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La falta de comunicación entre los educadores y las empresas rurales ha dado lugar a una creciente brecha de habilidades en todo el país
Europa/ReinoUnido/TheGuardian
Farris Beasley se encuentra en un granero en su granja de 600 acres, señalando equipos antiguos y modernos y anhelos de los días en que todo era tan fácil de reparar como su tractor John Deere de 1939.
Al igual que Beasley, un veterinario retirado de animales grandes, los agricultores de todo el país se ven presionados a encontrar mecánicos capacitados para mantener sus equipos del siglo XXI o trabajadores que entienden las complejidades de la agricultura moderna o cómo atender a las vacas o los caballos.
Aquí en Fayetteville, una comunidad rural que se encuentra a 80 millas al sur de Nashville, la agricultura es, con mucho, la industria más grande, generando al menos $ 110 millones anuales en el condado de Lincoln. Hasta hace poco, sin embargo, la única universidad de la ciudad no tenía clases de agricultura.
Es un problema que contribuye a ampliar la brecha de habilidades en las comunidades rurales de todo el país: no solo los graduados de escuelas secundarias rurales tienen menos probabilidades de ir a la universidad que sus homólogos urbanos y suburbanos, sino que las instituciones de educación superior en muchos de estos lugares no los están capacitando. llenar los puestos de trabajo que son la fuerza vital de sus regiones.
En muchos casos, todas las partes están de acuerdo, esto es el resultado de una falta de comunicación e incluso de una división cultural entre educadores y agricultores y otras empresas rurales. En otros, las universidades están dando prioridad a la obtención de programadores de computadoras y otros graduados con habilidades en la demanda más lejos.
En muchos casos, pueden darse el lujo de enseñar lo básico, como matemáticas o inglés, pero no habilidades vocacionales que puedan ayudar a sus economías locales.
«Puedes hacer X o puedes hacerlo Y o puedes hacer Z, pero no puedes permitirte hacer X, Y y Z», dijo Katsinas.
Además de la escasez de personas calificadas para reparar tractores de la era digital, las áreas rurales están teniendo problemas para encontrar veterinarios como Beasley que se queden y pasen sus días vadeando estiércol para tratar vacas y caballos, cuando pueden ganar más dinero atendiendo comparativamente Comodidad para perros y gatos suburbanos.
Beasley solía enseñar ciencia animal en Motlow State Community College, que tiene un pequeño campus en las colinas en las afueras de Fayetteville. Pero Motlow se deshizo de su programa de agricultura hace años, nadie puede decir por qué, y Beasley observó a los estudiantes ir a otros lugares para obtener su educación.
«Se fueron y probablemente después de eso incluso se fueron a otro lugar, tal vez, a vivir y trabajar y no regresaron a casa, lo cual es algo así como la historia de la América rural de hoy», dijo.
“Fuimos a varias fincas comerciales. Incluso fuimos al depósito «, dijo Smith, quien dijo que no había estado al tanto del dominio de la agricultura en la comunidad de su universidad antes de llegar al campus en 2016.» Tuvo un gran impacto. ¿Por qué no tendríamos un programa que se dirija a la industria No 1 en nuestra área?
Farris Beasley solía enseñar ciencias animales en Motlow State Community College antes de que la escuela cerrara su programa de agricultura. Fotografía: Matt Krupnick / El Informe Hechinger
Ahora Motlow tiene uno. El campus se unió a la Tennessee State Universityen Nashville para permitir que los estudiantes del condado de Lincoln obtuvieran primero un título de asociado y luego una licenciatura en negocios agrícolas o ciencias de los animales en el colegio comunitario, sin tener que salir de la ciudad.
El programa está comenzando lentamente – la universidad ofreció solo un curso de ciencia animal con ocho estudiantes en el otoño – pero hay planes para expandirse a más de 30 estudiantes para el próximo otoño. Smith dijo que está buscando subvenciones para pagar por una nueva instalación de educación agrícola en el campus de Fayetteville, que consta de dos edificios cuadrados junto a un parque industrial, justo al final de la carretera de la destilería de Jack Daniel’s y una planta de Frito-Lay.
Pero el seguimiento puede ser un reto para las universidades rurales. Motlow intentó una asociación similar con otra institución, Middle Tennessee State University, hace unos ocho años, pero la desechó rápidamente. Nadie en Motlow dijo que recordara los detalles, y los voceros y profesores de Middle Tennessee State no respondieron a las repetidas solicitudes para discutirlo.
Entre los primeros estudiantes de Motlow en tomar la nueva clase de agricultura se encontraba Taylor Howell, un estudiante de segundo año de Fayetteville que no creció en una granja pero está interesado en la comercialización de alimentos.
«Simplemente no entienden de dónde viene la comida, supongo», dijo.
Según el National Student Clearinghouse, solo el 59% de los graduados de escuelas secundarias rurales se inscriben inmediatamente en la universidad, en comparación con el 67% en áreas suburbanas y el 62% en áreas urbanas.
Sin embargo, la mayoría de los empleos en las fábricas y granjas que dominan las áreas rurales ahora requieren un poco de educación universitaria.
La comunicación entre educadores y líderes de la industria es esencial. Pero esas conversaciones ocurren muy raramente, según Katsinas y otros. En algunos casos, dijo, eso es el resultado de un «turfismo agobiante», en el que cada parte piensa que sabe mejor cómo resolver la escasez de mano de obra y no está dispuesto a trabajar con la otra.
Pero incluso cuando están conscientes de las necesidades de la fuerza laboral local, esas universidades a menudo tienen problemas para satisfacerlas. Una universidad lejos de una ciudad importante a menudo encuentra difícil contratar instructores calificados , por ejemplo. Y el equipo y los edificios necesarios para enseñar agricultura, enfermería o producción de petróleo son demasiado caros para que muchos puedan pagarlos.
En Tennessee, los funcionarios estatales están tratando de ayudar a las universidades en los condados más desfavorecidos. La iniciativa de Acceso Post Secundario de Apoyo en Condados Rurales, o SPparc, está tratando de aumentar las tasas de finalización de estudios universitarios, entre otras medidas, proporcionando pequeñas subvenciones a los colegios comunitarios en «condados con dificultades».
En el pequeño condado de Lake, por ejemplo, solo el 8% de los adultos tienen una licenciatura o más, muy por debajo de la cifra del 27% del estado. Un fabricante de botes se mudó recientemente al condado pero tenía problemas para encontrar soldadores calificados; Sparc pagó a un instructor de soldadura para que viajara al condado remoto en la esquina noroeste del estado y formara a algunos como parte de una asociación de doble inscripción entre una escuela secundaria y una escuela técnica.
Sin eso, el ganadero de Fayetteville, Brad Parton, se preocupa por el futuro de la vida rural. «A los jóvenes parece que no les importa de dónde provienen sus alimentos», dijo, mientras tiraba alimentos para sus 25 vacas.
«Es una de esas cosas en las que piensas, que la próxima generación, ¿están listas?», Dijo Parton, quien dirigió el capítulo Future Farmers of America de la escuela secundaria local, y recientemente asumió un papel regional en la organización. «Muchas de esas habilidades y oficios no se están transmitiendo».
Europa/ Reino Unido/ Por: Angela Irazabal Peña/ Fuente: www.eliberico.com.
Reino Unido planea hacer una inspección para ir más allá de los resultados de los exámenes. Las nuevas directrices pretenden centrar más el foco en la calidad de la educación en vez de en los ‘resultados’. Uno de los departamentos del Gobierno británico, Office for Standards in Education, Ofsted, ha propuesto un nuevo objetivo. Pretende concernir a la sociedad que la educación se ha centrado demasiado en los resultados de los exámenes. La educación de calidad, es decir, el aprendizaje se está dejando a un lado y lo primordial es pasar los controles.
Las nuevas medidas están impuestas por la inspectora jefa de los colegios de Inglaterra, Amanda Spielman. En un discurso comentó que quería realizar reformas tanto en los colegios estatales como en los independientes y también en la educación superior y universidades. Reducir los colegios que dejan de lado a los niños menos aptos es una de las medidas que se adoptarán. En caso de que no se cumplan, los inspectores de Ofsted lo penalizarán.
La calidad de la educación, antes que los resultados de los exámenes
Sobre este nuevo acuerdo, el director de Ofsted, Sean Harford, ha comentado que “cubren todo el recorrido desde el nacimiento hasta el aprendizaje adulto”. Para ello, la calidad de la educación será lo principal. Los exámenes pierden la relevancia actual.
Como su propio eslogan indica el objetivo principal de Ofsted es encargarse de los servicios y habilidades que los niños y niñas necesitan. Su cometido es inspeccionar y regular los servicios que cuidan y protegen a los niños y a los jóvenes. Además, también se encargan de proveer servicios educativos a aprendices de cualquier edad.
Cada semana realizan inspecciones y visitas de regulación por todo el país y publican los resultados a través de su página web. Ofsted no depende de ningún departamento ministerial. Se trata de una organización conformada por especialistas independientes e imparciales. Sin embargo, si reportan todos los informes y proyectos en los que colaboran.
Fuente de la noticia: https://www.eliberico.com/examenes-educacion-reino-unido/
Shift school day back by an hour to tackle poor results, anxiety and obesity, say experts
Sleep experts are warning of an epidemic of sleep deprivation among school-aged children, with some urging educational authorities to alter school hours to allow adolescents to stay in bed longer.
Adequate sleep is the strongest factor in the wellbeing and mental health of teenagers, and a shortage is linked to poor educational results, anxiety and obesity, they say. The French education minister approved a proposal to push back by an hour the start of the school day to 9am for students aged 15-18 in Paris.
It followed the publication in December of a study of teenagers in Seattlewhich found a “significant improvement in the sleep duration of students” after the start of the school day was delayed by almost an hour.
“The Paris decision can only be a good thing for the children,” said Dr Neil Stanley, author of How To Sleep Well, who has noted increasing sleep problems in children and teenagers. “For the benefit of our children start times should be moved later, bringing them more in line with teenagers’ biological rhythms.”
Mandy Gurney, founder of Millpond Children’s Sleep Clinic, has seen a 30% rise in referrals of school-aged children in the last 12 months. Lisa Artis of the Sleep Council also said there had been a “noticeable rise” in sleep deprivation among school children. “A change in the school day would be beneficial to teenagers, but it would take a massive campaign for it to happen. The school day is designed to fit in with the standard working day.”
School leaders are increasingly raising concerns about overtired children, both in secondary schools and the upper end of primary schools, according to James Bowen, director of NAHT Edge, an offshoot of the head teachers’ union.
But there was not enough “hard evidence” to justify the “drastic step” of changing school hours, he added. “The bottom line is that school leaders are very interested in any approach that may have a positive impact on pupils’ learning, but there are significant logistical barriers to changing the school day” especially for working families, he said.
The Education Endowment Foundation funds Teensleep, a research projectby Oxford and Durham universities. Teensleep wanted to evaluate the impact of a later start to the school day, but not enough schools signed up for a trial. Now it is examining the consequences of “sleep education” in schools, with the results due to be published in the spring.
Guidance in providing sleep lessons for pupils aged seven to 16 was rolled out to teachers last month.
Scientists say that humans’ circadian rhythms – the body clock that manages the cycle of sleep and wakefulness – change in adolescence. The cycle shifts two hours in teenagers which means that they are wired to go to sleep and wake up later. “It’s like they’re in a different time zone,” said Dr Michael Farquhar, a consultant in paediatric sleep medicine at the Evelina children’s hospital in London.
“We’re asking them to get up before their body clock is ready, because that’s the way the adult world works. So most teenagers end up sleep-deprived.”
Sleep is the “strongest predictor of wellbeing among teenagers”, said Russell Viner, professor of adolescent health at University College London and president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.
“When we think about all the things parents worry about, the effects of sleep are about four times higher than the effects of smartphone use,” he said. “There is major development of the brain in puberty. We need to go back to basics: more focus on sleep, physical activity and diet.”
Farquhar said: “If we could rewire the world to suit teenagers, we’d see benefits. But there are practical difficulties in doing that. So, as a start, schools could not schedule double maths at 8.30am and perhaps make PE the first lesson of the day.”
Source of the article: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/jan/13/school-deprived-pupils-extra-hour-classes
As a party member I want to see Angela Rayner bringing forward election-winning ideas, not more of the same
I’ve been a teacher for the past five years at an inner London academy, and I’ve seen the injustices that education professionals, students and their parents face first-hand. State schools are chronically underfunded, while elite private school fees cost up to £30,000 a year. Ofsted and school league tables are used to enforce a narrow vision of education, and an Institute of Education report this week has found that teachers in England have the lowest job satisfaction of all English-speaking countries.
Perhaps most importantly, students are suffering: the OECD has reportedthat young people in the UK are among the unhappiest in the world. This is the result of 40 years of education “reforms” driven by a rightwing political agenda, favouring privatisation, obsessive testing and endless competition between students and between schools – as if these were things to be celebrated in themselves.
As an active Labour member I want to see radical ideas coming from shadow secretary of state Angela Rayner aimed at tackling these challenges. Labour’s flagship education policy, the National Education Service (NES), contains the seeds of this radical potential. But the idea remains an empty shell: there hasn’t been a single education policy announcement from Rayner since the NES idea was launched 18 months ago.
Layla Moran, education spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats and a former teacher, on the other hand, made a powerful speech to the Liberal Democrat conference this week.She promised to abolish Ofsted, league tables and SATs, to remove private school charity tax status, and subtly hinted at abolishing the 11-plus test for grammar schools, because they perpetuate “state-sponsored segregation”.
I have never voted for the Liberal Democracts and never will. But there’s no denying that they currently have the most radical offer on the table when it comes to education.
By contrast, Rayner in her Guardian interview this week insisted that her party’s policymaking on education would not be “ideologically driven”.
The trouble is, education policy has always been ideologically driven. So either Labour is going to challenge the particular neoliberal ideology that has created the current mess or it isn’t. And if it doesn’t, it won’t fix it.
Rayner claims that academies as such are not a problem. But academisation has led to a situation in which we now have a competitive market in education that pits desperate schools against each other to retain their “market position”. This has led to terrible examples of gaming the system and outright corruption, at the expense of the most vulnerable children. The recent education select committee report showed that disproportionately high numbers of special educational needs students are being “off-rolled” to improve league tables positions. The academy revolution promised that the market would improve schools for all our children, and yet the gap in attainment between working class children and the rest stubbornly persists.
Rayner is right, of course, when she says that many vulnerable, working-class young people are being failed. And everyone agrees that practical education should be more highly valued than it is by our elitist system. But simply saying that we need more “technical” or “vocational” training, as Rayner does in her interview, is not enough. Her suggestion that the study of history is too “abstract” suggests a dangerous anti-intellectualism. It also reproduces the snobbish belief that working-class children shouldn’t have access to high-status knowledge. The 2011 Wolf report made clear that vocational qualifications under New Labour were an abject failure. Not only did they not prepare young people for skilled work, but they also created a narrow, technical curriculum that meant students continued to be locked out of the powerful knowledge that teachers know can enable them to understand the social, economic – and dare I say it, historical – forces that shape their worlds.
When asked about private schools Rayner rules out abolishing them, saying that if we only make “the state sector good enough” then private schools will wither on the vine. She forgets the main reason many people choose private education is snobbery – they don’t want their children being educated with the “great unwashed”. Labour’s plans to impose VAT on private school fees was a step in the right direction.
But why not suggest that university admission departments must only accept 7% of their undergraduates from private schools, given that this is the proportion of students they represent in the country as a whole? Then you really would see parents flock to the state sector, and perhaps have a greater investment in improving it.
So while the NES remains a potentially radical idea, that potential is currently going to waste.
The Lib Dem policies don’t go far enough for me. They would only roll back the worst of the education reforms adopted under Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. But Labour should be offering a great deal more than that. Labour must have an exciting vision for the future, a vision for the NES inspired perhaps by Finland, where schools promote collaborative, creative and emancipatory learning, rather than endless competition for exam results.
Labour galvanised people with its manifesto in 2017 because it promised something genuinely different, yet this has not been reflected in Labour’s education policy to date. As a teacher, I know that my students and their parents deserve more from Labour: otherwise, the deep inequality that blights our education system is set to continue.
Source of the article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/21/labour-timid-education-lib-dems-look-radical
Issues such as obesity are better handled in the home, says Amanda Spielman
Parents must not “abdicate their responsibility” by expecting schools to solve all the major problems children face, the chief inspector for schools will warn this week.
In a robust intervention attacking the increasing burdens placed on teachers, Ofsted chief Amanda Spielman will say schools “cannot be a panacea” for all social ills and will criticise some parents for neglecting some of the “most basic of parenting tasks”, such as toilet training.
While teachers “can play a role” in educating children about the dangers of knife crime and obesity, primary responsibility for these complex problems lies elsewhere, she will warn. When it comes to keeping to a healthy weight, she will say, “schools cannot take over the role of health professionals – and above all parents”.
In a speech marking the publication of her second annual Ofsted report, Spielman will say: “Our education and care services don’t exist in isolation from the local areas they serve. They are and should be a central part of our communities. But being part of a community means being very clear what your responsibilities are, and what issues, however worthy, can only be tackled beyond the school, college or nursery gates.”
Knife crime will be singled out as one of the most recent issues to place an additional burden on schools. “Most of our schools are safe, and we fully support measures, including zero-tolerance policies on the carrying of knives, to keep them that way,” Spielman will say. “But beyond that, while schools can play a role in educating young people about the danger of knives, they cannot be a panacea for this particular societal ill.
“Instead, preventing knife crime requires all local safeguarding partners to work together to protect children from harm while the relevant agencies tackle criminal activity and bring to justice youths and adults who cause harm to children.” Spielman said the obesity crisis was also “an issue which sits largely beyond the school gates”.
“Schools can and should teach children about the importance of healthy eating and exercise … their PE lessons should get them out of breath.
“But beyond that, schools cannot take over the role of health professionals – and above all parents. The answer to the obesity crisis, particularly among younger children, lies in the home, and parents should not abdicate their responsibility here.”
By the start of primary school, almost a quarter of children in England are overweight or obese, and the proportion rises to more than a third by the time they leave for secondary school. However, research by Ofsted has found no pattern to suggest that, on their own, interventions at school can be linked to a direct and measurable impact on weight.
Spielman will also chastise parents who allow their children to reach school without being toilet-trained. It comes amid growing evidence of children arriving at reception unable to use a toilet. “This is difficult for teachers, disruptive for other children and has a terrible social impact on the children affected,” she will say. “This is wrong. Toilet-training is the role of parents and carers, and should not be left to schools. Only in the most extreme cases should parents be excused from this most basic of parenting tasks.”
Spielman’s comments represent a blunt message to ministers keen to tackle topical issues by placing more responsibilities on schools even as they face cuts to resources in the face of austerity. Over the summer the Home Office issued lesson plans for children as young as 11 about the dangers of knife crime, which would involve them being told it is a “myth” that they will be safer with a weapon.
Plans were also announced to educate teachers on related slang.
Children’s minister Nadhim Zahawi said the lesson plans would “help illustrate the real impact of knife crime on young people’s lives” and that schools “up and down the country are taking advantage of them”. With evidence that the average age of knife crime victims is falling, some NHS doctors have called for school exit times to be staggered to reduce the chances of clashes.
There have been major concerns about teachers’ workloads and the impact on the numbers staying in the job. The Department for Education recently pledged to ease pressures on teachers in England after a report blamed an “audit culture” for causing stress among staff.
Source of the article: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/dec/02/schools-parents-ofsted-knife-crime-obesity
England’s biggest teaching union has accused the government of breaking its promise to provide a modest cash boost to every school in England, claiming figures reveal that nearly 5,000 schools have received no extra funds or have even had their funding cut.
In the wake of mounting concern among teachers and parents about a school budget crisis, the education secretary, Damian Hinds, told MPs last year that a new national funding formula would guarantee each school “at least a small cash increase”, a pledge repeated by the prime minister in the Commons last May.
The National Education Union argued the offer was inadequate given the scale of the school funding squeeze, but its analysis of recent government figures subsequently revealed that 4,819 schools had either received no extra funds or had had their budget cut.
“This is yet another failure and another broken promise by government on school funding,” said Kevin Courtney, NEU joint general secretary. “The fact remains that schools were never going to manage on the money promised by government.
“However, headteachers, teachers, school staff and parents will be dismayed that even the meagre amounts of funds supposedly allocated to schools will not be received by everyone. Parents and school staff simply cannot trust what the government says on education funding.”
The NEU compared the schools block funding allocations for 2017-18 and 2018-19 and found that a quarter of primary schools (25%) and one in six secondary schools (17%) either received no cash increase or suffered an actual cut to their funding.
Responding to the NEU analysis, a Department for Education (DfE) spokesperson said that since 2017 the government had given every local authority more money for every pupil in every school in order to ensure fairer funding across the country.
“Government provides this money to local authorities and they have the freedom to work with schools to allocate their budgets in a way that best suits local needs,” the spokesperson said.
“While there is more money going into our schools than ever before, we do recognise the budgeting challenges schools face and that we are asking them to do more. That’s why we’re supporting schools and headteachers, and their local authorities, to make the most of every pound.”
According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, total school spending per pupil in England has fallen by about 8% in real terms between 2009-10 and 2017-18.
While schools have been struggling to meet rising costs, many local authorities have been forced to divert money from the main schools funding block they receive from the government to their high needs budget in order to meet growing demand for special educational needs support – a move that has to be sanctioned by the DfE.
The shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner, said Labour would end funding cuts and increase per-pupil funding. “The Tories have cut billions of pounds from our schools, which have seen their budgets falling for the first time in a generation,” she said.
“With rising pressure on class sizes and teachers leaving in droves, a generation of children is paying the price for Tory failure.”
Source of the article: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/jan/07/nearly-5000-schools-in-england-not-given-promised-cash-union
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