The biggest education strike in New Zealand history, including primary and secondary school teachers, and principals, will take place on May 29. But what can parents do to help? Emily Writes has some advice.
On Sunday it was announced that teachers in primary and secondary schools would strike for more funding, lower class ratios, support for children with additional needs and a pay jolt to address the teacher shortage. I have long supported the teachers in their efforts and I’ll continue to do so.
One of the reasons why I voted for, and encouraged others to vote for the Labour Party or the Green Party was because they both campaigned on a promise to support New Zealand’s children – this includes education.
I’ve watched in horror over the last few weeks as Education Minister Chris Hipkins has made juvenile, pouty comments about teachers not respecting him enough (and therefore I suppose making them unworthy of a fair deal?). I’ve been amazed by the lack of action by the government and the vulgar spin painting teachers as greedy or laughably “the top income earners in the country”. It’s like they think we’re idiots. Chris honey, our kids were born yesterday – we weren’t!
Parents around New Zealand contacted me after the strike announcement to ask how we can support teachers. Everywhere I look, parents want to mobilise and they want to make sure the government knows that they back the teachers.
So I decided to make a list of five easy things we can do to encourage the government to address New Zealand’s education crisis and show solidarity for our wonderful teachers.
Talk to a teacher
Ask your child’s teacher how you can support them with their strike action. Thank them for their work and let them know that you appreciate that this was a really hard decision for them to make. Teachers are exhausted. They’re being beaten up by the government after being beaten up by the previous government and they’re demoralised. They need our support.
Go to a rally
Grab the fam and get to a local rally on 29 May. The rallies will hopefully be huge. They need to be big enough to show the government how important our children are to us. I took my kids to the last strike back in August and they had a great time – they’re always lovely events and they give us a chance to teach our children how democracy works.
Join a group and organise!
Almost immediately after the strike announcement parents started setting up Facebook groups to talk about supporting the teachers. This is an excellent thing to do. Start a local group or join a bigger group. Make signs together, write to MPs together, write thank you letters to your teachers or make posters. Involve the kids! Your kids are never too young to make themselves heard and to see their parents and loved ones fighting for their future.
Strike back at the BS
The government seems to be on a misinformation campaign – correct the BS wherever you see it. Teachers are not being offered a 10k pay raise in a year. Though let’s be clear they should be – teaching is an incredibly difficult role which requires a lot of emotional maturity as well as skill and expertise. I have all of the side-eyes in the world for people, mostly men, who think teaching isn’t a skilled profession given it’s mostly women who are in this profession. Talk to a teacher before you swallow comments by Chris Hipkins that teachers are rolling in cash like Scrooge McDuck. Tell your friends, tell your whānau, tell everyone you know that the truth is that what teachers are asking for isn’t unreasonable. We really do need smaller classrooms, we need more support for children with additional needs, and teachers need more time to plan their lessons. That isn’t a crazed and wild request! It makes perfect sense.
Talk! Talk! Talk!
Contact your board of trustees and ask them if they support the strike action. Before you vote in board elections, ask the candidates what they’re doing to help with teacher and principal workloads. What are they publicly doing to support striking teachers? Email your local MP. Contact Chris Hipkins and tell him to listen to the people who voted for his party and stop being a damn walnut (kids might be reading so I can’t say what I’d like to say to him). If you’re a Labour or Greens voter, remind Labour and the Greens they made election promises and if we wanted National in government we would have voted for National. If for some unknown reason you voted for Winston Peters – I don’t know. Put down your sherry and think about your great grandchildren and their future.
Getting political isn’t a natural state for a lot of us. I get that. But this issue is beyond politics. Yes, National did this. They fucked our education system. But what’s done is done and we have to fix it – there’s no other option. We just HAVE to fix it. Yes, seeing National MPs putting out press releases saying they’re astonished Labour MPs won’t fix the problems they made is pretty excruciating (a bit like when a child shits in the bath then gets angry that there’s shit in the bath) but we can’t get drawn into all that muck. It’s a diversion. This is beyond political allegiances – this is about our kids and their right to an education. It’s about our wonderful teachers who have been dumped on for so long it’s no wonder so many have given up on the profession.
A recent poll surveyed a bunch of New Zealanders and found 89% wanted money to be spent on fixing problems in education, rather than in other areas.
The survey found 83% agreed that primary and secondary teachers needed a pay rise, about 80% agreed teachers were bogged down in administration that was getting in the way of teaching, and more than 70% said class sizes should be reduced.
There’s massive support for fixing this problem. And what teachers have asked for is fair and reasonable. We just need the government to listen. This is our chance to really make our education system world-class.
We can do it. We just need to do it together. Everyone together.
Source of the article: https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/17-05-2019/five-things-parents-can-do-to-support-the-teachers/
Worsening school inequality in Australia further entrenches disadvantage. There are children who struggle to afford attendance at free public schools
Bec* loves school and wants to go to university so she can become a social worker, and help children who grew up in similar situations to her own.
The Aboriginal teenager missed a lot of classes when she was younger – from grades five to seven. Her mum was in an abusive relationship, and money was so tight affording petrol just to get to and from school was difficult. Her Naplan test results nosedived in that period, her principal says.
“I was heartbroken when I missed school from years 5-7,” she wrote in her application to the Public Education Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation that provides financial aid to students in public schools.
“Not only did I have to face what was happening at home, I was missing out on learning, new friends, and skills.”
By the time she was in year 10 though, Bec was living in a more stable situation with her brother and his partner, and her attendance was back at almost 100%.
“If I was granted $5,000 it would improve my learning and my knowledge,” she said.
“It would help me access internet at home, hire a tutor to help fill gaps in my learning, and cut my hours at work so I can focus on my studies.
“I would like to attend university and become an Aboriginal caseworker to help young children that were like me to know that there is a good ending to it all.”
Bec’s story is far from unique. Guardian Australia was provided with a range of anonymised applications for these scholarships; all were from ambitious students swimming against a current of financial hardship to try to get the best education possible, and to one day make a generational break with poverty. They needed the money not for expensive school fees, but for everyday basics – uniforms and well-fitting school shoes, laptops, internet access and excursion fees.
One student hoped to study nursing at university after spending so much time with her single mum in hospital, two years after her dad died. She said the scholarship could help her get there by covering the cost of tutoring, uniforms and stationery. Another Year 12 student wrote her application while living in refuge accommodation. She was already financially independent and working two casual jobs, and said the scholarship money would make a huge difference in alleviating her financial strain and allowing her to complete school and attend university without going into major debt.
A Torres Strait Islander boy wrote that his mother left home when he was little, then his father committed suicide after a car accident left him with chronic pain and depression. He and his two siblings moved in with their grandma.
“We live in a housing commission and my grandma has low income and struggles to pay for education, resources, excursions, and uniform. My grandma never went to Tafe or University however she has always encouraged me to do my best, my attendance at school is very good, I try my best at school but with all the things that have happened in my life, it’s very hard.”
David Hetherington, who oversees the disbursements as executive director of the foundation, says: “The promise of public education is that any student can attend a public school at no cost to themselves and can get a proper education.
“But we know that there are students who are going without these educational basics.”
Though the scholarships aim to address these immediate financial needs, their aim is something bigger – to disrupt, if only for a select few, the ongoing link that exists in Australia between poverty and poorer educational outcomes.
Despite decades of school funding wars, the landmark Gonski report and major increases in commonwealth funding to schools, children from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds in Australia are still falling well behind their wealthier peers at school.
By Year 9, Australian teenagers from the most disadvantaged quartile are still, on average, around three years behind their peers from the most advantaged group in science, reading and maths.
More than a third of students from this most disadvantaged group still do not finish high school, and only a quarter go on to university.
Though the general public may have grown weary of discussions about inequality and education, experts stress there is still much unfinished business. Too many public schools in particular continue to be funded below government targets, while the problem of school segregation – particularly of disadvantaged kids being concentrated in disadvantaged schools, that are being abandoned by other families – is worsening.
It’s a much bigger problem than charities and not-for profits can fix alone.
“Educational investment can break the cycle of economic disadvantage – that’s the wonder of education,” says Hetherington. “But it’s got to be properly resourced and properly managed, and I think that’s still where we’re falling down in Australia.”
***
“Demography is not destiny” was a favourite mantra of former prime minister Julia Gillard, and one she said guided her government’s signature education reforms.
At its core was a new “needs-based and sector-blind” funding model, to distribute higher levels of public funding to those schools educating students with the highest levels of disadvantage. The report established these schools were overwhelmingly, though not exclusively, public schools: almost 80% of students from low socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds attended a public school, along with 85% of Indigenous students and 83% of students from remote areas.
But eight years on, many schools, particularly public schools, are not meeting the government’s own funding benchmarks set in the wake of theGonski reforms.
Attempts to ensure “no school would lose a dollar”, a web of special deals in the years and shortfalls in funding, particularly from some state governments, have left the full vision unmet.
“Funding is not everything, I agree,” says Trevor Cobbold, the convener of the public school advocacy group Save Our Schools.
“But it’s pretty fundamental to being able to employ extra teachers, extra support staff, and so on … we have to direct much larger funding increases into disadvantaged public schools than we have been.
The Gonski model was built around a tool called the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS), the amount of money a school needs to properly educate each child, made up of a base amount of funding plus additional loadings for key areas of disadvantage.
In 2017, government schools were only reaching, on average, 90% of the SRS, while non-government schools were reaching 95%, according to the Grattan Institute.
Julie Sonnemann, a school education fellow at the Institute, points to the funding split between the commonwealth, which is the primary source of funding for non-government schools, and the states and territories, which are the main source of funding to government schools.
“There has been a lot of progress made in channelling more funding to disadvantaged schools, however still a long way to go,” she says.
“Because some state governments have been less effective in meeting the new school target set out under Gonski, government schools have got the short end of the stick.”
Under current Coalition policy, the amount the commonwealth will contribute to government systems will be at least 20% of SRS by 2023, and education minister Dan Tehan has touted the fact education spending has grown every year the Coalition government has been in power.
“We are providing a record $21.4bn for schools which is an extra 66% since we came to government and we can afford to pay for it without increasing taxes,” he told Guardian Australia.
Labor is pledging an additional $14bn for public schools over a decade, effectively lifting the commonwealth contribution to at least 22% of the SRS in the first term, as well as cracking down on some deals that allow states to deduct costs such as transport from their spending on public schools.
Those policies would, according to the Grattan Institute’s Peter Goss, “put government schools on track to reach 97.2% of SRS.”
“Not quite full funding, but within touching distance.”
***
While the wide gap in achievement between kids from the lowest SES group and their more advantaged peers may seem like an intractable problem, many experts don’t agree – for a simple reason. The size of gap varies significantly between different countries.
In Canada, a similar country to Australia in many ways, this gap between students is markedly less, at 2.4 years (compared to 3.1 in Australia) and Canadian students from the most disadvantaged quartile routinely outperform disadvantaged Australian students in international PISA tests.
Canada spends a higher proportion of GDP per capita on school education than Australia, but researchers point to another factor too.
“The thing that I keep coming back to is that schools are more socially mixed in Canada than they are in Australia,” says Laura Perry, an associate professor at Murdoch University .
“Canada has one of the highest proportions of kids in the OECD that go to a socially mixed or diverse school … Australia is the opposite.
“School choice”, the idea that parents should pick the “best” school for their child and not necessarily attend the local comprehensive high school, has long been a governing philosophy in Australia, and one encouraged by the generous public funding of non-government schools and supercharged by publicly available comparison data on the MySchool website.
One result is that disadvantage is increasingly concentrated in particular schools, and the social mix of students from a range of socio-economic backgrounds is often missing.
More than half of students (51.2%) classified as coming from a disadvantaged background in Australia attended disadvantaged school in 2015, according to a recent OECD analysis, while less than 5% attend a socio-economically advantaged school (the remainder attend schools classified as socio-economically average).
Those figures are more polarised than they were a decade earlier, when the proportion of disadvantaged students at disadvantaged schools was 46%.
The trend comes despite a growing proportion of parents choosing public over private schools, in a recent reversal of a decades-old trend.
Research conducted by Chris Bonnor, a former Sydney principal and fellow at the Centre for Policy Development, shows that more advantaged families are seeking out more advantaged public schools – such as selective schools, or ones that have a higher socio-economic profile. As a result, some public schools serving poorer populations are getting left behind.
When Bonnor taught in Mount Druitt in the 1970s, a working class suburb on Sydney’s western fringe, he says there was more socio-economic diversity in the local public high schools than today.
“Even in those very difficult schools – Mount Druitt High, Shalvey High, there was always a small but significant group of high achieving kids,” he says.
“But what MySchool data clearly shows is that sort of critical mass of aspirant kids are less likely to be found in those schools now.”
This trend matters because the concentration disadvantage is compounding the difficulties students face, and is believed to be leading to poorer educational outcomes.
The same OECD analysis found that, on average, students from disadvantaged backgrounds attending more advantaged schools scored markedly better results in standardised tests.
“If you have a school with a significant disadvantaged enrolment there are negative impacts that build on each other,” Bonnor says.
“It’s partly about teacher expectations of kids, partly about resources that the school has, it’s certainly about the intellectual capital that kids bring to school everyday … There’s a whole pile of things that interact with each other to further reduce opportunities for students in low SES schools. And that’s often despite the best intentions of teachers and reformers.”
Concentrating disadvantage in these smaller, public schools also compounds the need for more funding, Perry says.
“When you concentrate students with high needs – and poverty is a high-needs, high stress situation – it makes teaching and learning a lot more difficult, and it also makes it a lot more expensive,” she says.
“Low SES schools are small. Even though their per student allocation is quite generous compared to other schools, you don’t have the economies of scale you have at other schools.”
But while debates about funding have featured prominently in education policy-making for some time, tackling the issue of segregation and residualisation has proved far more taboo in Australia.
Policy solutions could take the form of mandating non-government schools take more students from low SES backgrounds in return for their public funding, removing fees at some non-government schools, as well as changes to entrance policies to make sure selective public schools and more advantaged government schools take a wider range of enrolments.
“There are some parts of the US that have tried to tackle this issue with admissions policies, to ensure there is a diversity of kids in every school, and perhaps Australia should consider policy settings like that,” says Sonneman.
But most experts know this is likely to face deep opposition.
“There is a really strong sense of entitlement among the Australian community that they have the right to choose the best school for their child, and as long as that cultural norm exists, it’s pretty difficult for governments to do much.”
Fuente del artículo: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/12/students-going-without-the-basics-i-was-heartbroken-when-i-missed-school
Oceania/ New Zealand/ 20.05.2019/ Source: www.stuff.co.nz.
School teachers and principals across the country have agreed to stage New Zealand’s largest-ever strike as negotiations with the Ministry of Education continue to stall.
The Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) and New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Rui Roa announced the move on Sunday, and said rolling strike action was also possible.
Ths strike, on May 29, will involve almost 50,000 primary and secondary teachers and primary principals, and will affect hundreds of thousands of students in more than 2000 schools.
PPTA members had also given authority for a five-week rolling strike across the country if the impasse was not resolved, although they hoped that would not eventuate.
The announcement came after teachers and principals voted in secret ballots over the past week, with both unions having each rejected four pay offers to date from the ministry.
The latest offer from the Government is for a $698 million pay improvement package for primary teachers and principals, and a $500m package for secondary teachers.
NZEI president Lynda Stuart said the teaching profession was not going to give up on achieving fair pay and sustainable working conditions.
«What do we want? It’s quite simple really. We want the time to teach, we want a significant pay jolt, and we want better support for those children who have additional learning needs.
«Giving teachers the time to teach and lead, and ensuring that teaching is a viable long-term career, is absolutely essential if our children in this nation are to get the future that they deserve and need.»
It will be the third time primary teachers and principals had staged a strike during the standoff, but the first time secondary teachers had done so.
Secondary school principals were in separate negotiations.
PPTA president Jack Boyle said he hoped the strike would make the Government sit up and take notice.
«Unfortunately, we have got to a point where our bargaining team has said. ‘We do not believe that a settlement is possible through negotiation at this point’.»
Wellington Girls’ College teacher Cameron Stewart said the current school system was failing students. «We have students who will go through school without a specialist maths teacher.
«It is important that all students throughout the country get the benefit of someone who is a subject expert and is passionate about their subject.
«We don’t want people who are teaching their third or fourth [specialist] subject who have no particular experience and no training in it.»
Teaching needed to be seen as a desirable profession, with a salary which kept up with professions requiring similar qualifications, Stewart said.
Wainuiomata Primary School deputy principal Tute Porter-Samuels said many staff could not afford to strike, but neither could they afford «propping up an undervalued, underfunded system at the cost of our own health and wellbeing».
Teachers did not have enough time outside of the classroom to plan programmes for children with extra needs, call or meet parents, or collaborate on school programmes, she said.
Education Minister Chris Hipkins said the $1.2 billion pay offer was one of the largest on offer across the public sector.
It would result in an extra $10,000 for most primary school teachers, and almost as much for secondary teachers, he said.
«I certainly don’t think a strike is justified.»
Hipkins also acknowledged teachers were not just after more pay, and noted the Government had invested $95m in teacher recruitment and $217m in employing more learning support coordinators.
He wanted the unions to enter facilitated bargaining, and hoped they would take up the offer.
«We’re getting serious about the issues that they’re raising, but we’re never going to be able to solve every problem overnight. These problems have been over a decade in the making.»
Source of the notice: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/112655087/teachers-have-voted-to-strike-on-may-29
Gobiernos que administran a 47 millones de personas están en emergencia climática
La lucha contra el cambio climático comienza a alcanzar los niveles más altos de la política, después de que el Parlamento británico declarara el estado de emergencia climática, suscrito también por 520 gobiernos locales de 20 países. Las movilizaciones están en 125 naciones.
Las declaraciones de emergencia climática se multiplican en la misma medida que los efectos del cambio climático se hacen más evidentes. El mes de abril ha sido el segundo más cálido después del fatídico abril de 2016, con una temperatura +0,638ºC por encima de la media del período 1981-2010, según los datos del NCEP-NCAR que se remontan hasta 1948.
2016 fue el año más caluroso desde 1880: la temperatura global se situó 1,1 grados por encima de la que teníamos durante la era industrial. El 2016 fue 0,07 grados más cálido que el anterior, cuyas temperaturas ya resultaron alarmantes en todo el mundo.
El año 2019 promete también ser emblemático en el calentamiento global. Ya es el segundo año más cálido desde que se tienen registros y con el fenómeno El Niño de nuevo activo, la temperatura global tiende a permanecer alta en los próximos meses. La NOAA estima que El Niño tiene el 65% de posibilidades de mantenerse este verano (aunque a nivel débil), y un 50-55% de posibilidades de perdurar durante el otoño.
Reacciones sociales amplificadas
Las reacciones sociales se amplifican. Los científicos han hecho diversos llamamientos para alertar a la población de los riesgos que acechan a nuestra especie, al mismo tiempo que diversos movimientos sociales y estudiantiles han salido también a la calle para reclamar a los políticos medidas urgentes para contener el calentamiento global.
El último gesto de esta escalada lo ha realizado el Parlamento británico: ha declarado simbólicamente el estado de emergencia climática y se ha convertido en el primer parlamento estatal del mundo que asume esta posición.
Anteriormente, los gobiernos regionales de Escocia y Gales habían declarado también el estado de emergencia climática, así como la ciudad de San Francisco en Estados Unidos, la provincia canadiense de Quebec o la ciudad de Vancouver, también en Canadá, entre otras. La ciudad de Constanza, en Alemania (80.000 habitantes), ha sido la última en sumarse a esta cadena.
En total, han sido hasta ahora 520 administraciones políticas de 8 países, que abarcan a un total de 47 millones de personas, las que se han declarado en emergencia climática en todo el mundo, según datos que ofrece el movimiento Declaración de Emergencia Climática. Numerosas empresas también están suscribiendo la emergencia climática.
Origen australiano
En Australia, donde se inició la movilización de la Declaración de Emergencia Climática, 17 gobiernos locales han declarado una emergencia climática. Más de 75 candidatos en las elecciones federales del 18 de mayo firmaron la petición de Declaración de Emergencia Climática. Los consejos australianos representan un poco más de un millón de personas, el cuatro por ciento de la población total del país.
El movimiento se inició con una carta abierta, firmada por 25 científicos, políticos, empresarios y ambientalistas australianos, que fue publicada en el periódico The Age el 23 de junio de 2016. En esa carta, manifestaban que el Acuerdo de París se había quedado corto para contener el calentamiento global, que el futuro de la civilización está comprometido y que hay que iniciar urgentemente la transición energética hacia un modelo de cero emisiones. Terminaba reclamando al Parlamento australiano la declaración de emergencia climática.
Extinction Rebellion
En 2018, un movimiento similar emergió en el Reino Unido. Se llama Extinction Rebellion (rebelión contra la extinción) y fue impulsado por cien científicos que firmaron un llamamiento en el que reclamaban a los políticos la verdad sobre el cambio climático, medidas para reducir las emisiones contaminantes y la creación de una Asamblea Ciudadana Nacional para supervisar los cambios necesarios y crear una democracia que funcione.
Este movimiento ha estado muy activo en movilizaciones que no se han limitado al Reino Unido, sino que se han replicado en 80 ciudades de 33 países. En España este movimiento se ha movilizado también para pedir la declaración de emergencia climática, tanto a nivel estatal como municipal y regional.
Destaca los efectos que el cambio climático está teniendo en España, que afectan ya a más de 32 millones de personas, especialmente por el aumento de la extensión de los climas áridos (en torno al 6% de la superficie de España), la amplificación de las “islas de calor” en las ciudades, la prolongación de los veranos en cinco semanas más que a comienzos de los años 80, y por el aumento de la temperatura superficial del Mediterráneo, que ha sido de 0,34ºC por década, mientras que su nivel ha subido 3,4 milímetros por año desde 1993.
Fridays For Future
También en 2018 una niña sueca desató un movimiento juvenil para pedir a los políticos medidas urgentes contra el calentamiento global. Inspiró a estudiantes de todo el mundo a participar en huelgas estudiantiles con la misma petición.
Desde diciembre de 2018, más de 20.000 estudiantes realizaron manifestaciones en más de 270 ciudades en varios países del mundo, incluyendo Australia, Austria, Bélgica, Canadá, los Países Bajos, Alemania, Finlandia, Dinamarca, Japón, Suiza, Reino Unido, Estados Unidos y España.
Estas movilizaciones culminaron el 15 de marzo de 2019, cuando una nueva oleada de huelgas estudiantiles y manifestaciones se desató por todo el mundo para pedir medidas efectivas que detengan el cambio climático, siguiendo la convocatoria mundial del Fridays For Future promovido por Greta Thunberg.
Según datos de esta organización, esta convocatoria movilizó a 1,6 millones de huelguistas en los 7 continentes (América del Norte, América del Sur, Europa, África, Asia, Oceanía y la Antártida), en más de 125 países y en más de 2.000 lugares.
Analysis of graduate earnings in Australia shows benefit of a university degree is diminishing
Policies to boost female participation have helped narrow the gender gap in career earnings but pushing students to study science has resulted in smaller pay packets.
Those are the results of a Grattan Institute analysis of graduate earnings and employment outcomes, released on Monday, which found the benefit of having a university degree is actually shrinking.
Female university graduates still earn about $14,000 a year more than women whose highest qualification is year 12, while for men the premium is about $12,500. But the report found that the average earnings premium of an early career graduate aged 25 to 34 had shrunk by 8% for women from 2006 to 2016 and by 6% for men.
The report by Grattan Institute higher education director, Andrew Norton, and fellow Ittima Cherastidtham found that Australia’s immigration – skewed towards skilled migrants – and the uncapping of student places between 2009 and 2015 meant “many more people are chasing the jobs that graduates aspire to hold”.
“Growth in the number of professional jobs has not kept up with demand,” the report said. New professional jobs had “dropped significantly” after the global financial crisis in 2009 and at the end of the mining boom in 2013.
The chief executive of Universities Australia, Catriona Jackson, said there was still a “sizeable wage benefit” for graduates and the premium had only fallen slightly despite the significant expansion of access to higher education.
Male graduates saw their earnings fall by 3% from 2006 to 2016, owing to a decline in full-time work and professional or managerial jobs.
Female graduates saw their earnings rise 4% from 2006 to 2016, outstripped by a 10% increase in pay for women with year 12 as their highest qualification.
The increase in earnings was triggered by an increase in workforce participation by women with children, from less than 70% to more than 75%. The report credited additional paid parental leave and improved childcare subsidies since 2008.
The career earnings gap between the male and female median-earning graduate fell from 30% in 2006 to 27% in 2016. Women narrowed the gap by earning the equivalent of one and a half years’ of pay more across their careers.
“Progress is slow, but as successive cohorts of young graduates have careers that are less disrupted by motherhood, the gender earnings gap will continue to decline,” the report said.
For female graduates big increases in average annual earnings were recorded in nursing (+10%), education (8%), medicine (6%) and engineering (3%) – with pay increases in industries dominated by public sector employment leading the way.
Pay went backwards for female graduates in the humanities, science, information technology and law, all down 2%.
For male graduates, only those with education degrees saw a significant pay rise (+7%), while big declines were recorded in law and commerce (-7%), science (-6%) and information technology (-3%).
Engineering, law and medicine graduates remain the highest paid.
Both male and female science graduates face difficulties finding managerial/professional jobs. In 2016 more than 40% of science graduates were employed as labourers, in sales, administration and services or trades, which are less likely to use their qualification.
Only those with humanities qualifications have equivalently low rates of employment in managerial/professional jobs. Nursing, education and medicine all had rates of 90% or more employed in managerial/professional jobs.
The report said the rate of unemployment or under-employment four months after graduation grew from 15% before the global financial crisis in early 2008 to its highest-recorded level of 31% in 2014.
Evidence from previous economic downturns showed there “will be a long-lasting impact on the earnings prospects of early-career graduates”.
But it predicted that the “worst has passed” – because although “new graduates are still less likely to get a full-time job than a decade ago … their prospects are improving”.
Source of the article: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/sep/16/gender-gap-narrows-but-push-towards-science-has-lowered-wages
Now that the Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IA-CEPA) has been signed, Australia’s training sector has an opportunity to build on a small base.
Indonesia’s young and expanding population, its geographic proximity and its steady economic trajectory towards the top 10 global economies by 2030 make it a key market for Australia.
Indonesia’s need for education and training opportunities is large and growing. Indonesian authorities recognise the growing skills gap in the economy and the increasing percentage of the workforce that is undereducated. The nation’s long-term economic prospects will reflect how well the country deals with this significant challenge.
To succeed, Indonesia will need to partner with others.
Due to many factors, including geography, history, reputation and other institutional alignments, Australian education and training providers are exceptionally well placed to partner with Indonesia in achieving its education and training goals.
Growing skills need
Indonesia’s education and training needs are massive. Its demographic profile is its advantage. With a young population where half are under 30, and about 67 million are between the ages of 15 and 24 years old, it is the third largest adolescent group in the world, after India and China.
Its population is not only young but becoming more urban. Deloitte consultancy predicts that Indonesia’s city dwellers aged 15 to 29 will total 41 million by 2025.
While its young and urban population is its advantage, the scale of its skills needs is its economic disadvantage. Two aspects stand out: size and quality. Indonesia needs more skilled workers.
To address this, Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo has set an ambitious goal of adding 57 million skilled workers by 2030.
To meet this goal and keep up with industrial growth, the Ministry of Manpower conservatively estimates that it will need to double its current output of graduates, adding a further 3.8 million skilled workers annually.
The extent of the skills and training needed to drive the desired improvements in knowledge, competence and capability is the other aspect of Indonesia’s disadvantage. The lack of quality human capital poses a significant challenge to the country’s economic and growth aspirations.
Despite successful efforts by the government to improve access to education, local institutions continue to struggle to deliver the types of graduates the country needs. Two-thirds of companies surveyed by the World Bank in 2014 say finding qualified employees for professional and managerial positions is either difficult or very difficult.
Almost 70% of manufacturing employers say they struggle to find skilled engineers.
Taking a longer-term view
Australia is a favoured destination for young Indonesians looking to study abroad. It attracts over a quarter of total outbound numbers, nearly 20,000 students, to its universities, technical and further education (TAFE) institutions and schools.
There are even a handful of Australian education and training providers already active in Indonesia. Some are succeeding. Some are at an early stage of business development. The ones that are succeeding use creative approaches to deliver programmes.
A few of them concentrate their activities on engaging government agencies by offering training solutions or niche policy consulting. Some have chosen to only deal with industry because it is relatively easier and issues of funding are less of a concern.
There are others that seek to partner locally in various ways to deliver programmes directly to students.
TAFE Queensland, for example, has been successful in turning government relationships into commercial outcomes. Over the last eight years, they have capitalised on Australian government schemes that build strategic links into key ministries, allowing them to deliver commercial programmes.
Holmesglen TAFE in Victoria has a fledgling partnership with Universitas Muhammadiyah, an extensive network of institutions, where they offer an accredited practical English programme in a purpose-built language centre near Jakarta.
Monash University’s partnership with a local provider has been offering a pathway programme since 1994. Students undertake pre-university programmes in Indonesia and then move to Australia for parts of their undergraduate degree.
These institutions have some things in common:
• They have all been in Indonesia for a decade or longer.
• They are building reputation, credibility and relationships.
• They have taken the time to find the right partner and get the right model of partnership working.
Institutionally, they have taken a ‘whole of institution’ approach – all parts of the organisation working in unison. They have also developed appropriate business models, invested in people and resources, formed ‘win-win’ partnership structures and, more importantly, visited the country many times.
IA-CEPA opens up new opportunities for Australian education and training. These opportunities should be seen as a long game. It will take more than five years before any benefits will flow. But the time to look in-depth at education and training opportunities for Australian providers is now.
Indeed, the recently signed agreement provides a valuable boost to potential interest.
Source of the notice: https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20190314124305690
Oceania/ New Zealand/ 25.03.2019/ Source: www.journalnow.com.
Guests and members stand to observe a moment of silence on Sunday at Annoor Islamic Center in Clemmons. More than 350 people attended the gathering.
Guests and members gather outside the Annoor Islamic Center in Clemmons on Sunday. Speakers at the event discussed ways to end intolerance in the wake of two deadly attacks on mosques in New Zealand that left 50 people dead. Imam Khalid Griggs said Islamophobia is present, and the best way to get rid of it is through education.
Nine days after a man fatally shot 50 people at two mosques in New Zealand, the greater Forsyth community gathered at a Clemmons mosque and discussed what could be done to squelch intolerance.
For some, the discussion was intensely personal.
Noor Shehata, now a freshman in college, recalls when she was a seventh-grader in social studies learning about Sept. 11.
“The teacher said he’d hate to be a brown Muslim who owned a restaurant the next day (after 9/11),” Shehata recounted. “I was a brown Muslim, and my dad owned a restaurant. All eyes in the class went to me.”
She said it was difficult to experience that from someone in a leadership position as a 13-year-old.
“Muslims are forced to grow up much earlier, they know what a terrorist is earlier,” Shehata said.
She learned to develop a filter of herself, looking at how she might appear through others’ eyes.
Imam Khalid Griggs said Islamophobia is present, and the best way to get rid of it is through education. He urged the approximately 350 people in attendance to take a stand against racism in all forms and come together as one against it.
“If we don’t come together as brothers and sisters, we will die as fools,” he said in a reference to a Martin Luther King Jr. quote.
Juana Rhili, an educator, challenged everyone in attendance to share knowledge of the Muslim religion with five other people within the next week.
“We are all, ‘One person, under God,’ and one person can make a change,” she said, referencing the Pledge of Allegiance. “We know these (shootings) will continue to happen unless we change the mindset.”
Others provided additional knowledge of Islam, including that the true message of the religion is peace, people of all nationalities are Muslim, and Muslims are against suicide.
The North Carolina division of the FBI recognized how important connections with the Muslim community are, working for more than four years to strengthen them, said Timothy Stranahan, assistant special agent in charge. Today, there’s a network of about 45 imams across the state the FBI keeps in contact with in the event something happens.
Aladin Ebraheem, with the Annoor Islamic Center in Clemmons where the gathering was held, said that trust is valuable.
He teared up discussing the mass shooting in New Zealand, but knew the community would get through it.
“That individual might have been successful in taking lives, but he failed miserably in intimidating, and the biggest proof is all of you being here,” Ebraheem told the crowd.
“This is not foreign to any of us. Just a few months ago, we were at a Jewish temple, showing support for almost the same thing,” he said, referencing the Tree of Life shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in October 2018, in which 11 people were killed.
Hana Hariri, who has a young daughter, said more discussions like this need to occur in the community. She said last year, her daughter was called a terrorist because of her faith. She’s also called, “the others.”
“We need to educate more about Islam,” Hariri said. “Education, even in school, and tell kids that Islam is a religion, not terrorism like ISIS. We’re relieved that the FBI is helping.”
Source of the notice: https://www.journalnow.com/news/local/islamic-leaders-education-the-key-to-ending-intolerance/article_86ebe7a3-0664-50a0-8382-ca1cc9f0931a.html#1
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