Sonia Clarke Lee – the former principal of Spring Gardens All-Age in St Catherine, who was illegally dismissed by the school board – is now expecting a merry Christmas as it appears the Ministry of Education will pay her the more than $20 million in salary she believes she is owed since being separated from her job in 2008.
Clarke Lee was ordered reinstated by the Teachers’ Services Commission in March, eight years and seven months after she was dismissed, without a due process.
She has been pushing the ministry to pay her the unpaid salary since then. Last week, Clarke Lee told our news team that she now has reasons to be optimistic.
«I am now getting the impression that it will be a great Christmas,» said Clarke Lee seven weeks after the story of her impasse with the Ministry of Education was first reported.
«I believe the ministry did not expect that I would go to the media with the issue. But as I said before, I was not leaving my money. And I believe I will get it before I leave,» added Clarke Lee.
The Teachers’ Services Commission had found that the school board acted in breach of the Code of Regulations which governs the running of public educational institutions when it dismissed Clarke Lee.
She was subsequently employed to the Ministry of Education with no job description, but is now set to retire.
According to Clarke Lee, she now expects that her official working life will come to an end on a happy note.
The veteran educator Clarke Lee, who is a trained graduate with a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction, has been teaching since 1982. She took up the position as provisional principal of Spring Gardens All-Age in 2007 after resigning her job as acting vice-principal of Inswood High School.
After one academic year in the position and with no blemish to her personal or professional record, and no questions about her ability to carry out her mandate, she should have been appointed principal once a clear vacancy was identified, based on the stipulations of Education Regulations.
Any issue relating to her performance and conduct should have resulted in her being called to a meeting, the concerns/allegations outlined, and she be given an opportunity to respond.
She said none of this happened and still she did not get an appointment letter. Instead, she received a letter from the board instructing her not to return to school in February 2009, prompting her to successfully challenge that decision.
EEUU/December 12, 2017/by Benzinga Full Feed in Press Releases/ Source: http://www.ssuchronicle.com
Leadership is an overused word, and is often misused. We like this definition.
New online resource streamlines the CE process to help nurses meet licensing requirements
New York, New York (PRWEB) December 11, 2017
NursingCE.com has announced the launch of its new mobile-friendly website, http://www.nursingce.com, designed to offer nurses a comprehensive source for continuing education (CE) activities to help meet state and licensing requirements. NursingCE.com is a brand of ATI Nursing Education, a leading provider of assessments and other digital solutions to nursing schools, and will offer continuing education to nurses in all 50 states as well as Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico. Nurses who complete courses on NursingCE.com will earn credits that are ANCC-accredited.
Nurses are required to continually seek continuing education credits to maintain their license to practice. NursingCE.com helps nurses avoid the time-intensive delays and high costs that are usually associated with continuing education. Courses can be completed from any device with an Internet connection. A variety of courses are available, some of which include Domestic and Community Violence, Child Maltreatment, Medical Errors, Pain Management and more.
NursingCE.com has streamlined the traditional continuing education process by providing the ability to take courses, pay for credits, and generate certificates of completion instantly upon successful course completion. Access to courses and assessments are available for free to anyone with a free NursingCE.com account. Nurses only have to pay a fee of $39 to get all of their credits and downloadable certificates once courses are successfully completed. This is a striking departure from the usual practice of charging nurses up front for each course prior to taking and completing the course and pricing that can vary according to the number of credits offered.
NursingCE.com supports its nurses with dedicated customer support via phone and email. The website’s blog offers additional resources and helpful information to nurses that are written by prominent nurse bloggers and educators. Blog content includes articles in a variety of categories including career advice, continuing education news, tips and advice for licensing and certification, and company updates.
At launch, NursingCE.com has courses available to help meet the licensing requirements for nurses in 43 states plus Washington, D.C. Courses will be available to meet the requirements for California, Florida, Iowa, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington state and Puerto Rico in early 2018. To learn more about all the available courses and content visit http://www.nursingce.com.
About NursingCE.com
NursingCE.com is a comprehensive online source to help nurses meet continuing education (CE) and licensing requirements for all 50 states as well as Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. NursingCE.com is a brand of Assessment Technologies Institute, LLC (ATI Nursing Education), a leading provider of assessments and other digital solutions to nursing schools that is an accredited provider for continuing education by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). For more information, visit http://www.nursingce.com.
Resumen: Nguyen Anh Toan, asesor de International Business Management (IBM), señaló que uno de los puntos débiles de los estudiantes vietnamitas es el inglés limitado y las habilidades blandas. Además, los libros de texto para colegios universitarios y universidades no están diseñados lo suficientemente bien. La demanda de educación de alta calidad es alta, especialmente porque los vietnamitas ahora están más dispuestos a gastar más dinero en educación. Los vietnamitas gastan $ 3 mil millones cada año para pagar el estudio de sus hijos en el extranjero, pero el mercado educativo local no ha podido aprovechar este gasto. Tran Thi Phi Yen, director general de IvyPrep, una escuela preparatoria, cree que la estabilidad política y el crecimiento económico son las razones detrás de la inversión creciente en educación. Sin embargo, la capital que ingresa al sector educativo sigue siendo modesta.
Nguyen Anh Toan, advisor to the International Business Management (IBM), noted that one of the weak points of Vietnamese students is limited English and soft skills.
In addition, textbooks for junior colleges and universities are not designed well enough. The demand for high-quality education is high, especially as Vietnamese are now more willing to spend more money on education.
Vietnamese spend $3 billion every year to pay for their children’s study overseas, but the local education market has not been able to take advantage of this spending.
Tran Thi Phi Yen, managing director of IvyPrep, a preparatory school, thinks political stability and economic growth are the reasons behind the increased investment in education. However, the capital poured into the education sector remains modest.
The demand for professional knowledge and language skills to satisfy the requirements of the labor market has been increasing, she said.
A report found that 42 percent of Vietnamese are under 24 years of age, the golden age for nearly all education programs.
Kieu Xuan Hung, president of the HCMC University of Economics and Finance, said in Forbes that investment in tertiary education will continue as non-state schools now train only 15 percent of total students, while the government wants to raise the proportion to 30 percent.
In Japan and South Korea, 70 percent of students attend private schools.
Under a plan to develop universities and junior colleges by 2020, Vietnam would have 2.2 million students at schools. It is expected that by that time Vietnam will have 224 universities and 236 junior colleges.
Many M&A deals in the education sector have been made recently. Cognita, an education fund, bought International School of HCMC (ISHCMC) and Saigon Pearl primary school. The North Anglia fund bought British International School, while TPG, an investment fund from the US, bought the Vietnam-Australia School (VAS).
The EQT fund has invested in ILA, an English center; IFC has poured money in the Vietnam-USA Society English Centers (VUS); Mekong Capital in the YOLA English Center; and IAE in Western University.
Expected stable profits are drawing investors, they know it will take a long time to recover the investment capital.
Forbes Vietnam reported that 77 percent of 43 surveyed schools have receipts higher than spending. Foreign language training brings profitability of 20 percent at minimum.
Francia/Diciembre de 2017/Autor: Henry Samuel/Fuente: The Telegraph
Resumen: Francia debe imponer una prohibición total a los alumnos que usan teléfonos móviles en escuelas primarias y secundarias a partir de septiembre de 2018, confirmó su ministro de educación. Los teléfonos ya están prohibidos en las aulas de francés, pero a partir del próximo año escolar, los alumnos no podrán sacarlos durante los descansos, el almuerzo y entre las clases. Sin embargo, los maestros y los padres están divididos por una prohibición total, y algunos dicen que los niños deben poder «vivir en su tiempo». En Francia, alrededor del 93 por ciento de los jóvenes de 12 a 17 años poseen teléfonos móviles.
France is to impose a total ban on pupils using mobile phones in primary and secondary schools starting in September 2018, its education minister has confirmed.
Phones are already forbidden in Frenchclassrooms but starting next school year, pupils will be barred from taking them out at breaks, lunch times and between lessons.
Teachers and parents are divided over a total ban, however, with some saying children must be able to «live in their time». In France, some 93 per cent of 12 to 17-year-olds own mobile phones.
«These days the children don’t play at break time anymore, they are just all in front of their smartphones and from an educational point of view that’s a problem,» said Jean-Michel Blanquer, the French education minister.
«This is about ensuring the rules and the law are respected. The use of telephones is banned in class. With headmasters, teachers and parents, we must come up with a way of protecting pupils from loss of concentration via screens and phones,» he said.
«Are we going to ban mobile phones from schools? The answer is yes.»
Studies suggest that a significant number of pupils continue to use their mobiles in class and receive or send calls or text messages.
Up to 40 per cent of punishments are mobile-related, according to Philippe Tournier, a Paris headmaster with the Snpden-Unsa teaching union. But he said it was tricky to know how to clamp down on the practice without being able to, say, search pupils’ bags.
It remains unclear how the ban would work. Mr Blanquer had previously suggested that schools would have to provide lockers for pupils to store the phones during school hours.
«We are currently working on this [ban] and it could work in various ways,» said Mr Blanquer. «Phones may be needed for teaching purposes or in cases of emergency so mobile phones will have to be locked away.»
Earlier this year, he suggested that if French politicians were able to put their phones away during council of ministers meetings, then surely it was «possible for any human group, including a class» to do the same.
The practice is already in use in many French «colleges», or primary schools.
«A box placed on the table at the entrance to my class awaits mobile phones. I have never had any problems. It takes two minutes at the start of each hour. This was already the case in primary schools I worked in in Paris,,» one teacher based in Rueil-Malmaison told Le Figaro.
In another establishment in Essonne area, pupils place their phones in named bags in an office at the school entrance and take them back at the end of the day.
But one headmaster in Marseille, southern France, said he remained unconvinced but this «so-called miracle solution», saying that phones could get mixed up, lost or stolen. «If they are switched off at the bottom of the bag, then it works,» he said.
Previous education ministers have resisted a total ban. In 2011, Luc Chatel, then then president Nicolas Sarkozy’s education minister, told senators: «The use of mobiles has entered modern daily habits. We cannot ignore the need to communicate, notably between children and their parents, who are themselves in demand, naturally outside class hours.»
Peep, one of France’s biggest parents’ associations, has already expressed scepticism. «We don’t think it’s possible at the moment,» said its head, Gerard Pommier.
«Imagine a secondary school with 600 pupils. Are they going to put all their phones in a box? How do you store them? And give them back at the end?,» he asked.
«One must live with the times. It would be more intelligent to pose rules and discuss their meaning with pupils,» said Peep, pointing out that «adults themselves are not always exemplary with mobiles».
But for the education minister the issue of mobile phones and tablets is a matter of «public health». «It’s important that children under the age of seven are not in front of these screens,» he added.
The minister also sees the move as a way of cutting down on cyber-bullying. The ban would apply to children up to 15 but phones would be allowed in lycees (secondary school).
Emmanuel Macron spelled out his intention to ban mobile phones in schools in his manifesto before his election as French president in May.
Resumen: El Instituto Estatal de Lengua Rusa Pushkin ha lanzado un curso rápido de Ruso como Lengua Extranjera (RFL) en su sitio web de Educación en Rusia, dijo a RIA Novosti un portavoz del servicio de prensa del Instituto. El idioma ruso se está volviendo cada vez más popular en todo el mundo a medida que Rusia expande sus lazos económicos con otros países y atrae a más turistas, dice Olga Kultepina, de la Escuela Superior de Economía de la Universidad Nacional de Investigación, quien ayudó a desarrollar el curso.
The Russian language is gaining popularity as Russia expands its economic ties and attracts more tourists each year.
The Pushkin State Russian Language Institute has launched an express Russian as a Foreign Language (RFL) course on its Education in Russian website, a spokesperson for the Institute’s press service told RIA Novosti.
The Russian language is growing increasingly popular around the world as Russia expands its economic ties with other countries and attracts more tourists, says Olga Kultepina, of the Higher School of Economics at the National Research University, who helped develop the course.
«I notice that the number of RFL groups grows with every passing year. Many students come to Russia with a good level of knowledge and want to improve. New online resources have appeared as well, which reflect an interest in Russian. For example, 5.81 million students have subscribed to the Duolingo Russian course, which is fourth in the ratings,» she told RIA Novosti.
The express course is in the MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) format for maximum access and includes video lectures, references and an interactive capacity for communication between teachers and students.
The course program is designed for students with a basic grasp of Russian. According to Ms. Kultepina, it only takes the will to start learning and self-discipline. The course is available on all multimedia devices with online access, including smartphones. Thus learning is within reach at any time, including on the move.
Each course is 45 hours long and consists of 15 lessons with individual assignments and tests. Upon completion, students are issued a certificate.
The RFL-1 and RFL-2 courses were developed under the Russian Language Federal Targeted Program of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science.
Estados Unidos/Diciembre de 2017/Autora: Jill Barshay/Fuente: The Hechinger Report
Resumen: ¿El sistema educativo de EE. UU. Comienza a decaer? No me gusta ser alarmista ni dar demasiado peso al resultado de ninguna prueba, pero la publicación de los resultados de las pruebas de lectura de 2016 en todo el mundo es ahora el tercer punto importante de prueba de que algo anda mal. El último Progreso en Lectoescritura Lectora Internacional (PIRLS) – una prueba de comprensión de lectura dada a estudiantes de cuarto grado en 58 países y regiones de todo el mundo – mostró que el desempeño de los EE. UU. Está disminuyendo tanto en términos absolutos como relativos. Los estudiantes estadounidenses de cuarto grado, en promedio, tenían peores habilidades de lectura que cinco años antes, en 2011, y los puntajes cayeron siete puntos en una escala de 1,000 puntos. Al mismo tiempo, otros países saltaron por encima de nosotros.
Is the U.S. educational system beginning to decay?
I don’t like to be alarmist, or give too much weight to any one test result, but last week’s release of 2016 reading test scores around the world is now the third major proof point that something is awry. The latest Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) — a reading comprehension test given to fourth graders in 58 countries and regions around the world — showed that U.S. performance is sliding in both absolute and relative terms. American fourth-graders, on average, had worse reading skills than they did five years earlier, in 2011, with scores slipping seven points on a 1,000-point scale. At the same time, other countries leapfrogged ahead of us. The combination meant that the United States slipped from 6th to 15th place in this international ranking. (The U.S. Education Department considers the 2016 score to be a statistical tie for 13th place because it was so close to those of the three countries ranked immediately ahead of it. See adjacent table.)
This follows two other disappointing test results that had largely pointed to problems in math skills. Both fourth- and eighth-grade students posted declines on the math section of the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). (Eighth-graders had done worse in reading, too.) And another international exam, the 2015 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) showed back-to-back deterioration in math performance among American 15-year-olds in 2012 and 2015. Reading scores had stayed steady.
Reading ability among younger children hadn’t been a source of concern. Until now.
“It looks dire on the surface because we see that we are losing ground,” said Jocelyn A. Chadwick, president of the National Council of Teachers of English. “We need to drill down and learn exactly where this is happening: which states, which districts and which schools. The picture is not as dire everywhere in the country as the test scores would suggest. Some of our students can blow the top off of that test. And we need to look at places where good [teaching] practices are occurring.”
Chadwick said the increase in poverty and the erosion of the middle class, particularly since the 2008 recession, are making it harder to teach reading. “Middle-class parents who pay attention to homework or who ask how their child’s day was, those parents are now working maybe two jobs, or there’s an issue with healthcare,” said Chadwick. In addition, she pointed to the growing numbers of extremely poor students who must learn to read while coping with hunger, homelessness and other upheavals at home.
So many things could have affected student achievement during the five-year period between 2011 and 2016 that it’s impossible to know what the main causes of deterioration are. In addition to an increase in the number of poor students, the funding for schools declined, Common Core standards were introduced, the use of educational software increased, and, in many schools, time spent on test preparation expanded (which often detracts from learning).
NAEP, the national exam given every two years, shows a different picture for fourth-grade reading. During roughly the same 2011 to 2015 time period, fourth-grade reading scores rose slightly, seeming to contradict the international test released last week. But high-performing students drove those gains, and low-achieving students didn’t improve at all. For example, students at the top (90th percentile) gained 2 points. Students at the 10th percentile didn’t budge, remaining well below “basic,” unable to make simple inferences or interpret the meanings of words. Regardless of which test you put more stock in, there’s a growing gap between high-achieving and low-achieving fourth-graders. Regardless of the test, low performers are falling farther behind.
One way to reconcile the contradiction between PIRLS and NAEP is to take a longer historical perspective. “Over the shorter term, there are fluctuations,” said Jack Buckley, a former commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics. “But if you look back to 2001, both trends are the same; we’re flat. We’re not moving much in fourth-grade reading.”
Of course, when you look over this longer 15-year time horizon, there isn’t any deterioration to worry about either. Just a distinct lack of progress. “I’m not celebrating stagnation. Don’t get me wrong,” said Buckley, now a senior vice president at the American Institutes for Research, a nonprofit research firm. “You could argue, given all the challenges that schools are facing, it’s remarkable that we’ve been able to stay flat.”
Resumen: La segunda edición de China Education Fair 2017 concluyó aquí el domingo, con la participación activa de estudiantes nepaleses que aspiran a realizar estudios superiores en universidades chinas. Alrededor de 2.000 estudiantes nepaleses asistieron a la feria de dos días que tuvo como objetivo proporcionar información y orientación a los estudiantes nepalíes para sus estudios posteriores en instituciones académicas de China. La feria, organizada por una organización educativa privada Fresh Start, proporcionó información sobre el sistema educativo chino, las estructuras de tarifas, las oportunidades de becas y las políticas de visas para los estudiantes nepaleses. «Proporcionamos información detallada a los estudiantes de Nepal sobre cursos básicos, licenciaturas, maestrías y doctorados en facultades como ingeniería, ciencia y tecnología, y economía, entre otros», dijo a Xinhua Dipesh Regmi, directora de Fresh Start Nepal.
The second edition of China Education Fair 2017 concluded here on Sunday, with active participation of Nepali students aspiring to pursue higher studies at Chinese universities.
Around 2,000 Nepali students attended the two-day fair that aimed to provide information and guidance to the Nepali students for their further studies in academic institutions of China.
The fair, organized by a private educational organization Fresh Start, provided information about the Chinese education system, tuition fee structures, scholarship opportunities and visa policies for Nepali students.
«We provided detailed information to Nepali students about foundation courses, bachelors, masters, and doctorate degrees in the faculties like engineering, science and technology, and economics among others,» Dipesh Regmi, head of the Fresh Start Nepal, told Xinhua.
The exhibition was being held at a time when the Chinese government has set a target of having half million foreign students by 2020.
Altogether 16 renowned Chinese universities participated in the fair, along with the presence of representatives from various educational institutions and counselors. Jiangsu University, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China University of Mining and Technology were some of the participating universities.
Zhang Yawei, representative from Shandong University of Science and Technology, told Xinhua that «from 2006, we started English-taught courses in our university in electronics, tele-communication and chemical engineering. We have produced hundreds of international students, including those from Nepal, who have shown excellent performance. We are offering various scholarship programs to Nepali students.»
According to the Nepal China Cultural and Educational Council, nearly 5,000 Nepali students have studied in China, starting from 1957.
«I want to study in China because of the gaining reputation of Chinese universities. Their programs are diverse and I am glad that they provide scholarships too,» Sajan Thakuri, an under-graduate student at Joseph College, told Xinhua.
OtrasVocesenEducacion.org existe gracias al esfuerzo voluntario e independiente de un pequeño grupo de docentes que decidimos soñar con un espacio abierto de intercambio y debate.
¡Ayúdanos a mantener abiertas las puertas de esta aula!
Users Today : 4
Total Users : 35475998
Views Today : 4
Total views : 3576614