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Universidad de Londres prohibe la venta de carne para combatir el cambio climático

Noticias

Europa/Inglaterra/15 Agosto 2019/Heraldo de México

A partir del próximo mes, Goldsmiths, parte de la Universidad de Londres, ya no venderá carne de res e introducirá un pequeño impuesto sobre el agua embotellada y los plásticos de un solo uso

Una universidad de Londres dijo el lunes que ha prohibido la carne de res de su campus para combatir el cambio climático, convirtiéndose en la primera institución de educación superior en Gran Bretaña en hacerlo.

A partir del próximo mes, Goldsmiths, parte de la Universidad de Londres, ya no venderá carne de res en ningún lugar de su campus. También introducirá un pequeño impuesto sobre el agua embotellada y los plásticos de un solo uso para desalentar el uso.

“El creciente llamado global para que las organizaciones tomen en serio sus responsabilidades para detener el cambio climático es imposible de ignorar”, dijo Frances Corner, directora de Goldsmiths.

El personal y los estudiantes estaban “decididos a ayudar a lograr el cambio que necesitamos para reducir nuestra huella de carbono drásticamente y lo más rápido posible”, dijo Corner.

La universidad dijo que su objetivo era cambiar a energía limpia y convertirse en carbono neutral, lo que significa que no producirá más emisiones de carbono de las que puede compensar, para2025.

Según la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Alimentación y la Agricultura de las Naciones Unidas, la ganadería es un importante impulsor de las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero, consume una décima parte del agua dulce del mundo y causa deforestación a gran escala.

Los bosques absorben los gases que atrapan el calor de la atmósfera y la deforestación puede amplificar el calentamiento, debido a la pérdida de vegetación y la erosión del suelo, dijo el Panel Intergubernamental sobre el Cambio Climático (IPCC) de la ONU.

Los alimentos a base de plantas y los alimentos sostenibles de origen animal podrían liberar varios millones de kilómetros cuadrados de tierra para 2050 y reducir 0.7-8.0 gigatoneladas al año de dióxido de carbono equivalente, según el IPCC.

“Declarar una emergencia climática no puede ser palabras vacías … Goldsmiths ahora está hombro con hombro con otras organizaciones dispuestas a llamar a la alarma y tomar medidas urgentes para reducir el uso de carbono”, dijo Corner.

Fuente: https://heraldodemexico.com.mx/tendencias/universidad-de-londres-prohibe-la-venta-de-carne-para-combatir-el-cambio-climatico/

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Labour must be bold, and finally abolish private schools

Steven Longden

By:

 

These schools are core to Britain’s inequality problem. Labour should emulate Finland and integrate them into state education

As a teacher of ethics, philosophy and religion at a Manchester comprehensive school, students often ask me why politicians allow 7% of children in this country to access exclusive schools that enable them to dominate the top professions – schools whose main entrance criteria is the size of parents’ bank accounts. These days, I usually answer, “because the politicians are wrong”.

I sometimes inform my students of the latest Sutton Trust reports which highlight that 65% of senior judges, 49% of armed forces officers, 44% of newspaper columnists and 29% of MPs are all privately educated. Being a good teacher, I integrate maths into my subject and get them to work out the extent to which private school students are disproportionately represented in these professions. You should see the disheartened looks on their faces.

I tell them not to lose hope and that there is something called “social mobility”, which means that if they work really hard, get to university and then work hard in their careers they might be lucky enough to get one of those remaining top jobs that haven’t gone to the privately educated. They don’t look convinced. The Social Mobility Commission wasn’t convinced back in 2017 either, which is why its commissioners resigned en masse a year and a half ago.

I’d hoped under Jeremy Corbyn that my party would have been up for finishing off what Clement Attlee failed to do after the second world war: phase out private schools. There was a welcome commitment in Labour’s last manifesto to add VAT to private school fees, but the impact of this will be minimal and certainly won’t hasten the demise of private schools.

Labour’s pledge to create a National Education Service is exciting. The party has published a National Education Service charter that commits it to “tackling structural, cultural and individual barriers which cause and perpetuate inequality”. Earlier this year, Corbyn quite rightly pledged to focus on promoting social justice rather than social mobility, but I was bemused by the silence on private schools. How, precisely, does one tackle structural inequalities in England without phasing out private schools? Are we serious about these inequalities or just tinkering?

In the past Labour has missed opportunities to integrate private schools into the state sector – we can’t let that happen again. That’s why we have launched the Labour Against Private Schools campaign. Our first goal is to make the full integration of private schools into the state education system official party policy, by getting a motion passed in support of this at Labour’s annual conference this September.

There are models of excellent education systems that exist without private schools. Finland is often held up as a system that consistently achieves some of the best educational outcomes across Europe and the OECD countries. In Finland, private schools were effectively brought into the comprehensive education system over the course of a decade. It is time England started to seriously plan a school system without private schools, so that in the future teachers like me can look their students in the eye and tell them that this country has removed one of the biggest barriers that the richest people erected to unfairly advantage their progeny.

So I am proud to tell my students that I am a founding member of the Labour Against Private Schools campaign, and that I will do everything I can to encourage the Labour leadership to commit to dismantling the private schools sector that continues to uphold gross levels of inequality in this country.

Source of the article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/09/labour-phase-out-private-schools-britain-inequality-finland

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Inglaterra: Overseas students face ‘unacceptable’ visa costs after outsourcing

Noticias

International students and staff at British universities are facing “unacceptable” difficulties and costs in applying for visas, after parts of the application process were outsourced to a company charging up to £200 for appointments.

Universities say that the system, run by the French IT services company Sopra Steria, is already struggling to cope with the numbers renewing their student visas within the UK, and fear that it will be chaotic in September when more than 40,000 students are expected to use it.

“Despite constructive engagement between the Home Office, UK Visas and Immigration and universities, the current capacity and level of service being offered by Sopra Steria remains unacceptable,” said Alistair Jarvis, the chief executive of Universities UK.

“Students and universities cannot be expected to pay to address Sopra Steria’s broken system. We are calling on Sopra Steria to fully address these concerns before the September surge of students so that students can start their courses with the visas they need.”

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Special needs funding gap in London schools «unsustainable»

Noticias

Europe/ United Kindow/ 29.07.2019/ By Jessie Mathewson/ Source: www.times-series.co.uk.

 

Special needs and disability support in London schools is facing “unsustainable financial risk” according to a report from London Councils.

A “dramatic and sustained rise” in demand for special educational needs and disability services (SEND) has led to a £77 million funding gap in the capital, research found.

There are more than 200,000 young people in London with special educational needs or a disability, and almost a quarter have high needs.

Children with high needs often require more support, which may include an education health and care plan. This is a record of the support that a child needs, helping them to access specialist services from their local council.

Demand for health and care plans in the capital has increased rapidly, rising by 31 per cent between 2014/15 and 2017/18. All but one London council now has a deficit in its budget for children with high special educational or disability needs.

Councillor Nickie Aiken, leader of Westminster Council and London Councils’ executive member for schools and children’s services, said the current pressure on council budgets was “unsustainable”.

She said: “When children and families aren’t getting the right support at the right time, the effects can be disastrous.”

She added: “The Government needs to boost investment in children’s services in line with councils’ rising costs. That’s the only way to ensure the sustainability of the high-value, high-impact local services that make such a difference to children’s lives.”

Responding to the report, the London Assembly’s education panel chair, Jennette Arnold, said the Mayor must continue to put pressure on the Government to increase funding in line with demand.

She said: “SEND pupils are more than capable of having a bright future and a good life in adulthood if the resource is made available to ensure the work to make that happens starts as early as possible.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Education said SEND funding for schools had increased from £5 billion in 2013 to £6 billion this year, with an extra £42 million earmarked for London in December.

He said: “Our ambition for children with special education needs and disabilities is the same as for every other child – to achieve well in education, find employment and go on to live happy and fulfilled lives.

He added: “We are looking carefully at how much funding for education will be needed in future years, as we approach the next spending review.”

London Councils could not publish borough-specific budget data, or confirm which boroughs had a deficit.

Source of the notice: https://www.times-series.co.uk/news/17792286.special-needs-funding-gap-london-schools-quot-unsustainable-quot/

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The Guardian view on special educational needs: segregation is not the answer

The Guardian

By: The Guardian.

As the proportion of SEN children in alternative schools continues to rise, it’s time to stand up for inclusion

A showdown between parents of children with special needs and the government is coming. Three families from different parts of England have won the right to a judicial review of the funding allocated to local authorities to fulfil their obligation to educate the 253,680 young people in England with an Education, Health and Care plan (EHC) – or “statement” – and the 1,022,535 other children also entitled to some form of SEN support. Such budgets have been stretched beyond breaking point, while the number of children assessed as having special needs has increased for two years in a row until these groups now form 14.6% of the school population – with autistic spectrum disorders the most common type of need for pupils with a statement.

In December the Local Government Association predicted a funding shortfall of £1.6bn by 2020/21. Paul Whiteman of the National Association of Headteachers believes the code governing special needs education has been reduced to an “empty promise”. Yet so far the response from ministers has served to underline the problem rather than solve it. This is because, while additional resources are urgently needed, there is another aspect to the special needs crisis in England. Namely, that decades of progress towards an inclusive model in which, as far as possible, all children are educated together, are being rolled back.

In many ways, life for children with special needs and disabilities has improved immeasurably since Baroness Warnock’s seminal 1978 report. Gone is the discriminatory, prejudicial language of the past, while advances in child psychology and teacher training mean that children struggling with emotional or learning difficulties are less likely to be written off in primary school as simply naughty. But recent evidence shows that a decade of cuts has led to segregation once again increasing, with the percentage of EHC pupils attending state secondary schools falling 8% between 2010 and 2018, the bill for councils funding private special school places rising, and exclusions and unofficial “off-rolling” of hard-to-teach pupils both on the up.

It is not clear to what extent these shifts are the unintended consequence of policy changes and funding reductions that have increased pressures across the system, and to what extent they were ministers’ aim. But last week’s announcement that the government plans to open 37 new special free schools appears to confirm that the direction of travel has changed – in defiance of the UN, whose disability convention asserts the right of disabled people to learn with everyone else.

Clearly, mainstream schools are not for everyone and high-quality alternative settings are required for children who do not thrive in them. But moves to divide children according to their needs more frequently rather than less should be vigorously opposed. Inclusive education is not a liberal piety. Properly resourced, it benefits not only the children being included, but everyone else. That there is an unignorable socioeconomic dimension, with pupils with SEN more than twice as likely to be eligible for free school meals than those without, only serves to reinforce how undesirable segregation is.

As well as building special schools, ministers should focus on boosting inclusion. This is a fragmented system in which vulnerable children are falling through the cracks, and councils are loaded up with duties they lack the resources to fulfil. That families are taking ministers to court shows it has reached breaking point.

Source of the article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/18/the-guardian-view-on-special-educational-needs-segregation-is-not-the-answer

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Protestan en 5 ciudades de Reino Unido por crisis climática

Noticias

Redacción: TeleSUR

Los activistas exigen al Gobierno británico tomar mayores medidas políticas contra la crisis climática que pone en riesgo la vida humana y animal.

Con la consigna Actuad Ahora (Act Now), activistas ambientales protestaron este lunes en cinco ciudades de Reino Unido para exigir políticas en defensa del ambiente y la liberación de dirigentes detenidos por su labor en contra de la crisis climática.

La jornada fue liderada por el grupo Extinction Rebellion y contó con la solidaridad de diversos movimientos sociales en las ciudades de Bristol, Cardiff, Leeds, Glasglow y Londres (capital), quienes pidieron al unísono la implementación de políticas conducentes a la conservación de los recursos naturales.

«Aproximadamente 3.000 personas han participado de las marchas, hemos realizado una serie de actos creativos expresando desobediencia civil (…) La gente está muriendo ahora mismo por el caos climáticos, en lugares como la India la situación será peor», recalcó el activista Stephen Lindgwood.

Asimismo, frente al Tribunal Superior de Londres reclamaron la libertad de activistas apresados en las protestas de abril pasado, en las que marcharon centenares de ciudadanos en rechazo a la negligencia ambiental del Estado.

En la manifestación realizada hace tres meses, con una amplia convocatoria, salieron a las calles para exigir sus derechos ambientales, pero más de 400 personas terminaron apresadas por la fuerza policial.

Lindgwood recalcó que ante la sexta extinción masiva de árboles y genocidio climático, la inacción del Gobierno es criminal e irresponsable porque arriesga la vida de la especie humana y animal.

Fuente: https://www.telesurtv.net/news/reino-unido-protestas-ciudades-politicas-crisis-climatica-20190715-0021.html

 

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Desde cómo lavar las sábanas hasta cómo cocinar: el nuevo curso para estudiantes británicos

Noticias

Europa/Reino Unido/18 Julio 2019/Fuente: RPP noticias

El Ministerio de Educación de Reino Unido ejecutará este curso para que los adolescentes se puedan enfrentar a una vida independiente.

Reino Unido pondrá en marcha un curso para que los estudiantes de colegios aprendan a realizar desde compras en el mercado hasta lavar las sábanas. El Ministerio de Educación Británico piensa colocar este nueva materia para que los jóvenes puedan enfrentar una vida independiente.

El detalle de estas asignaturas serán reveladas en los próximos días por el Ministerio de Educación. Al respecto, el secretario de Educación en Reino Unido, Damian Hinds, dijo que “muchas personas que tienen problemas al mudarse de casa y vivir de manera independiente por primera vez”.

Este curso será opcional para los estudiantes entre 16 y 18 años y entre las actividades que realizarán están cómo cocinar ‘desde cero’, cómo hacer limpieza y cómo lidiar enfrentamientos con compañeros universitarios de piso.

De hecho, el curso ya encontró algunos detractores quienes afirman que el Gobierno trata a los jóvenes como “auténticos inútiles”. Las clases se podrán llevar en lecciones de 45 y 90 minutos. Alrededor de mil adolescentes participaron en una prueba de 18 meses.

Las escuelas podrán realizar las sesiones con jóvenes de entre 16 y 18 años desde el mes de septiembre.

Imagen tomada: https://e.rpp-noticias.io/normal/2019/07/11/455945_814833.jpg

Fuente: https://rpp.pe/mundo/actualidad/reino-unido-desde-como-lavar-las-sabanas-hasta-como-cocinar-el-nuevo-curso-para-estudiantes-britanicos-noticia-1208387

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