Artículos

Page 1164 of 2424
1 … 1.162 1.163 1.164 1.165 1.166 … 2.424

Russian education is enjoying an investment boom

The Moscow Times

Editorial

On the British Teachers Coming Work in Moscow

Russian education is going through an investment boom. Every year, new private schools are opened, many offering an education in English leading to an international diploma. And following the investment are the teachers from the English speaking world to provide that education.

Russians have traditionally been proud of their education system, yet recent declines in many worldwide competitions and ratings have spurred responses both by the Ministry of Education, but also senior business leaders. Billionaires and senior executives with investments abroad have founded or helped fund projects to develop elite schools. Similarly, the traditional alternative to a Russian state education, Moscow and St Petersburg’s international schools, are also booming with new campuses opening. All these factors lead to the situation where there is increasing demand for English native speaking teachers to come to work in Russia.

To learn more the experiences of international teachers arriving in Moscow we sat down with Alla Ponomareva, the HR Director at one of the leading international schools, Cambridge International School, who is currently recruiting new staff for the next academic year.

What motivates teachers to move abroad to teach?

There are quite a few reasons why teaching abroad can be fulfilling, exciting and rewarding. Teachers think, well, I am young and enthusiastic, full of energy and willing to explore the world or they might say, I am a professional teacher with over 15 years of experience, my children have grown-up, and now I finally have the chance to share my knowledge and culture with others.

Overall, some of the most frequent motivations for teaching abroad that I have seen include the experiences of a different culture, learning a foreign language, gaining international work experience, and making a difference in the lives of others by helping them learn in a whole new way.  And, last but not least, the salaries that many international schools provide.

Who are the kinds of teachers who are most interested in working in Russia?

Usually, these teachers are open-minded professionals who value cultural differences and traditions of Russia. They are very tolerant and open to new challenges. Usually, these are the teachers who are interested in history, art, and travel. They come to Russia not only to share their experience but learn a lot for themselves.

What is teaching abroad like?

Teaching in a foreign country may be different from teaching at home, so it is important to be flexible and adaptable. Such factors as the types of jobs, hours, and ages of students, skills to be taught, and, more generally, attitudes to schooling and education can be very different to what a teacher has experienced at home. But the differences aren’t necessarily challenging, many teachers are delighted by, for example, all the flowers and attention that they receive on 1st September (first day of school).

Do you find yourself in competition with schools in other countries when recruiting?

Yes, we are definitely competing with other countries when recruiting. British teachers and those from other English speaking countries are in high demand, but as surprising as it may sound to some, Moscow and St Petersburg offer some of the most enjoyable environments and lifestyles. It is a European capital with a long historical and cultural heritage. Social attitudes can be much more familiar than in other places and we find some teachers leaving perhaps warmer climates, but radically different cultures, to move to Moscow.

What are the challenges that teachers might face when adapting to life in Russia?

I think that the biggest challenge to adaptation is changing the perception about Russia and Russians.  In most cases, you will meet nice, helpful, and easy going people. The language, for sure, can be difficult, but at least in our school teachers always have a support from teachers’ assistants and other school staff who speak English. CIS Russia provides Russian lessons to International teachers as long as international teachers teach English lessons to local staff. And that’s a great tradition that gives everyone a chance to understand each other and value each other’s language and culture. Of course, winters may not be to everyone’s taste, but the beautiful snow covered cityscapes and the opportunity to learn skiing and other winter sports more than makes up for it!

How do you expect the market for international teachers to change over the next few years?

The opportunities for international teachers in Russia is only set to increase, even if the exact nationalities of new arrivals may change slightly year to year (British, Australian, Canadian, South African, etc.), as the international schools look to raise the quality standards to teachers’ qualification and professional competencies.

The politics may not always be encouraging to those considering Russia, yet it does little to abate Russians appetite for offering their children great educations and their desire to welcome international teachers to Russia. One would also hope that the cultural exchanges taking place inside school communities has long lasting positive impact.

Source of the article: https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/russian-education-is-enjoying-an-investment-boom-60940
Comparte este contenido:
Leer más »

61 years of education in Ghana

Peter Partey Anti

By Peter Partey Anti

Last Sunday was the maiden show of a news program on GhOne TV hosted by Nana Aba Anamoah. Normally our media houses do not have very rich current affairs programs for their viewers on Sundays, so this program caught my attention right from the start.

The truth, however, is that, during the headlines, I heard the term “belly schooling”, a term I was hearing for the first time in education literature, so I decided to listen to what the story was about. That story broke my heart. Pupils in a school in Yikurugu in the Northen part of Ghana lie on their stomach to study. This is happening in an educational institution in Ghana in the year 2018.

Again, recently a picture of a teacher trying to teach ICT, specifically, the interface of Microsoft word went viral on social media. That picture has been featured in international media reports like the CNN, BBC among others. While some were happy for the school and the teacher, others like myself felt bad for what our educational system has turned out to be. And yes, this is Ghana in 2018.

A country that prides itself as the first country sub of the Sahara to gain independence. A country that has spent between 22% – 27% of its annual budget on education over the last decade; a country that is 61 years today. Growth theorists are vocal about the role of human capital and technology in a country’s long-term growth potential and not just any human capital, but an educated one. It is therefore not surprising that, 61 years ago today, there was a huge focus on education by the leaders at that time.

The address of the President, Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah to the legislative assembly a day before independence had education as its pivot; the driving force of the country’s development agenda. He envisioned an educational system that is designed to address the challenges we faced as a country. A critical read of McWilliam and Kwamena-Poh reveal that the focus of the then President was to use education to answer the questions of technology, productivity and the economic potential of the country.

This explains the level of investment made by him in the education sector. It is therefore not surprising that between 1951 and 1966, primary schools increased by 647.8%, secondary schools increased by 707.7% whiles one university was added to the already existing two universities. This coupled with other levels of education such as teacher training colleges, technical and middle levels all saw a tremendous improvement. To most experts, education was geared towards solving the Ghanaian problem. Since then there have been changes in our educational agenda, prominent among them are the 1987 and 2007 educational reforms.

These two reforms in particular even though properly conceived were implemented in a way that made it impossible for us to realize its full benefits. The introduction of the JSS and SSS to replace the old system of O’Level and A’Level have been one of the defects of the 1987 Educational Reform according to some educationists. In fact, some have attributed the challenges in our educational system presently in terms of its structure and content to this reform. To others, the two systems should have been allowed to run concurrently.

As someone who is a product of the 1987 educational reform, I will not be quick to pass a judgement on it but to say that, a critical study of the reform brings to fore the good intentions of the policymakers but the problem of resources and lack of commitment to the implementation process led to the non-realization of objectives of that reform.

About five years ago, I had the opportunity to do a comprehensive review of the 2007 educational reform for an international organization. My observation was simple, we ignored the important elements in that reform and focused on the change of name and duration.

That reform was rich in its plans for Technical, Vocational and Agricultural Education agenda and the attempt to incorporate apprenticeship into our educational system. Sadly, we focused on the duration of either 3 or 4 years and the change of name from JSS and SSS to JHS and SHS respectively. The usual problem of fidelity in the implementation of the reform made sure that the objectives of the reform were not met entirely.

From the last 25 years, we have been able to increase access to education for a number of children in the basic level courtesy the introduction Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) in 1996 and the Capitation Grant in the 2004/2005 academic year. We are seeking to increase access to students at the secondary school level with the introduction of the free SHS.

Sixty-one years after the take off in the educational sector, supported with the fact that, other countries with a robust educational sector have been able to transform their economy, it would have been ideal to see a transformed Ghana championed by an education system designed to address the challenges of our time.

Sadly, we are currently faced with graduate unemployment. What it means is that we are investing in education and yet the products of our educational system cannot be absorbed by the economy. The reasons for these are enormous but if in 1957, the focus was to use education to solve the problems of technology, productivity and how to harness the economic potential of the country, why have we not made progress?

The answer lies in the nature of our curriculum. As indicated earlier on, increasing access to education, investing in education and undertaking various reforms in the education sector should be geared towards addressing the challenges of the time and not be seen as a normal routine.

I am not oblivious to the fact that, currently there is a process ongoing to reform the curriculum for the pre-tertiary level and also teacher education in Ghana. How many of you are aware of this? I can only hope and believe that all the relevant stakeholders are involved in this process.

Aside from this, there is an increasing level of inequality between the urban student and his/her counterpart in the rural area. We continue to roll-out wholesale educational policies without paying attention to the disparities that exist in our society. A visit to most of the schools in rural Ghana will give you an indication of what we need to do as a country in terms of policy formulation in the education sector. How can we introduce ICT into the school curriculum and yet a majority of our schools in the rural areas lack just a computer?

How can we roll-out a policy called “One laptop per child” and yet most of those laptops were given to party members and sympathizers. What is the state of that policy now? Where are the laptops? Why should a child lie on his stomach to enjoy an instructional session when our leaders ride in expensive cars and jump from one radio station to another to lamenting about the problems that they have been elected and are being paid to solve.

This should not be misconstrued to mean we have not done anything as country in terms of education. We have improved access, we have expanded infrastructure and have increased our spending in the education sector. But the end product has been an increase in the level of youth unemployment, sanitation problems, increase in corruption, and an upsurge in crime, a total decline in the moral fabric of our society and reduction in patriotism.

According to Prof Agyemang, a renowned sociologist, education is a process by which each society influences its individuals by passing onto them the culture which is the totality of the society’s accumulated knowledge, art, laws, morals and ways of behaviour, the acquisition of which brings the individuals to the perfection of their nature. A good educational system should yield more positive fruits than negative but can we say this about our educational system, 61 years on?

So yes, this is Ghana’s education after 61 years, when you log on to social media and you come across videos and comments seeking to question the importance of learning osmosis, diffusion, quadratic equations among others, do not be dismayed, that is the system we have created. We have failed to establish relevance or what in Quality Teaching Model, we call, Significance. We love students who can reproduce verbatim what we presented to them during the instructional session.

We have paid lots of attention to examination than to learning. Our educational policies have sought to put students in school but not help students to learn. I once came across this distorted quote on social media “Education is key, but they have changed the lock”. This seems funny but it tells us the perception of people about our educational system after 61 years of independence.

We have to get it right, we will get it right, left us not be populace in our educational policies, let us avoid the wholesale educational policies and let us make sure that, each child in the country receives quality education irrespective of where he/she is. Education remains the key to lifting us from poverty to prosperity, let us get it right.

Source of the article: https://www.myjoyonline.com/opinion/2018/March-9th/61-years-of-education-in-ghana.php

Comparte este contenido:
Leer más »

India’s Higher Education Troubles

Nandini Sundar

By Nandini Sundar

India’s public universities need better funding and greater autonomy.

When the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, which rates about 1,000 global institutions, was released in May, not even one Indian institute featured in the overall Top 100, though the Indian Institute of Science made it in the reputational rankings after seven years.

India’s poor ranking in global indexes of higher education reinforced a growing sense of crisis, became a matter of national shame and is increasingly being used to drive policy and funding decisions by the federal government.

Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government took three policy decisions with far-reaching consequences while considering these global rankings, emphasizing quality over quantity.

Mr. Modi’s government decided to designate a few Indian universities as “Institutes of Eminence.” It granted “autonomy” to 60 other universities and colleges. It chose to replace India’s University Grants Commission, the federal body regulating higher education for decades, with an even more centralized and controlling body called the Higher Education Commission.

India’s higher education sector is vast, with 760 universities and 38,498 colleges. About two-thirds of colleges are privately managed, and more than half are in rural areas. While adult literacy levels are rising, only 6 percent of Indian citizens graduate from a college. In absolute terms, however, the numbers are large: about 31.56 million Indian students are enrolled in colleges and universities.

Apart from low investment in educational infrastructure and bureaucratic hurdles, the low number of international students and faculty at Indian universities also affects the global rankings of Indian institutions. Less than 50,000 international students are enrolled in India.

Mr. Modi’s government decided that the new institutions of excellence would be allowed to recruit foreign faculty and students, charge students “appropriate” fees, without any obstacle from India’s affirmative action laws, and design their own degrees.

Yet when the list of “Institutes of Eminence” was announced recently, it was met with disbelief and biting satire. While the Indian Institute of Science and a couple of Indian Institutes of Technology made the cut and are eligible to get $146 million each in additional funding, the three private universities on the elite list included the Jio Institute, which is promoted by Mukesh Ambani, the chairman and largest stakeholder of Reliance Industries Limited and the richest man in India.

India knows “Jio” as the name for Mr. Ambani’s telephone network. The Jio Institute does not exist. It has no known campus, academic leader, courses or faculty. The criterion that helped the Jio Institute make the list is an official clause that requires potential promoters to have a net worth of about $729 million. Mr. Ambani’s net worth, according to the 2018 Forbes billionaires list, is $40.1 billion. Mr. Ambani was also a major backer of Mr. Modi’s 2014 campaign for the prime minister’s job. Mr. Modi has not been remiss in returning the favor.

Source of the article: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/03/opinion/india-higher-education-modi-ambani-rss-trouble.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FEducation&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=collection

Comparte este contenido:
Leer más »

It’s worse than Carillion: our outsourced schools are leaving parents frozen out

Aditya Chakrabortty

By Adity Chakrabortty

Primary schools are being turned over to academy trusts with no accountability, and against the wishes of those who know the children best

This is a story they don’t want you to know. Much of it had to be prised from the grip of officials in Whitehall and the local town hall. Yet it demands to be told, because it shows how democracy and accountability are being drained from our schools, and how a surreal battle now rages over who knows what’s best for a child: the parents and teachers, or remote officials and financiers.

The school in question is Waltham Holy Cross primary in Essex. Helping on a school run last week, I found an entire small world. It was the last day of term, and teachers joined hands to form a human arch. The bell rang and all those leaving to start secondary ran under their teachers’ arms. Parents whooped while staff hugged overwhelmed pupils. There was barely a dry eye in the playground.

More than a school, this is a community – yet officials judge it a failure.

Just days before last Christmas, when a classroom’s mind is normally on the nativity play, Ofsted inspectors dropped by. Three long months later, they damned Waltham Holy Cross as “inadequate”. In the Conservatives’ “all-out war” on mediocre education, that is all the excuse needed to take it off the local authority and turn it into an academy. A trust called Net Academies will soon turn it into a “model school”.

This version of events does not match the views held by any parent I’ve spoken to, nor does it fit the facts brought to light by numerous freedom of information requests. Reported today in a newspaper for the first time, those requests reveal how little say parents and teachers have over the future of their children and school once it is forced to become an academy. In 2016, the then chancellor George Osborne ordered all schools to make the same conversion. Public outrage forced the Tories to back off then, but next time this story could be about your child.

That Ofsted inspection prompted a furious letter from the headteacher and chair of governors, alleging that before the visit had even formally begun, the lead inspector told staff that “based on the previous year’s [SAT] results, our school would be inadequate … judgment had therefore been made from the very first instant”. The private complaint reports inspectors shouting at the head, and telling staff they wouldn’t move their car away from the electric gates because “I’m Ofsted, I can park wherever I want”. Even being told that a child with autism is in his safe space didn’t stop an inspector barging over, “sitting next to him and quizzing him on what he was doing”.

Ofsted tells me the allegations are “simply untrue”, and that “inspectors do not go into schools with a preconceived idea of what judgment the school will receive”. Yet last August, a high court judge attacked the department for believing its views “will always be unimpeachable”.

Ofsted’s draft report – which only emerged through freedom of information – is shot through with errors. The headteacher is given a new surname and the number of nursery classes somehow halved. When the report was finally published, with its “inadequate” ruling, many parents could not square it with the happy place they knew. “The day we were told, I took my daughter into nursery – and she skipped all the way,” remembers Jayshree Tailor. “Is that a failing school?”

True, Waltham Holy Cross had been through rocky times, but over the past few months it has got a new headteacher (“fabulous”, say parents) and some vim. This month’s SAT results for Year 6 show a remarkable double-digit improvement in reading, writing and maths.

Once absorbed by an academy, Waltham Holy Cross has no way of returning to local authority control. This is a form of outsourcing, but with even less control than a contract with Carillion.

Ignoring my other questions, Net Academies asked why I wanted to know about its top salaries. Public interest, I replied: you’re taking taxpayers’ money to run schools. Stories of lavish pay and expenses are rife in this industry. I received no reply.

Those leading the fight against this academisation aren’t politicians or unions, but parents. On being told in March their children’s school was going to be forcibly converted, the meeting exploded. A group of them began firing off freedom of information requests and peppering officials with awkward emails. They have become what one councillor from a neighbouring borough calls “the most dogged parents I have ever come across”.

For Shaunagh Roberts, it began when she first looked up Net Academies – and got a jolt. “I just sat there researching for days, wearing the same pair of pyjamas.”

She’s been told how Net Academies successfully runs four academies in Harlow, Essex. Two of Net’s seven academies in Warwickshire and Reading have been ranked “inadequate”, a third “requires improvement”. According to the latest Education Policy Institute report, Net Academy Trust is the sixth-worst primary school group in England, falling below even the collapsed Wakefield City Academies Trust.

Its board is stuffed with City folk: PFI lawyers, management consultants, accountants – but apparently no working teacher. Even as it drops three of its schools, the trust’s aim is to run 25 to 30 institutions. Waltham Holy Cross will be the latest notch. “My kids are my world – and this school is their world,” Roberts says. “Why should Net spoil that?”

Senior staff don’t want Net either. In April, headteacher Erica Barnett sent a heartfelt private letter to the regional schools commissioner at the Department for Education (Dfe), Sue Baldwin, who has ultimate say over her school’s fate. If it must be an academy, Barnett says, at least let it be run by a rival local trust, Vine, which also has an “incredibly strong community feel”. Come visit, she urges the education official: see what a special place we are. Baldwin doesn’t visit. She picks Net Academies. And we have no idea why – despite this being a taxpayer-funded public asset, parents have been given no full reasoning for the decision. Perhaps because there is no good reason. The DfE told me it was because Vine “did not have the same level of capacity” as Net, the group struggling with almost half its schools. Yet the head refers to Baldwin’s “concern” about Vine being a trust of church schools, which Waltham Holy Cross is not (neither Barnett nor Vine see this as a problem). But the letter contains another clue.

When the school got its Ofsted result months ago, Barnett writes, “the local authority told us that the director of education, Clare Kershaw, would want us only to go with [Net Academies]”. Essex county council’s Kershaw was also a trustee with the charity New Education Trust, out of which came the Net Academies. Both the council and the government assured me that the two were separate entities, and her interest had been properly declared. Net denies any conflict of interest. Yet the charity’s last set of accounts describes the academies as “a connected charity”, affording it “direct involvement in improving [school] standards”. Kershaw also appears on an official document for the academy trust.

Faced with potential conflict of interest in other areas, officials would have ensured they were seen to be a million miles away from the decision. What’s most striking about academies is that there appears to be no such pressure – perhaps in part because private meetings between officials and business people allows everything to happen.And the people who know most about what their kids need – the parents and teachers – are shut out.

Academisation laughs at the idea that Britain is a modern, transparent democracy. Under it, the needs of the child are trumped by the demands of rightwing ideology. And as Waltham Holy Cross is discovering, it tries to reduce parents and teachers to mere bystanders.

Battling that are mothers like Roberts and Tailor. Never the sort to go on marches, they are now activists. They’ve learned about freedom of information, and used it to unearth scandalously bad decisions. They’ve done it in spare minutes, with cracked smartphones and against official condescension. While trying to preserve their children’s school, they have received another education – and taught officials a few things. Watch these women, because I think they might win.

Source of the article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/30/outsourced-schools-parents-primary-academy-trusts

Comparte este contenido:
Leer más »

«No soy ni mujer ni hombre»

Miguel García Lajarín

Por Miguel Lajarín

Tres jóvenes murcianos ´trans´ hablan de la diversidad LGTBI+ y de la importancia de separar el sexo biológico y la identidad de género Además de varones y féminas, hay personas no binarias y agéneros

Que no solo hay mujeres y hombres, tal como establece la sociedad cisheteropatriarcal, es algo que ha quedado claro con la visibilidad de las personas transgénero y no binarias en el orgullo LGTBI+ de este año, cuya finalidad era dar voz a la diversidad de género y al colectivo ´trans´.

En cambio, la mayoría de personas desconocen las diferencias entre los conceptos que definen a las personas no normativas, es decir, aquellas que no se identifican con lo tradicionalmente conocido como ´mujer´ y ´hombre´ en nuestra sociedad occidental. A ello se suman los numerosos estudios que muestran que aún queda mucho camino por recorrer hasta acabar con todas las discriminaciones y agresiones que sufren las personas LGTBI+.

Para acabar con estos problemas, hace tres años en la Región de Murcia se creó el grupo joven LGTBI+ de No Te Prives, un espacio donde pueden participar tanto jóvenes del colectivo como heterosexuales que defienden la igualdad e inclusión de las personas LGTBI+. Además, para trabajar específicamente las cuestiones que afectan a las transgénero, en la asociación hay un grupo trans en el que participan personas de todas las edades. Entre los coordinadores de estos grupos, se encuentran Sam García y Félix Peñalver. Sam tiene 20 años, es ´trans´ y no binario.

«No soy ni mujer ni hombre, aunque principalmente tengo una expresión de género masculina», explica. Es bisexual y tiene una relación con un chico ´trans´. Con él se casará pronto. A nivel profesional, se dedica al arte y a la literatura. Por su parte, Félix, de 19 años, retomará sus estudios el año que viene. Él se define como chico ´trans´, bisexual, vegetariano y poliamoroso. También tiene una relación abierta. Además, otro chico ´trans´ colabora con la asociación LGTBI+: Anton Khokhashvili, que tiene 38 años y es psicólogo. En su día a día colabora con varias ONG como intérprete para personas refugiadas y también como facilitador de talleres de prevención del consumo de drogas para presos.

Todos ellos quieren hablar con LA OPINIÓN para explicar la diversidad de géneros, algo que viven en primera persona. De hecho, es una de las cosas a las que se dedican durante su activismo.

Los tres coinciden en que hay que visibilizar la diversidad así como separar el sexo biológico y la identidad de género. Sam lo explica con el ejemplo de la luz y los colores. «Los géneros son como el espectro de luz. No todo es blanco o negro. Hay dentro muchos colores más. También hay luz no visible. Hay personas que son de otros colores intermedios y hay personas que se perciben de un color o de otro dependiendo de su etapa personal. Hay personas agénero, como la luz no visible. Son personas sin género, no hay color con el que se puedan identificar. El género fluido es un punto que no se mantiene fijo en ese espectro y ese movimiento no está condicionado por nada que se sepa. Solo conocemos que se mueve, que fluye. De ahí lo de género fluido. Hay personas que se pueden levantar hombres un día y otro día mujeres. Y esa fluidez puede durar años, meses, o días. Incluso también fluir en otros colores intermedios o incluso salirse del espectro y ser agéneros por un tiempo».

Con respecto a las personas transgénero, Félix señala que «hay que entender el pene o la vagina como un órgano más. No son ni masculinos ni femeninos. Una mujer puede tener pene o pene y vulva y seguir siendo una mujer».
Además, es algo que sienten desde la infancia. Anton, por ejemplo, reconoce que desde pequeño le gustaban las chicas, pero «había algo más». Con la llegada de la pubertad su intelecto no cambió, seguía identificándose como hombre, pese a tener la menstruación. Era un hombre.

En cambio, todos denuncian que a las personas ´trans´ se les sigue pidiendo informes de psicólogos. «No queremos que un test diga lo que somos porque estos están hechos para personas con trastornos mentales y nos sentimos atacados cuando nos los hacen». Además, tanto Anton como Félix aseguran que si una persona sufre algún problema como ansiedad, depresión o un trastorno como personalidad múltiple, ya no se les reconoce como transgénero.

ANTON KHOKHASHVILI

La educación, la solución

Los tres apuestan por educar en la diversidad para que desde el colegio se entienda y conozca con naturalidad que hay personas no binarias y trans para prevenir futuras discriminaciones. «Los niños son los más abiertos porque no tienen prejuicios, asumen la diversidad sin cuestionarla», explica Félix. A su vez, Anton afirma que «si un niño acosa o dice comentarios despectivos, es porque ya los ha escuchado en su casa. Los padres son responsables del acoso escolar y tienen que formarse para educar en el respeto y la igualdad».

A nivel sanitario, también hay cosas que cambiar y demandan formación para los profesionales. «Cuando vamos al médico tenemos que explicarles lo que somos y tenemos la sensación de que no nos escuchan», dice Félix. También lamenta que los doctores no entienden que hay personas ´trans´ que no quieren operarse. Incluso Sam reconoce que no le ha dicho nunca a sus médicos y endocrinos que es no binario, ya que teme «que no lo entiendan o lo manden al psicólogo».

Lenguaje inclusivo

Por último, también rechazan las típicas frases sobre las personas transgénero y piden que no se sigan usando. Frases como «es una mujer que se ha operado para hacerse hombre» o «nació en el cuerpo equivocado». Ambas son tránsfobas. Además, apoyan el uso de la ´e´ y del pronombre ´elle´, por ser neutro, aunque son conscientes de que es difícil ahora mismo. Eso sí, reclaman el uso de sustantivos colectivos. Porque todes somos valioses.

Fuente del artículo: https://www.laopiniondemurcia.es/descubre-fds/2018/08/12/mujer-hombre/945775.html

 

Comparte este contenido:
Leer más »

Reclaman más aplicación de educación sexual en escuelas

Josefina Hagelstrom

Por Josefina Hagelstrom 

En el debate por el aborto legal, ‘verdes’ y ‘celestes’ coincidieron en este pedido. Unicef hará monitoreos

Durante el debate por la legalización del aborto, el tema estuvo presente dentro y fuera del recinto: varios legisladores reconocieron la falta de aplicación de la ley de educación sexual en sus provincias; mientras que fue el único reclamo unificado de quienes se mostraron a favor y en contra y hasta el presidente Mauricio Macri se refirió a la necesidad de “seguir trabajando en la educación de los docentes”.

La ley 26.150 de Educación Sexual Integral (ESI) de 2006 lleva doce años sancionada, pero aún su implementación no es equitativa en todas las escuelas del país. Mientras que el presupuesto y el desarrollo del programa son de ejecución nacional, su implementación y ejecución dependen de cada provincia.

En los resultados de las últimas pruebas Aprender, el 75% de los jóvenes reclamó por temas no abordados en la escuela, y dentro de ese universo el 79% reclamó educación sexual.   El año pasado, una encuesta de Fundación Huésped daba cuenta de que si bien la mayoría de estudiantes y docentes encuestados conocían la ley, no todos la abordaban, y quienes lo hacían lo hacían vinculada a temas del aparato reproductor, y no de diversidad, género, salud sexual. En muchos casos, el abordaje se daba en forma de charla con estudiantes y no dentro de los contenidos curriculares.

“El 50% de los estudiantes y el 96% de los docentes indican que conocen la ley, sin embargo, solo la mitad de los docentes entrevistados recibió formación en capacitaciones proporcionadas por el Estado. El 57% de los docentes indica que buscó información por sus propios medios”, rezaba el informe. Por otro lado, la Auditoría General de la Ciudad elaboró otro informe este año, donde daba cuenta de que en CABA, más del 80% de los docentes no había recibido ningún tipo de capacitación.

Por esto, el Ministerio de Educación nacional implementó cambios para potenciar la llegada de los contenidos de la ESI a todas las escuelas del país. Se incrementó el presupuesto, que este año fue de $ 100 millones, más del doble del anterior. Se crearon equipos docentes que serán quienes tengan a cargo el dictado de los contenidos dentro de las escuelas, y se firmó un acuerdo con Unicef para monitorear la implementación.

“Los equipos docentes están empezando a trabajar en todas las provincias. Notamos que hay mucha disparidad en cómo se implementa el programa, algunas provincias tienen mucha actividad, pero otras no tanto. En Aprender preguntamos a los chicos qué querían aprender y nos decían ESI”, explica Mercedes Miguel, secretaria de Innovación y Calidad Educativa del Ministerio de Educación.

Contenidos. También se unificaron las temáticas del programa, ya que la ley contempla casi 300 lineamientos, que ahora se resumen en 49 núcleos de aprendizaje prioritarios. “Antes eran jornadas masivas en cualquier nivel y año, ahora nos enfocamos en que cada escuela conforme un equipo de docentes ESI y trabajen sobre estos núcleos”.

También se sumó un plan interministerial (entre Salud, Educación y Desarrollo Social) que aborda la problemática del embarazo no deseado adolescente, que además de trabajar sobre contenidos de educación sexual, con capacitaciones a docentes y estudiantes; crea consejerías y asesorías en salud sexual reproductiva, tanto en escuelas como en centros de salud, además de potenciar la distribución de métodos anticonceptivos en centros de salud y hospitales.

Según estadísticas nacionales, el 15% de los nacimientos anuales corresponden a madres adolescentes, de los cuales siete de cada diez son no intencionales. Sobre todo en las provincias del NOA y el GBA, donde están las cifras más elevadas. El presupuesto de 2018 es de $ 300 millones. “Uno de los efectos positivos en este debate es que nadie discute la necesidad de educación sexual en colegios, si antes había barreras, hoy ya no están”, aporta Gabriel Castelli, secretario de Niñez, Adolescencia y Familia del Ministerio de Desarrollo Social.

“Logramos la despenalización social del aborto”

A días de que el Senado rechazara la ley de interrupción voluntaria del embarazo, desde la Campaña Nacional por el Derecho al Aborto Legal, Seguro y Gratuito, colectivo que impulsó el proyecto, emitieron un comunicado con varios puntos, donde destacaron como un logro que se hayan abierto las puertas del Congreso para dar el debate, y haber logrado, tras las masivas expresiones en la calle,  “la despenalización social del aborto y más temprano que tarde alcanzaremos la ley”.

En relación con la votación del miércoles, sostuvieron que “no hay ganadores cuando las mujeres y personas gestantes de nuestro territorio siguen abortando en clandestinidad”, y destacaron que “ante la oportunidad de cambiar se ha elegido conservar el statu quo penal de 1921 y sostener una norma que discrimina porque condena a solo una parte de la población”.

En otro punto, advierten por las posibles consecuencias de no haber aprobado la ley. “Responsabilizamos a las autoridades provinciales y municipales por cualquier retroceso que pudiera haber en el cumplimiento de la Ley de Educación Sexual Integral y del Programa de Salud Sexual y Procreación Responsable. Y exigimos que cada provincia que no lo haya hecho adhiera a las prácticas médicas que establece el Protocolo para la Atención Integral de las Personas con Derecho a la Interrupción Legal del Embarazo del Ministerio de Salud de la Nación.”

Fuente del artículo: http://www.perfil.com/noticias/sociedad/reclaman-mas-aplicacion-de-educacion-sexual-en-escuelas.phtml

Comparte este contenido:
Leer más »

English schools are broken. Only radical action will fix them

Melissa Benn

By Melissa Benn

From failed free schools to poor funding and inequality, education needs drastic reform to create a fairer model

Even for the sceptical, the suddenness and speed with which the academy schools project has fallen from public grace is remarkable. After years of uncritical acceptance of official claims that academies, and free schools, offer a near cast-iron guarantee of a better-quality education, particularly for poorer pupils, there is now widespread recognition of the drear reality: inadequate multi-academy trusts failing thousands of pupils, parents increasingly shut out of their children’s education, and academy executive heads creaming off excessive salaries – in some cases almost three times higher than the prime minister – from a system perilously squeezed of funds.

Crisis can be an overworked term in politics, and our schools are good examples of public institutions, subject to years of poor political decisions, that continue to do remarkable work. But along with the academy mess, we can add the following to the current charge sheet of what should be (along with the NHS) our finest public service: pressing problems with recruitment and retention of teachers; rocketing stress among young children and teenagers subject to stringent testing and tougher public exams; and the ongoing funding crisis.

For those who have been closely observing developments in education over the years, none of this comes as much of a surprise. The reckless damage of the coalition years was, after all, only an exaggerated version of cross-party policy during the previous two decades: central government control-freakery allied to the wilful destruction of local government and the parcelling out of schools to untested rich and powerful individuals and groups, including religious organisations. From early years to higher education, every sector of our system is now infected with the arid vocabulary of metrics and the empty lingo of the market.

So what now? It is clear that the Tories have run out of ideas, bar the expansion of grammars. This autumn, following widespread consultation, the Labour party will publish its eagerly awaited plans for a national education service, an idea that Jeremy Corbyn has made clear he would like to see form the centrepiece of any future Labour administration.

For the progressive left, then, this is an important but tricky moment that requires two distinct approaches, both of which befit a potential government-in-waiting and an avowedly radical party.

The first is a calm, collegial pragmatism: addressing the immediate problems of our system, from teacher workload to reform of school accountability, loosening the screws on university teaching and research, and properly funding the all-important early years.

Here, a little political inventiveness might not go amiss. Why not tot up the money spent on unnecessary, damaging reforms and announce that equivalent sums will now be redirected to areas where they are clearly needed? Billions have been spent on the academy transfer market, failed free schools, funding the shadowy regional schools commissioners, subsidising private education: in future, let’s use that kind of money to improve special-needs provision, build up adult and further education, or send teachers to regions where it is proving impossible to recruit and retain staff.

Stop the excessive testing of primary-age children and spend the money on steadier, less cliff-edge forms of assessment. Implement the Headteachers’ Roundtable proposal for a national baccalaureate, an initiative that would immediately broaden the educational experience of every secondary-age pupil, with minimal disruption. Time, too, to learn the lessons of our global neighbours and phase out selection, reform unfair school admissions, and bring education back into public hands. As Lucy Crehan shows in CleverLands, an absorbing study of top-performing school systems around the world, many of these – including Finland and Canada – do not select or even stream until 15 or 16, and education is provided by a mix of national and local government. The result is a stable public service, capable of far greater innovation than our own fragmented school market.

Expert organisations and individuals are already considering ways to unpick the semi-privatisation of our schools. These include: opening up currently unaccountable academy trusts to parents, staff and local communities; shifting contracts currently held with the secretary of state to local authorities; and designing a bespoke mechanism by which schools could rejoin the local education authority.

But there’s an even bigger job for the progressive left, and that is to kickstart an honest public debate about what’s really wrong with English education and how we might develop a better, fairer model. Such a conversation would have to break with the current cross-party consensus – in reality, a stubborn silence – on the relationship between selective and private schools and the often beleaguered state system. Let’s ditch, once and for all, the idea that the selective schools are an inspiring model for – rather than a major block to – high-quality public education, and start to talk seriously about how to create a common system.

As Alex Beard argues in his recent book Natural Born Learners: Our Incredible Capacity to Learn and How We Can Harness it, developments in everything from artificial intelligence to neuroscience seriously challenge once rigid ideas of ability and potential – excellence only for the few. He reports on a rainbow of experiments, from improbably fun-sounding Finnish maths lessons to Californian high schools deploying “open source” learning and teamwork, that are producing skilled, enthusiastic students and responsible, questioning citizens. Beard consistently identifies a highly trained, highly valued, autonomous teaching force – another area in which the English system has, with depressing predictability, gone into reverse, truncating teacher education and controlling teachers more tightly than badly behaved teens.

It doesn’t have to be this way. With generous investment, expert teachers and heads given room to breathe, a broad but stimulating curriculum, an accountability system that supports rather than punishes, we could move in a more engaging direction. Much of the ground work has already been laid, from early comprehensive reform to the dramatic improvements to London’s schools in the 00s, through to the recent conversion of large parts of the Tory party to the benefits of high-quality comprehensive schools.

Any future government committed to such an aim needs to engage the energies of the thousands of passionate young educators, first drawn in by the academy and free school movement, as well as the mass of weary professionals in their middle years. We don’t need silent corridors or an obsession with league tables to make clear that schools must always be places of order, collaboration, high expectations and constant encouragement – and vital hubs for local communities. I don’t underestimate what a shift in substance and tone these proposals represent for the Labour party. But as Beard suggests, quoting the genius of West Wing scriptwriter Aaron Sorkin, “We don’t need little changes; we need gigantic, monumental changes. Schools should be palaces. Competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be making six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge to its citizens.” Not a bad place to start when building a national education service for the 21st century.

Source of the article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/09/schools-broken-radical-action-education

Comparte este contenido:
Leer más »
Page 1164 of 2424
1 … 1.162 1.163 1.164 1.165 1.166 … 2.424