education to Teachers Without Borders Regional office in Abuja.
  • According to  TWB’s Africa Regional Coordinator, Dr. Raphael Ogar Oko, “the teaching mastery workshop program in Nasarawa State was initially designed to educate experienced teachers who will mentor beginning teachers and NYSC members deployed to serve in schools without the basic teaching qualification. After implementing the program in two areas, Karu and Uke, it was discovered that the teachers in schools needed the professional development workshops also in addition to the NYSC members that are being deployed to schools. Based on requests from teachers, school heads and proprietors of schools as well as the local education authority, TWB has decided to make the program open to all teachers in Nasarawa State as a demonstration of our commitment to teacher development and appreciation of the cordial relationship with the Nasarawa State Ministry of Education”.
  • The Teachers Without Borders Certificate of Teaching Mastery (CTM), which is recognized by the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria as a teacher professional development course is a free, self-paced, peer- and mentor-supported teacher professional development program.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The Nasarawa State workshop is the first in 2011 and will be followed by similar programs in Akwanga and other LGAs in the State. When asked about the ultimate hope of this programs, Dr. Oko said that “initiatives like this should help our nation establish a culture of professional development among educators, create a network and community of professional development educators in schools and communities as well as utilize resources and technologies to advance professional development which is missing in our educational practices in Nigeria”.
Teachers Without Borders

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

www.trust.org/...children-come-first-in-tunisia

children Tunisia education EFA

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 23 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • 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...
  • “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.”
  • 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.
  • 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

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

search.japantimes.co.jp/...nn20110226f1.html

Japan English curriculum reform teachers

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 03 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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...
  • Japan has lagged behind its neighboring countries in introducing English lessons at an early age, and its impact is obvious in various statistics.
  • 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.
  • Teachers Without Borders on 03 Mar 11
     
    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

Role reversal in Andhra Pradesh: Students to evaluate teachers - Times Of India - 0 views

articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...tion-new-evaluation-n-narayana

India evaluation teachers education assessment professional development

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 28 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • HYDERABAD: State schools will see a role reversal in their classrooms soon. Starting this academic year, students will be asked to evaluate the performance of teachers.
  • The evaluation sheet will have questions on teachers ranging from their teaching skills to their attendance and also whether they are approachable. It will also evaluate the approach adopted by the teachers in class, especially towards students who are poor performers.
  • Officials said that the teachers will be evaluated on a ten point scale. "We thought of a new evaluation process as the department felt that teachers should be accountable to students. The process will be introduced in classes V to X and we are even thinking of extending it to junior colleges that fall under the school education department," said a senior official.
Teachers Without Borders

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

www.monitor.co.ug/...-

education assessment teachers evaluation professional development Uganda

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 28 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • 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.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • 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.”
  • Mokurai Cherlin on 29 Jul 11
     
    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

Violence breaks out amid massive street protests in Chile; Students demand education reforms - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...gIQAMW4C5I_story.html

chile student protests violence education teachers demonstrations

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 12 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • SANTIAGO, Chile — Violence erupted on the streets of Chile’s capital and other cities Tuesday as tens of thousands of students staged another protest demanding changes in public education.
  • Five days after a banned march ended in nearly 900 arrests, students and teachers marched peacefully in Santiago and elsewhere in Chile on Tuesday, calling for the government to increase spending on schooling and provide “free and equal” public education.As in previous demonstrations, protesters danced, sang, wore costumes and waved signs. But then groups of masked protesters split off and tried to break through police barricades blocking the way to the presidential palace.
  • High school and university students have refused to attend class, taken over schools and staged demonstrations to press their demand for fundamental changes in how Chile finances public education.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The current system also leaves underfunded municipalities in charge of high school education nationwide. This has starved most schools of resources, while leaving some wealthy neighborhood schools well off. Chile’s small upper class sends its children to private schools or even overseas for their education.
Teachers Without Borders

South Korea: Kids, Stop Studying So Hard! - TIME - 0 views

www.time.com/...0,9171,2094427,00.html

South Korea exams testing education learning students schools cram

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 30 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • On a wet Wednesday evening in Seoul, six government employees gather at the office to prepare for a late-night patrol. The mission is as simple as it is counterintuitive: to find children who are studying after 10 p.m. And stop them. In South Korea, it has come to this. To reduce the country's addiction to private, after-hours tutoring academies (called hagwons), the authorities have begun enforcing a curfew — even paying citizens bounties to turn in violators.
  • South Korea's hagwon crackdown is one part of a larger quest to tame the country's culture of educational masochism. At the national and local levels, politicians are changing school testing and university admissions policies to reduce student stress and reward softer qualities like creativity. "One-size-fits-all, government-led uniform curriculums and an education system that is locked only onto the college-entrance examination are not acceptable," President Lee Myung-bak vowed at his inauguration in 2008.
  • There are more private instructors in South Korea than there are schoolteachers, and the most popular of them make millions of dollars a year from online and in-person classes. When Singapore's Education Minister was asked last year about his nation's reliance on private tutoring, he found one reason for hope: "We're not as bad as the Koreans."
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • South Koreans are not alone in their discontent. Across Asia, reformers are pushing to make schools more "American" — even as some U.S. reformers render their own schools more "Asian." In China, universities have begun fashioning new entry tests to target students with talents beyond book learning. And Taiwanese officials recently announced that kids will no longer have to take high-stress exams to get into high school. If South Korea, the apogee of extreme education, gets its reforms right, it could be a model for other societies.
  • The problem is not that South Korean kids aren't learning enough or working hard enough; it's that they aren't working smart. When I visited some schools, I saw classrooms in which a third of the students slept while the teacher continued lecturing, seemingly unfazed. Gift stores sell special pillows that slip over your forearm to make desktop napping more comfortable. This way, goes the backward logic, you can sleep in class — and stay up late studying. By way of comparison, consider Finland, the only European country to routinely perform as well as South Korea on the test for 15-year-olds conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. In Finland, public and private spending combined is less per pupil than in South Korea, and only 13% of Finnish students take remedial after-school lessons.
Teachers Without Borders

Mobile phones help bring aid to remotest regions - CSMonitor.com - 0 views

www.csmonitor.com/...-bring-aid-to-remotest-regions

mobile mobile phones Souktel SMS cell phones aid international_development

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 30 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • One of the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) partners is Souktel, a mobile phone service based in the Middle East.
  • Souktel creates databases, message surveys, and instant alerts that can be sent out and received via mobile phone. The platform tries to better connect job seekers with employers through basic Short Message Service (SMS) texting.
  • More recently, Souktel has applied this system to international development work. By expanding their service into northern and eastern Africa, messaging services are being used to connect mobile phone users in previously impenetrable locations with aid and relief workers.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Souktel’s services are coinciding with the exponential rise of mobile phone use in the developing world. The United Nations’ International Telecommunication Union reports that there were 360 million African and 310 million Middle Eastern mobile phone subscribers in 2010. These recent numbers are up from just 87 million and 85 million respective subscribers in 2005.
Teachers Without Borders

Rwanda makes gains in all-inclusive education | Society | Guardian Weekly - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...andan-schools-open-up-disabled

Rwanda teachers child-friendly disabilities students education

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 02 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • In Rwanda, children with disabilities typically face discrimination and are excluded from school and community life. Silas Ngayaboshya, a local programme manager for Handicap International (HI), says that "many families hide their kids at home because having a disability is a shameful thing for the child and the family, as it's considered to be a punishment from God".
  • Rwanda's ministry of education says that 10% of young people have disabilities, while the Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report 2010 concludes that the number of disabled children at school is likely to be small. A few attend their local mainstream school, though most go to special schools and centres in urban areas, too far for most Rwandans and mainly for children with visual or hearing impairments.
  • Despite these shortcomings, Rwanda's education system overall is considered to be one of the most progressive in Africa. The government recently introduced free compulsory education for the first nine years of school for all Rwandan children (this initiative is expected to increase to 12 years from next year). According to Unicef, Rwanda now has one of the highest primary school enrolment rates in Africa (95% of boys and 97% of girls in 2009). 
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Currently, the ministry of education and Unicef fund 54 "child-friendly" schools across Rwanda, which also provide "best-practice" examples to other schools in their cluster areas. A 2009 Unicef report on the initiative indicates that they have assisted 7,500 disabled children. The government is aiming to expand the programme to 400 schools nationwide by 2012, and has also adopted it as the basic standard for all Rwanda's primary schools.
  • Ngayaboshya, who worked with Claude, says that his inclusion plan also involved preparing the teachers and the other children at his school through measures such as pinning up Claude's picture in the classroom, talking in class about how disability can occur, inviting the class to contribute ideas that could help to include him, and encouraging Claude's father to visit the school and show teachers simple measures to assist his son.
  • It took weeks to integrate Claude into school life, but he now gets good grades and is making friends. And he walks over a kilometre every day on his crutches to go to school. Although it is a long way he doesn't mind the journey, and is excited about the classroom. 
  • Undoubtedly there are complex challenges for disabled learners in Rwanda. These include the lack of awareness among families that children with disabilities can attend school; poverty (poor families might need their children to support them with looking after animals, fetching water or firewood); the effects of the genocide in 1994, including the massacre of thousands of teachers that has reduced their numbers (the pupil-teacher ratio in Rwanda is as high as 60:1 according to HI); and the burden placed on resources by a curriculum shift from French to English as the official language of instruction.
Teachers Without Borders

South Africa desperate for skilled teachers - News - Mail & Guardian Online - 1 views

mg.co.za/...desperate-for-skilled-teachers

south africa teachers teacher development education

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 06 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • According to a report released by the Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE) on Wednesday, South Africa is in dire need of good, skilled teachers. "South Africa's education system is underperforming, especially in terms of maths and science results. When compared to many other developing countries, our expenditure on education is not matched by the results, and research shows decisively that good teaching is vital for better results," Ann Bernstein, the founding director of CDE, told journalists.
  • Research dating back to 2005 demonstrates that 16 581 mathematics teachers were present in the Eastern Cape but only 7 090 were teaching the subject. But 5 032 were teaching mathematics who were not qualified to do so.
  • Of those who are pursuing a career in the classroom, only two-thirds spend 46% of their time actively teaching and of those hardly any teach on a Friday.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Additionally, the education system must also contend with the fact that over 25% of newly qualified teachers immediately pursue other professions, or emigrate.
  • "We need to make teaching a more attractive profession with better incentives for good performance. Teaching is not respected enough in South Africa and society needs to change its views and attribute greater status to teachers," Bernstein said.
  • "The starting salary in the teaching profession is low compared to other professions, even though the teachers have completed a four-year degree. This prevents people joining the profession. Teacher development and training is also key to improving the current situation," said Sadtu spokesperson Nomusa Cembi.
  • "In the past teaching was seen as a vocation and not a job. There has been a decline in the way teachers are viewed and the overall ethos of the profession has also waned. This will only be improved if teachers rise to the occasion," he said.
Teachers Without Borders

EGYPT: Modern Teaching Practices Spur 15-Year Old to New Beginnings | CREATIVE Magazine - 0 views

creative-associates.us/?p=1072&utm_source=Master+Newsletter+List&utm_campaign=f259076929-Newsletter_3_18_113_18_2011&utm_medium=email

Egypt girls girls' education education schools teaching USAID

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 06 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • “I believe the school environment was the main reason I dropped out. Mainly, I didn’t feel that I was learning anything. Teachers preferred using force and intimidation instead of listening to the students. I wasn’t able to understand a thing during class, and was constantly so scared.”
  • “I thought many times of going back to school, especially since my new school is very close to home. But at the time, my parents said I was too old to go back and that I’ll soon get married and have a home of my own. I still felt something missing from my life, and it was difficult for me to see my peers at the preparatory level going to school every day, while I stayed home.”
  • Safaa had the unique chance to tell her story to the USAID Mission Director, Mr. Jim Bever, on a surprise visit to Abou Harb School. “It was a really nice visit and had a huge impact on me. People came from such a far off place to visit our school, and spend time to talk to me! It really made a difference to me personally. I felt important and people were interested in listening to me and what I had to say.”
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Upon returning to school, Safaa was surprised by the changes in mindset, in teaching practice, and in the classroom environment as a whole. Although she was overwhelmed to be returning to the 6th grade after leaving school in the third, the changes she witnessed motivated her greatly to overcome her obstacles. “My first impression was my amazement with the class set up. The girls were sitting in groups, thinking together, discussing, and working as a team. No punishment, no intimidation, and everyone trying to help each other learn.”
  • “I have something to say to every girl thinking of dropping out of school: you will regret every day you spend away from school and from learning, for the rest of your life. I am very happy and would like to thank everyone who helped me and encouraged me to return to school. “Thank you TILO for helping my school to change and for helping me to learn again.”
« First ‹ Previous 61 - 80 of 164 Next › Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page