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United Kingdom: Education Day 2018: To inclusivity and beyond

United Kingdom/20 de marzo de 2018/by Murray MacKay/Source: https://www.imperial.ac.uk

This year’s Education Day brought together staff and students to explore how to make learning and teaching more inclusive.

Opening the event the College’s Assistant Provost (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion), Professor Stephen Curry, said: “Actions often speak louder than words. We must ask ourselves tough questions – do certain teaching methods perpetuate bias? As an institution what can we do to add value to this debate?

“Progress has been steady since the passing of the Equality Act in 2010, but more can be done. I’m proud that the principles behind this legislation are threaded throughout the entirety of the College’s Learning and Teaching Strategy, as well as our Curriculum Review.”

«At the heart of a positive student experience must be a strong sense of belonging.»Professor Liz Thomas

Education experts from across the College were joined by keynote speaker Professor Liz Thomas, member of the Teaching Excellence Framework panel, as well as an author and editor of over ten books, and many journal articles, reports, briefings and best practice guides.

Professor Thomas said: “At the heart of a positive student experience must be a strong sense of belonging. Embedding inclusivity is as much about changing the culture of teaching as it is related to the structure of teaching.”

Professor Thomas also set out some of the signs of a positive student experience:

  • Supportive peer relationships
  • Meaningful interaction between staff and students
  • Developing knowledge and having confidence in your identity
  • Having a higher education experience that is relevant to your future goals

Investigating inclusivity

The day included a number of break-out workshops which allowed attendees to discuss issues in more depth. Attendees enjoyed a wide range of conversations and activities, including ‘Breaking Bag’ – an escape room challenge set by Principal Teaching Fellow, Giskin Day.

Giskin Day and attendees try out a workshop challenge
Attendees attempt the ‘Breaking Bag’ escape room challenge

 

Imperial’s ambition to transform teaching and learning

Education Day 2018 forms part of a plan to radically transform teaching at Imperial, the UK’s most international and innovative university. By investing significantly in education the College is empowering students to solve challenges facing the world today and in the future.

Attendees listen to lecturerAs part of this ambition the Learning and Teaching Strategy will create and nurture a supportive environment for staff and students. A healthy learning and working environment will foster a community in which different backgrounds and cultures are cherished and recognised.

Source:

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/185347/education-day-2018-to-inclusivity-beyond/

 

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Gun Violence as State Sponsored Domestic Terrorism

By. Henry Giroux

Passing thoughts on the willingness of the politicians and merchants of death who allow the unimaginable to become imaginable, allow financial gain to prevail over the lives of innocent children, and are more willing to protect guns at the expense of the lives of children.

President Trump listened recently to the impassioned testimony of parents and children who have seen their children and friends killed in gun shootings. He responded by advocating that teachers be armed and trained to have concealed weapons.

Instead of confronting the roots of violence in America, he followed the NRA line of addressing the issue of mass violence, shootings, and the ongoing carnage with a call to arm more people, putting more guns into play, and stating that violence can be met with more violence. This logic is breathtaking in its insanity, moral depravity, refusal to get to the root of the problem, and even advocate minor reforms such as banning assault rifles and high-capacity ammunition magazines, and expanding background checks.

There are 300 million guns in the United States and since the mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School of 20 young children and 6 teachers a decade ago, 11,000 more children have died of gun violence.

There is no defense for putting the policies of the NRA ahead of the lives of children. Criminal acts often pass for legislative policies. How else to explain the Florida legislature refusing to even debate outlawing assault weapons while students from Majory Stoneman Douglas High School sat in the galleys and watched this wretched and irresponsible act take place. How else to explain that the House of Representatives – reduced to an adjunct of the NRA – voted to pass the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act (H.R.38) which would allow individuals to carry concealed weapons across state lines. These are the people who have the blood of thousands on their hands.

The power of money in politics has morphed into a form of barbarism in which financial gain and power have become more important than protecting the lives of America’s children.

I find it extremely difficult to watch the debates about gun violence on the mainstream media. The call for reform is so limited as to be useless. Instead of banning assault rifles, they celebrate Trump for suggesting that he raise the age to 21 in order for people to buy a weapon of war. Instead of preventing violence from engulfing the country and schools, he calls for arming teachers and the press celebrates his willingness to entertain this issue. Instead of speaking about justice and allowing people to speak who are against deregulating laws restricting or abolishing the merchants of death, the media allows an NRA hawk to speak at the town meeting and rather than calling her out for being a spokesperson for violence rather than justice, they congratulate themselves on promoting balance.

The corporate media has become a normalizing force for violence because they lack the courage to challenge the corporations that control them. They also benefit by peddling extreme violence as a spectacle. They refuse to begin with the issue of money in politics and start instead with what one parent called non-starters. Guns disappear from the conversation and appeals to fear and security take over. Young people have to lead this conversation and move beyond the mainstream media. And when they do appear they have to flip the script and ask the questions they think are important.

Children no longer have a safe space in America, a country saturated in violence as a spectacle, sport, and deadly acts of domestic terrorism. Any defense for the proliferation of guns, especially those designed for war, is criminal. This is the discourse of political corruption, a government in the hands of the gun lobbies, and a country that trades in violence at every turn in order to accrue profits at the expense of the lives of innocent children.

This debate is not simply about gun violence, it is about the rule of capital and how the architects of violence accrue enough power to turn machineries of death and destruction into profits while selling violence as a commodity. Violence is both a source of profits and a cherished national ideal. It is also the defining feature of a toxic masculinity. Gun reform is no substitute for real justice and the necessary abolition of a death-dealing and cruel economic and political system that is the antithesis of democracy.

What are we to make of a society in which young children have a greater sense of moral courage and social responsibility than the zombie adults who make the laws that fail to invest in and protect the lives of present and future generations. First step, expose their lies, make their faces public, use the new media to organize across state lines, and work like hell to vote them out of office in 2018. Hold these ruthless walking dead responsible and then banish them to the gutter where they belong. At the same time, imagine and fight for not a reform of American society but a restructuring along the lines of a democratic socialist order.

Source:

https://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/henry-giroux-on-gun-violence

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Kenia: KCPE candidates get wrong results as Knec vows to tackle issue

Kenia / 29 de noviembre de 2017 / Fuente: http://www.nation.co.ke/

When this year’s Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination results were released on Tuesday, Maina Lewis Mwangi of index number 20409008066 was optimistic of getting good results.

Master Mwangi, who sat his examination at Wangu Primary School, Dandora, in Nairobi, sent a text to 22252 in order to get the results as had been advised by Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i during the morning session.

With assurance by the ministry that the examinations were accurate, Master Mwangi got a text message that indicated that he had scored ENG 68B, KIS 56C+, KSL==, MAT 43C-, SCI 29D-, SSR 70B+ Total 266 marks out of 500.

EXAM RESULTS
He was not satisfied. He sent another text, which indicated that he had scored ENG 68B, KIS 56C+, KSL==, MAT 43C- , SCI 61B-, SSR 70B+ Total 298.

The scores were different in terms of the Science subject as in the first text he scored 29D while in the second it was 61B.

The candidate is now among 345 candidates whose erroneous results the Kenya National Examinations Council (Knec) says it is handling.

On Thursday, a total of 535 candidates at Olympic Primary School in Nairobi finally received their correct exam results after two days of anxiety.

REMARKING

In the previous results, the best candidate had 384 marks but, after the correction, the top candidate had 427 marks with 13 candidates getting more than 400 marks.

The mother of Master Maina, Ms Elimina Mwikali, told the Sunday Nation that she had raised the issue with the school and was told that many parents had complained about the same issue.

According to her, manual remarking of the examination will rectify these errors, which she said were introduced by the computer during the marking process.

“They should not be in a hurry to release exam results,” she said.

COMPLAINTS
In Siaya, errors in KCPE results for many schools in Gem sub-county are yet to be corrected.

Siaya County Director of Education Kituyi Masibo has asked all aggrieved candidates, parents and teachers to remain calm as they wait for the official printout of the results.

Mr Masibo, who spoke to the Sunday Nation, said he received numerous complaints from head teachers from various primary schools in Wagai division, Gem Sub-County, claiming their results were erroneous.

“Let us wait for the official printout of the results expected in the county today,” Mr Masibo said.

FORM ONE SELECTION
The teachers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the results have killed the spirit of the candidates and the final mean grades of their schools.

They said that the results coincidentally awarded a majority of candidates with a standard mark of 51 per cent in Mathematics and 60 per cent in English.

Some of the affected schools in Wagai division include Malunga, Ober, Uriri, Ujimbe, Oseno, Wagai, Ulamba, Apuoyo, Asai, Aluor Girls, Kaudha, Nyasidhi and Wagwer primary schools.
The teachers called on Knec to rectify the problem before the beginning of Form One selection set to begin next month.

MERIT
They also read mischief in the manner in which Knec resorted to coincidentally awarding candidates the same marks.

“We call upon Knec to immediately look at that matter and ensure that the mistakes are corrected and guarantee the best pupils an opportunity to join their preferred schools,” a teacher said.

However, one teacher has since admitted that the error has been corrected and hopes that the matter will be resolved fully.

Speaking on Tuesday during the release of the examination results at the Kenya Institute of Curriculum of Development, Knec chairman George Magoha said the acquisition of 20 new scanning machines that cost Sh100 million enabled the marking of the examination to be completed in two weeks.

“The new machines are faster, more efficient and accurate when it comes to processing the examinations. The council was able to realise accuracy of up to 99.99 per cent in processing the papers,” he said.

ACCURATE RESULTS
He said that for composition, sign language and braille, the council engaged 5,316 teachers who completed the work within five days.

On Saturday, Prof Magoha could not be reached for comment on the issue.

However on Friday, acting chief executive Mercy Karogo acknowledged that there were concerns but said the council was addressing them.

“We have received complaints and addressed a number of them and will continue to do so,” she said.

In Naivasha, 20 candidates at Mt Longonot School received their correct exam results on Friday, ending the anxiety that characterised the results announcement.

Fuente noticia: 

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Estados Unidos: State’s New Education Plan Calls for Big Strides

Oklahoma / 20 de septiembre de 2017 / Por: JENNIFER PALMER / Fuente: http://kgou.org/

Reducing schools’ use of emergency certified teachers by 95 percent and boosting high school graduation to 90 percent are some of the goals set by the state Education Department in its plan for education under the Every Student Succeeds Act.

The state also proposes attacking hunger in schools and is considering forcing failing schools that are on a four-day school week to change their calendar.

Under ESSA, which replaces No Child Left Behind, all states are tasked with submitting a plan detailing how federal education dollars will be spent, gauging school performance and turning around low-performing schools.

Oklahoma Watch is a nonprofit journalism organization that produces in-depth and investigative content on a range of public-policy issues facing the state. For more Oklahoma Watch content, go to www.oklahomawatch.org.

Oklahoma submitted its plan, a 218-page document, to the U.S. Department of Education on Monday, and approval is expected. Twenty-nine other states were expected to also file their plans Monday, and three states impacted by hurricanes were given extensions. Sixteen states turned in plans last spring. The U.S. Department of Education is supposed to monitor states’ progress toward achieving their goals.

Here are five key things to know about Oklahoma’s ESSA plan:

  • The state sets concrete goals for academic improvement. Its goals are: scoring among the top 20 states on the “Nation’s Report Card,” or National Assessment of Educational Progress, in all subjects in fourth and eighth grades; reducing by 50 percent the need for college remediation in math and English; ranking among the top 10 states for high school graduation (including four-, five- and six-year rates); ensuring that 100 percent of secondary students develop an Individualized Career Academic Plan; ensuring 75 percent of students enter kindergarten ready to read; and reducing the need for emergency certified teachers by 95 percent. All goals are set with a target year of 2025.
  • The A-F report card system remains, despite feedback from stakeholders asking the state to reconsider. The state plans to use 2017-2018 test scores to create a baseline, with approximately 5 percent of schools receiving an A and 5 percent receiving an F. All schools receiving an F will be identified as comprehensive support schools, as well as any high school with a graduation rate of 67 percent or lower. These schools will receive grants targeting professional development. The state department also may force schools who receive the designation and are on a four-day week to change their calendar.
  • Oklahoma is pioneering a new method of analyzing student subgroups. The new accountability system creates a hierarchy where students’ scores are only counted once, even if they fall into multiple categories. Since economically disadvantaged is the top subgroup, only students who are not economically disadvantaged will fall into the other subgroups, such as students with disabilities, black students and Hispanic students. The method has faced criticism, but remains in the final plan. The state plans to suppress any measure with fewer than 10 students; early drafts had the suppression amount, called an N-size, at 30 but reduced it to improve transparency in small schools.
  • The plan also calls for combating hunger. The state plan addresses increasing schools’ participation in school meal programs, including Breakfast in the Classroom, Community Eligibility Provision, and the Summer Food Service Program. The state’s target is to have 75 percent of eligible schools participating in Community Eligibility Provision; currently 34 percent do. It also wants to boost participation in summer meals by 30 percent by 2025.
  • Chronic absenteeism is the state’s “fifth indicator.” Defined as missing 10% of the school year, or 18 days in 180-academic year. Chronic absenteeism will be reported for all students and separately by subgroups.

Fuente noticia: http://kgou.org/post/state-s-new-education-plan-calls-big-strides

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No Education Crisis Wasted: Billionaires Seek to Make Education in Africa Profitable

Africa/July 18, 2017/By Maria Hengeveld/http://www.alternet.org

Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are betting big on an effort to turn African education into a for-profit venture. But investigations show that children and their teachers are getting a raw deal.

The dream is wonderful: provide a good education to millions of children growing up in poverty. That’s why Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, the World Bank and the Dutch Ministry for Foreign Affairs are pouring millions into a company that aims to turn that dream into reality. Investigations show, however, that both the children and their teachers get a raw deal.

Shannon May is clearly emotional when she walks onto the stage in early February 2017. The founder and strategist behind the world’s largest chain of kindergarten and primary schools is about to speak to a room full of women. She will talk about education, motherhood and the reasons why she founded her company, Bridge International Academies, with her husband Jay Kimmelman in 2008.

May and Kimmelman are in Nairobi, the city they live in and where Bridge has its headquarters. About 70 percent of the more than 100,000 pupils attending Bridge schools live in Kenya and around 6,000 staff work and live there. It was also the company’s base for expanding into Uganda, Liberia, Nigeria and India.

In her speech, May tells the story of the founding of Bridge: “I was speaking with mothers and with fathers, about their struggles… two things came up across hundreds of conversions I had… the first was health… the other thing was education.”

This made May think about her own childhood: if she hadn’t had good teachers, she would never have been admitted to Harvard and she would probably never have worked at Morgan Stanley. She would certainly never have come up with the idea of ​​setting up Bridge, the “edu-business model” that aims to provide affordable, high-quality education to millions of children from families who have to live on less than US$2 a day. When the couple founded Bridge in 2008, their dream was to emancipate these children.

The exact number of children involved is unclear.  Sometimes her husband talks about 700 million children, at other times it’s around 700 million families.  According to the World Bank, 767 million people worldwide currently live below the poverty line of 1.90 dollars a day. Whatever the exact figures are, they are high and education opportunities fall short of what is needed. There are not enough good state schools and private schools are often too expensive. May and her husband have spotted a gap in the market: education needs to be better than what state schools offer, and provided at only 30 percent of what the state currently spends per student.

May, close to tears, continues her speech in Nairobi: “Bridge is different because it exists for only one reason, it’s so that every child, not just the rich kids, not just the kids in the cities, not just the kids who have mothers and fathers who can look after them and teach them at home but every kid no matter what else is going on in their lives can go to a great school.” She is even more positive in an interview: “We fight for social justice, to create opportunities.”

And for profit. According to her husband, the “global education crisis”  is worth about US$51 billion a year. In 2013, Kimmelman explained in a presentation how, for less than US$5 in tuition fees per pupil per month, Bridge could grow “into a billion-dollar company” and “radically change the world.” Earlier he and May promised that they could do this for US$4 per month per pupil.

Big dreams and even bigger promises. However, my research and research done by others shows:

  • that their quality claims have not been supported by any independent research;
  • that the education provided turns out to be more expensive than promised;
  • that underpaid teachers have to recruit additional pupils;
  • that they have dismissed criticism from non-governmental organizations and trade unions;
  • that critics are silenced;
  • that a PR offensive has been launched in order to continue selling the education services provided.

Furthermore, €1.4 million of Dutch taxpayers’ money has been poured into the company. Dutch support was provided because Lilianne Ploumen of the country’s Labor Party, currently caretaker Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, believes that Bridge uses an “innovative and cost-effective education model, which is able to keep tuition costs per child down.”

How do you improve education, make it cheaper and also make it profitable? May and Kimmelman have come up with an “innovative pedagogical approach.” The possibility of setting up a few thousand standardized schools within a few years is to be the first innovation. The profit made from each school may be low, but once half a million pupils are recruited — the number of enrollments that Bridge needs to break even — business really takes off. The plan is to reach two million pupils by 2018 and 10 million by 2025.

This rapid growth would be made possible by using Bridge’s second innovative method, namely its very own approach to the role of teachers and their salary scale. May believes that “qualities such as kindness” are more important than diplomas and this allows for significant savings. In Kenya, where the starting salary for qualified teachers is around US$116 dollars a month, Bridge teachers usually earn less than US$100 a month. However, as Kimmelman explains in a presentation, teachers can earn bonuses by recruiting new students themselves. Marketing is a core task for both teachers and school principals.

A third innovative aspect, explains May, is the smart use of technology. It works like this: a team of “master teachers” designs digital “master lessons” that are so detailed that all a teacher needs to do is read them from a special Bridge tablet (know as the Nook).

Leaning how to use the Nook is therefore a key component of the crash course that Bridge teachers must complete. Over three to four weeks, they learn how to download new lesson material, how to present it, and how to record daily scores and progress made with the lessons.

This last skill is crucial, says May. It allows Bridge to see “hundreds of thousands of assessment scores” every day and to find out “what works and what doesn’t.” The “extremely robust data” can then be used to “continuously improve the teaching material.”

Setting up schools from scratch, paying teachers and developing and maintaining technology all cost money.

“One of our challenges when we were first pitching Bridge to investors was getting them to… see people living in poverty not just as beneficiaries but as customers,” May explains in a 2015 World Economic Forum video. It must have been a convincing argument because May and Kimmelman have attracted more than US$100 million in support since Bridge was set up in 2008. Supporters range from venture capitalists, like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, to development agencies such as the World Bank.

My request for information under the Dutch Freedom of Information Act revealed that the Dutch government, too, invested nearly €1.4 million in Bridge between 2015 and 2016 via contributions to the Novastar East Africa Fund. Minister Ploumen says that this “indirect support complements the weak public education systems in these countries.”

Support is not only provided through funding. In 2015, the World Economic Forum named May “One of Fifteen Women Who Changed the World.” That very same year, the President of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim lauded the Bridge business model as one for the future. And a few months ago, Bridge won the Global Shared Value Award, a prestigious prize awarded to companies that have a social mission.

It has made May and Kimmelman extremely self-confident. We have “definitively proven that it is possible to provide high-quality education […] and in doing so solve an increasingly urgent crisis for families, communities and countries,” May wrote in February of this year. Kimmelman even believes that international research shows that Bridge “students already perform better than others in six months.”

If that would be true, why have they still not reached those millions of pupils? Anton (a former academy manager with Bridge, who did not want his real name published) is familiar with the darker side of Bridge’s “innovative pedagogical approach.” Anton was fired after a year in the post when a quality assurance manager and a regional manager made an unannounced visit to his school and discovered three pupils attending in contravention of school fees policy.

The children were registered with Bridge, but were no longer allowed to attend classes because their parents had fallen behind with the payment of tuition fees. Anton knew that he was supposed to turn pupils away if their parents had not paid. He had already had his salary docked once and was at risk of losing his job if he continued to allow those pupils to attend.

Apparently, the children had returned because their parents were not at home and they didn’t feel safe outside. So, their class teacher had allowed them back into the classroom without getting Anton’s permission. But the visiting quality assurance and regional managers did not agree that this was a good enough reason and Anton was told to clear his desk.

On reflection, Anton says he is relieved that he is no longer working for Bridge. He was under too much pressure to attract new pupils and the “rigid payment system” put him in uncomfortable waters with parents. Every month, about half of the parents couldn’t pay their fees on time, and would get upset with Anton when their children were, again, sent home from school. These tensions made it even more difficult to attract new customers and to persuade existing customers to bring in new ones.

“We promised them heaven” says another former academy manager. John (name changed) says it was the only option, “otherwise, you lost your job.” He worked at Bridge for two and a half years before he handed in his resignation. The low salary and the heavy work load (60 hours a week, according to John) were contributing factors. His pangs of conscience were the deciding factor: he felt that he was “constantly deceiving parents.”

It wasn’t because Bridge had directly instructed him to “only mention the basic price to new customers and avoid mentioning additional costs, such as exam fees and uniforms.” But since his salary was partly calculated on his success rates, he often told half truths.

If parents weren’t happy with the strict payment arrangements and threatened to transfer their children to a school with more flexible system, John would think up an argument in an attempt to keep them, telling them for example “that there would soon be a sponsor for them who would pay the tuition fees on their behalf.”

How representative are these reports from these two former academy managers? Juul (name changed) can tell us more. Juul, a researcher, was part of a team that in early 2016 completed nearly four hundred interviews with Bridge parents (128), pupils (65), teachers (21) and academy managers. The research was carried out on behalf of Education International, an international trade union for teachers, which is not a competitor of Bridge.

The academy managers and teachers who were interviewed expressed the same frustrations as Anton and John. They described the marketing work as annoying, demoralizing and underpaid. The Nook script was considered to be restrictive and almost half of those interviewed said that they did not use the Nook as intended or sent “meaningless data” to the headquarters.

“You hear such sad stories,” said Juul. “Some parents took out loans to pay the tuition fees and were evicted from their homes because they were unable to make payments on time.”

Bridge, however, doesn’t agree with the research. In a statement, the company called the report nonsense. It claims:

  • Bridge internal data shows that 64 percent of Bridge teachers enjoy teaching in Bridge classes;
  • 100 percent of them would like to grow with the company; and
  • 96 percent of teachers appreciate the community engagements responsibilities assigned to them.

According to May, the study is therefore proof of the witch hunt that Education International started against her company. The organization had already published a similarly critical report on Bridge in Uganda. May continues to believe in her dream: “Changing the status quo is inherently a challenge to entrenched interests and existing models.”

But those “entrenched interests” aren’t finished with Bridge yet. Angelo Gavrielatos led the Education International research project. He shows me a short film in which Kenyans from various national educational institutions and former Bridge staff criticize the company’s infrastructure, facilities and teaching materials. For example, a former staff manager says that “people are being misled” with promises about an “excellent lesson package.”

A package, it should be noted, that has never been approved by the Kenyan authorities. A leaked letter from the Ministry of Education reveals that a Kenyan inspection had deemed Bridge’s teaching material “largely irrelevant to Kenyan teaching objectives” and that the teaching methods don’t allow teachers enough room to tend to pupils with special needs.

Education International is not the only organization to criticize Bridge. At the start of 2015, 116 non-governmental organizations sent a letter to World Bank President Jim Yong Kim. They stated that there was no evidence at all that Bridge had succeeded in delivering better results than competing state schools and criticized Kim for blindly accepting Bridge’s unverifiable “internal data.”

What’s more, Bridge is by no means as affordable as the company claims. In Kenya, the cost per student is between US$9 and US$13 a month once exam fees, uniforms, books and administration costs are included. The situation is similar in Uganda, the organizations write.

According to Bridge, the organizations’ calculations are entirely wrong. However, when asked, the company does not deny that, in practice, tuition fees are higher than the promised fees of US$4-6. May, meanwhile, continues to insist that Bridge’s prices are reasonable. Because, she writes, by sending their children to Bridge, parents have “determined for themselves that Bridge is affordable” and that they feel that the tuition fees charged by Bridge “are an appropriate rate.”

However, voices within the United Nations have also started to speak out against the Bridge model. When it was announced at the start of March 2016 that Liberia was considering outsourcing its entire primary school system to Bridge, the Special Rapporteur on the right to education stated that “public schools, their teachers, and the concept of education as a public good, are under attack.”

Questions are also being raised by the Ugandan government. Following an inspection, the Ministry of Education found that Bridge schools “showed poor hygiene and sanitation which puts the life and safety of the schoolchildren in danger” and decided that the company had to close 63 schools. May puts this setback down to troublemakers who have “sold lies to the Ugandan government.” Lies that “unfortunately the government has taken seriously.”

It’s Kenya where May’s dream really begins to turn into a nightmare. In August 2016, the Ministry of Education sent the company an ultimatum. Bridge was given 90 days to adapt the curriculum to Kenyan guidelines and ensure that at least half of the teachers had a diploma. If they didn’t meet those requirements, Bridge was at risk of having to close down all of its schools.

But Bridge won’t be beaten. It is trying to silence Kenyan critics, as shown in two leaked letters. One was addressed to the head of the national teachers’ union, the other addressed to the director of a national school association. The first was sent by Bridge’s law firm, the second by Bridge’s in-house lawyer. In both letters, the recipients are threatened with a defamation lawsuit if they continue to speak out against Bridge and portray it as a company that “is only interested in profit.”

Steps have also been taken in Liberia to counter negative reports. Anderson Miamen from the Liberian Coalition for Transparency and Accountability in Education described the situation to me in an e-mail. When he wanted to interview Bridge teachers at the start of this year as part of an assessment study, he discovered that they had apparently been “warned against speaking to visitors or researchers. Especially not about their welfare or that of the children.”

Bridge has also launched a PR offensive. The company opened a London communications office earlier this year and has advertised several vacancies for PR professionals who should have good contacts with the media in order to “promote and protect” Bridge’s reputation.

Since then “Bridge’s success” has been widely praised on Twitter. For example, “A survey shows that 87 percent of the Bridge parents believe that Bridge teachers are well trained and that their teaching method is the best.” There is no link to the survey, only photos of smiling pupils in Bridge uniforms. The new PR manager, Ben Rudd, did not want to send me the survey either. He did, however, send promotional material that refers to the same internal data and mysterious studies. He also offered to arrange a “high-level quote.”

And the data that May earlier described as “robust?” They are up for sale. At least, that’s what a leaked Bridge presentation, meant for investors, from 2016 suggests. In this presentation, Bridge outlined new profit-making opportunities, including the sale of customer information to lenders and insurance companies, and increased profit margins on school lunches and student uniforms.

What has happened to May and Kimmelman’s dream? Opposition from governments, non-governmental organizations and trade unions seems to have slowed down Bridge’s growth considerably. It also looks like the company is not going to reach its planned target of two million pupils by 2018. The company wrote me that it currently has just over 100,000 pupils.

Not all of Bridge’s innovations are bad, of course. Absenteeism among teachers appears to be lower at Bridge schools than at state schools. Juul says that other schools could also take Bridge’s electronic payment methods as an example as a way to tackle corruption.

As for the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its investment of €1.4 million, spokesperson Herman van Gelderen informed me by e-mail that compliance with quality standards and affordability are part of “our involvement and dialogue with Bridge. The findings in the article serve as a basis for discussing these issues with Bridge.” The same applies to the teachers’ workload and remuneration.

Van Gelderen points out that the quality of the education provided is better than at state schools. To back up his argument he refers to a national test  in 2015 and 2016 on which Bridge students apparently scored slightly higher than the national average. But even if Bridge performs better than state schools, it still doesn’t tell us anything about the quality of the education provided by Bridge. Because — and May also admits this herself in an article — the poorest and, therefore, often weaker students, who bring the average exam scores down, mainly go to state schools. Moreover, Bridge is a private school and can therefore also influence scores by not accepting weaker pupils or by unnecessarily making them repeat a year. In Education International’s report, teachers admit that this kind of selection occurs.

High-quality education cannot simply be provided using a universal script, and meaningful learning outcomes cannot be summed up in self-assessed evaluations. Especially not if they are part of a business model that does not tolerate transparency or independent evaluations, and where profit incentives, branding bluff and promotional spiel are rewarded more than honest, critical reflection.

* This is a translation of an article originally published in the Dutch news magazine De Correspondent.

Maria Hengeveld writes about feminism, inequality, multinational corporations and economic justice, sometimes in Dutch.

Source:

http://www.alternet.org/no-education-crisis-wasted

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A promise unfulfilled – education in Pakistan

Pakistan, 24/06/2017.  From: einnews.com. By Ghulam Noor Jehanian.

Somewhere between the hardcore cleric’s whims and the ruling elite’s desire for expediency, the future of millions is lost.

The education system of Pakistan is faced with a crisis of an unprecedented level. Millions of dreams have been shattered, billions of hopes squandered and infinite talent frittered away. The crude ignorance towards the educational sector is criminal. The issues facing education in the country are uncountable; the harrowing crises never seem to settle. Stretching from a non-uniform education system to incompetent curricula, and from a below par budget spending to the quintessential patriarchal norms, the problems remain unfazed.

According to a report published by a subsidiary of the Federal Ministry of Education itself, there are 22.6 million out-of-school children. On top of it, these children may never get to see the inside of a school. Then there are millions more who receive a substandard education. Resultantly, only seven per cent of the primary school pass-out students are classified as literate. “A child miseducated is a child lost”. Will the society ever standby its promise?

Adding fuel to fire, the menace of terrorism and the overall law and order instability inside Pakistan has hit where it hurts the most. The number of terrorist attacks on educational institutions has surged. The Washington Post claims that there were 82 attacks from 2000 to 2008, and 642 attacks from 2009 to 2013. Who can forget the wretched morning of 16th December 2014 when seven gunmen massacred 144 students in cold blood in the Army Public School of Peshawar? The idea of returning to school still dreads many of the survivors of that attack. According to a New York Times report, from 2015 to 2017, the number of these heinous attacks has fallen. Nevertheless, through fear, panic and distress, these extremist organizations have successfully discouraged people from receiving an education.

More than half of the out-of-school population of Pakistan is women. The inherently stern environment simply does not allow women to prosper. The Pakistani society has been unfair to its women. The ulema have also not played their part when it comes to assuring civil rights for women. The situation is particularly horrible in the rural areas. In October of 2016 the World Economic Forum’s report ranked Pakistan 143rd on the gender equality index out of 144 countries with only Yemen stalling behind it.

A woman is supposed to be a watchful housekeeper, a caring babysitter, and an outstanding cook. A woman needs to have a “high moral character” as it is required of her to uphold man’s “honor”. A woman also needs to have a white skin and a perfect figure, as it is incumbent upon her to please her husband. Thus, a woman must have everything but an education.

Adding to the dispiriting tale, we have upon us, a ruling elite which feeds on the flesh of the disgruntled and the destitute. This year’s budget with all its charm and glory does little to alleviate the educational crisis. The education spending still hovers around 2 per cent of the GDP. Under-spending in education has wreaked havoc on the country’s overall progress. According to Alif Ailaan, a non-for-profit organisation working for education in Pakistan, this intentional neglect of education is one of the reasons behind illiteracy and intolerance running rampant in the country.

Somewhere between the hardcore cleric’s whims and the ruling elite’s desire for expediency, the future of millions is lost. It has been 69 years since we escaped the shackles of colonialism, however, its leftovers still haunt our society. If possible don’t educate, if you are educating, at least make sure it serves your purpose. This has become the general norm.

The education system has been divisive at best. There are the ever-bourgeoning private schools, which only allow admissions to the elite class. Their fancy buildings, large swimming pools and lush green playgrounds accompanied with the shiny uniforms and the ornamental emblems make the government school graduate a rebel within. Contrary to this, haunted buildings, swamped premises and the brutally savage class teacher add to the sad tale of a public school student.

The constitution of Pakistan enshrines the basic right to education irrespective of gender in its article 25A. However, nearly 40 per cent of the population still remains illiterate. Who is at fault? The “system”?

The opposition parties also seem to remain unmoved. Sit-ins against rigging and rallies demanding the PM’s resignation are the order of the day, yet there is seldom a protest for reforming the shambolic education system and eliminating its misgivings. Whether the umpire raises his finger or not, the uneducated won’t care.

There is no escaping the fact that the level of education determines a country’s progress and its overall rank in the world community. Luxemburg, Switzerland, Norway, the USA and Sweden are countries which spend the most on their education. The results are self-explanatory, Luxemburg, Switzerland, Sweden, and Norway have remained prosperous in peace and neutral in war. On the other hand, USA is the world hegemon. How have these countries got to where they are today?

A fascinating example, in this case, is of Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohammed, who remained the longest-serving Prime Minister of the country, holding the post for a period of 22 years. He made Malaysia great by allocating 30 per cent of the annual budget on education. This is what brought blissful changes in the country. Not only did the measure impact economic growth, it also improved the living standards of the people. Malaysia’s daily “thestar” is still over-flooded with tributes from ordinary citizens to Mahathir Mohamad for his educational reforms.

The education revolution in China of 1949 is also a prime example. The Chinese made education a priority, and made it highly competitive. Much of the progress China sees today is owed to the ’49 revolution, a think tank based in Beijing confirms.

The virtues of a proper education are endless. Only if the Pakistani society and the ruling class overcome their self-centric nature and strive for a better education system, most of the country’s problems can be solved.

For instance, education can alleviate the problems of the oppressed. This is because it helps in getting jobs and making people independent and honourable. Once properly implemented, an educational revolution can very well uplift the socio-economic condition of the society.

Pakistan needs democracy. It needs a lot of democracy. For democracy to prevail, education must precede. Quality education actually makes suffrage worth it; it is known to be the flag carrier of democracy.

Furthermore, fighting intolerance, promoting peace and prosperity and accommodating difference of opinion are all needs of the hour for Pakistan. Studies show, and examples portray, that quality education can make these possible for Pakistan.

As Benjamin Franklin, the founding father of the USA once opined, “The only thing more expensive than education is ignorance.”

If positive energies thrive, there is no way a country so much blessed as Pakistan can’t see the other side of this crossroads.

From: https://education.einnews.com/article/388705846/TmfHlvdnRvzT9_wq?lcf=ZdFIsVy5FNL1d6BCqG9muZ1ThG_8NrDelJyazu0BSuo%3D

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