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UNESCO’s Support to Girls Education in Imotong State

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UNESCO/October 10, 2017/ Source: https://reliefweb.int

Community Girls Schools (CGS) is a unique education program designed to accelerate equitable access to quality basic education for girls aged between 8-12 years in villages that have no established formal schools. It’s a modified education program which offers flexible learning opportunities to learners mainly in lower primary education, where girls are expected to constitute 70% of the total learners, and boys constitute the remaining 30%. The CGS program is mainly characterized by condensed syllabus, faster learning process, targeting marginalized female learners, and flexibility in the learning schedule and calendar.

One of the four clusters of CGSs that are getting support from the Out of School Children (OOSC) project being implemented by UNESCO Juba Office is that of Imotong State. The partner that is given the assignment to provide the support and to run the 93 CGSs in the three counties of Torit, Magwi and Nimule is Alternative Basic Education for Pastoralists (ABEP). ABEP has also managed to cater for displaced children who left their areas of Pageri, Moli and Kerepi and are temporarily settled in Nimule.

ABEP has recruited 93 all-female CGS teachers who are conducting classes for 2,731 students (1,927 girls and 804 boys). As the target set was to enroll 2,790 students, ABEP has achieved a 97.9% success rate in terms of enrolment. With regard to sex disaggregated targets, ABEP had planned to enroll 1,953 girls and therefore has achieved 98.7% of its target; the success rate for boys is 92.8% as the plan was 837 boys and actual enrolment is 804. ABEP has reported that it has given capacity development orientation training for all its 93 teachers in the writing of lesson plans, and use of learners’ attendance register.

ABEP has conducted one assessment of learning so far, and the pass rate for girls was 63% and for boys 67%, an indication of the need to work harder to support girls succeed in their education.

ABEP mentions insecurity and famine in the project areas as two of the major challenges it faces in the execution of its activities. It recommends some kind of school feeding programme to be launched in the CGS schools if it is possible to do so.

Source:

https://reliefweb.int/report/south-sudan/unesco-s-support-girls-education-imotong-state

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Australia: «Peace can only be achieved through the establishment of Islam»

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Schools urged to pledge allegiance to Australia after Muslim school told students ‘secularism was the greatest enemy’

Oceanía/Australia/dailymail.com

Resumen:  Una escuela islámica instruyó a los maestros a decirles a los estudiantes que su fe debía ser «establecida» en toda Australia. La inquietante directiva en Bellfield College, en el suroeste de Sydney , fue descubierta después de una queja de que alentaba el sentimiento anti-australiano en su comunidad. El ministro de Educación de NSW, Rob Stokes, dijo que el manual del maestro de la escuela enfatizaba que los niños deberían ser informados de que el «peor enemigo» de la humanidad era el secularismo.

An Islamic school instructed teachers to tell students their faith should be ‘established’ across Australia.

The worrying directive at Bellfield College, in southwest Sydney, was uncovered after a complaint that it encouraged anti-Australian sentiment in its community.

NSW Education Minister Rob Stokes said the school’s teacher manual stressed children should be told mankind’s ‘worst enemy’ was secularism.

 Teacher manual at Islamic school Bellfield College, in southwest Sydney, said to tell students ‘peace, stability and justice can only be achieved through the establishment of Islam’

‘[It said] peace, stability and justice can only be achieved through the establishment of Islam,’ he told an educational law conference, according to the Daily Telegraph.

Bellfield removed the lines after the education department investigated, but Mr Stokes said more needed to be done to combat extremism in schools.

‘These issues are not going to go away… we will see more incidents that will raise these issues in future,’ he said.

Mr Stokes wanted schools to pledge allegiance to Australian values like democracy, tolerance, fairness, respect, and the rule of law.

NSW Education Minister Rob Stokes fears Muslim students being radicalised and wants schools to pledge allegiance to Australian values on a registrar

NSW Education Minister Rob Stokes fears Muslim students being radicalised and wants schools to pledge allegiance to Australian values on a registrar
The worrying directive at Bellfield was uncovered after a complaint that it encouraged anti-Australian sentiment in its community

The worrying directive at Bellfield was uncovered after a complaint that it encouraged anti-Australian sentiment in its community

He urged schools to sign a registrar to that effect and hoped to enshrine Western values into legislation.

‘I am challenging educators to think about how it would look. I am asking what are Australian values and why it is important that they should be upheld,’ he said.

Mr Stokes said schools should be accountable to Australian society and not isolated from it, and claimed Islamic schools increasingly preached against freedom of religion, thought, and expression.

He said a former teacher at an Islamic school and public school in southwest Sydney also came to him with fears about Muslim students being radicalised.

It followed the ousting of Punchbowl High School Chris Griffiths in March after he refused to implement a government anti-radicalisation program

It followed the ousting of Punchbowl High School Chris Griffiths in March after he refused to implement a government anti-radicalisation program

The Muslim convert allegedly turned a blind eye to threats against non-Muslim staff and kept police liaison officers off school grounds

The Muslim convert allegedly turned a blind eye to threats against non-Muslim staff and kept police liaison officers off school grounds

It followed the ousting of Punchbowl High School Chris Griffiths in March after he refused to implement a government anti-radicalisation program.

The Muslim convert allegedly turned a blind eye to threats against non-Muslim staff and kept police liaison officers off school grounds.

‘The view was that the principal was trying to turn it into an Islamic only school,’ a law enforcement official said at the time.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4950196/Sydney-Muslim-college-called-establishment-Islam.html#ixzz4uaijWnpL
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Nueva Zelanda: Teachers gearing up for pay battles

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Nueva Zelanda/Octubre de 2017/Fuente: RNZ

Resumen:  El Instituto Educativo ha dicho a los maestros de primaria que se preparen para la batalla industrial de sus vidas, mientras que a los miembros de la Asociación de Maestros de Primaria se les ha instado a exigir un aumento inmediato del salario del 5 por ciento para contrarrestar la escasez de personal. Incluso se ha hablado de una huelga, aunque los sindicatos todavía están lejos de finalizar sus reclamaciones y mucho menos iniciar negociaciones con el Ministerio de Educación. Por supuesto, las conversaciones duras son baratas cuando las conferencias sindicales se están preparando para las negociaciones de convenios colectivos, y la realidad es que las aspiraciones de «recuperación» en los últimos tiempos han fracasado en los asentamientos, con aumentos del 1 o 2 por ciento al año. Hace sólo dos años, el PPTA buscó un aumento del 5 por ciento del salario, la mayor parte como una recuperación de la inflación, y terminó estableciéndose un poco más del 2 por ciento al año en tres años. Era menos de lo que el sindicato pretendía, pero dijo que sigue siendo uno de los asentamientos más altos del sector público en ese momento.

The Educational Institute has told primary teachers to prepare for the industrial battle of their lives while members of the Post Primary Teachers Association have been urged to demand an immediate 5 percent pay rise to counter staff shortages.

There’s even been talk of strike action, though the unions are still some way from finalising their claims let alone beginning negotiations with the Education Ministry.

Of course tough talk is cheap when union conferences are preparing for collective agreement talks, and the reality is that aspirations for «catch-up» pay rises in recent times have fizzled out in settlements providing increases of 1 or 2 percent a year.

Just two years ago the PPTA sought a 5 percent pay rise, most of it as a catch-up with inflation, and ended up settling for a little over 2 percent a year over three years. It was less than the union was aiming for, but it said it was still one of the highest settlements in the public sector at the time.

And the last time teachers went on strike was 2010 when secondary teachers fighting for a 4 percent rise refused to teach certain year levels on certain days. They were forced to abandon that battle in 2011 and accept a rise of 1.6 percent a year for two years after the Christchurch earthquake made their demands untenable.

So will next year’s talks be any different?

There’s the same complaints about pay rates and workloads as in previous years, but this time around union leaders are hoping the teacher shortages, which some principals say are a crisis, will give them extra leverage.

As the president of the PPTA, Jack Boyle, said: «There just aren’t enough of us».

Boyle argues that teachers’ pay and conditions are the key to attracting more talented people to teaching and keeping them there.

Certainly teachers are paid less than other people with tertiary qualifications. According to OECD figures, primary school teachers’ pay after 12 years’ service is 86 percent of the earnings of other New Zealanders’ with tertiary education and for secondary teachers the figure is 94 percent.

That’s equal to the average for the OECD and the figure for primary teachers improves to 90 percent if the comparison is to people with a similar level of education.

In addition, the PPTA has calculated that secondary teachers earning $75,949 at the top of the pay scale are paid 1.5 times the average median income, down from 1.8 in 2004.

Whether the union will seek to restore that relativity – which would require a pay rise of about $11,000 or 14.5 percent at the top of the scale – remains to be seen.

Whatever the unions seek, their success is likely to hinge not so much on the rights and wrongs of their case, but on the extent to which their members’ willingness to take industrial action out-matches the government’s resolve to keep a lid on spending.

PPTA members have been told to prepare financially for next year’s industrial campaign while the NZEI’s national secretary, Paul Goulter, told delegates at the union’s conference in Rotorua to «commit to taking on the biggest industrial fight in our professional lifetimes».

«It will most likely go to the wall, we will most likely be looking down the barrel of industrial action,» Mr Goulter said.

If it comes to that, the NZEI will be tapping a well of discontent that appears to run deep among primary school teachers and principals.

Many have a strong dislike of the national standards in reading, writing and maths, coupled with a growing distrust of the government’s big-ticket education policy, the Communities of Learning.

They said the demands on teachers were unrealistic and were driving many out of the profession, a complaint echoed by secondary teachers too.

All of which means both the PPTA and the NZEI will enter next year’s pay talks knowing they can turn their fighting talk into real action.

Fuente: http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/340946/teachers-gearing-up-for-pay-battles

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Australia: Teachers union pushes blame for failing education standards back on minister

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Oceania/Australia/9news.com.au

El sindicato nacional que representa a los maestros ha culpado a la falta de educación de Australia por los recortes de fondos. Un experto en pruebas internacionales afirmó que el sistema escolar australiano está cayendo con un promedio de estudiantes apenas al mismo nivel que los estudiantes más desfavorecidos de Singapur .

Andreas Schleicher, coordinador del Programa para la Evaluación Internacional de Estudiantes (PISA), criticó fuertemente los sistemas escolares de Australia en una columna en el periódico de News Corp The Australian.  «Australia solía tener uno de los sistemas escolares más importantes del mundo, pero en la década pasada los resultados del aprendizaje han caído a niveles más cercanos al promedio de los sistemas escolares del mundo industrializado», dijo Andreas Schleicher, coordinador del Programa de Estudiantes Internacionales Evaluación (PISA), escribió. El presidente federal de la Unión Australiana de Educación Correna Haythorpe respondió a las reclamaciones culpando al ministro federal de Educación, Simon Birmingham. «Con el 87 por ciento de las escuelas públicas establecidas para permanecer por debajo de la norma de recursos escolares, incluso para el año 2023 bajo el plan de financiamiento del Gobierno Federal, Simon Birmingham está socavando la equidad Andreas Schleicher ha identificado como vital no sólo para la justicia social, impulsar la economía y beneficiar a la sociedad «, dijo. «El Gobierno Federal está arrancando $ 3 mil millones de las escuelas públicas sólo en los próximos dos años, y no puede esperar que eso no tenga consecuencias para el aprendizaje de los estudiantes».

The national union representing teachers has blamed Australia’s failing education level on funding cuts.An international testing expert claimed the Australian school system is falling with average students barely at the same level as Singapore’s most disadvantaged students.

Andreas Schleicher, the co-ordinator of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), strongly criticised Australia’s school systems in a column in News Corp’s broadsheet The Australian.

«Australia used to have one of the world’s leading school systems, but in the past decade learning outcomes have dropped to levels closer to the average of school systems in the industrialised world,» Andreas Schleicher, the co-ordinator of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), wrote.

Federal President of the Australian Education Union Correna Haythorpe responded to the claims by blaming federal education minister Simon Birmingham.

«With 87 per cent of public schools set to remain below the schooling resource standard even by 2023 under the Federal Government’s funding plan, Simon Birmingham is undermining the equity Andreas Schleicher has identified as vital not only to social justice, but to using resources effectively to boost the economy and benefit society,» she said.

«The Federal Government is ripping $3 billion from public schools over the next two years alone, and he can’t expect that to not have consequences for student learning.»

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Haythorpe argues the cuts will «disproportionately hit country children who are already facing learning challenges revealed by measures including NAPLAN and PISA».

«The equity question spans the whole of the public system, which the Federal Government is funding to only 20 percent of the schooling resource standard, as he funds often quite wealthy private schools to 80 percent,» she said.

«That has to change. Unless it does, we will continue to see the kinds of concerning results that Andreas Schleicher has highlighted. Simon Birmingham is trying to sell slow-growth, low-ambition funding as enough funding, when it clearly isn’t.»

Haythorpe’s comments follow on from the assistant minister to the treasure, Michael Sukkar blasting the teacher’s union for being a «roadblock» to the government’s efforts to improve education quality.

Sukkar, told Sky News Birmingham and the government was «absolutely dedicated to the task of some of these tougher reforms that will help improve our standards, but again we’ve got a big roadblock in the way».

«The roadblock is the education union, the teachers’ federations who basically are now just political arms of the Labor Party and anything that is suggested by a Coalition government they will oppose, even if it’s in the best interests of students,» he said according to a report in The Australian.

Nine.com.au has approached the Minister for Education Simon Birmingham for comment.

Fuente:http://www.9news.com.au/national/2017/09/27/12/51/teachers-failing-education-funding-issues

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Colombia y Nueva Zelanda buscan el rescate de culturas indígenas en la industria del cine

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Colombia y Nueva Zelanda/26 de septiembre de 2017/Fuente: http://hsbnoticias.com

La agencia de educación del gobierno de Nueva Zelanda, Education New Zealand, presentó en Colombia el conversatorio «Caminos y Protocolos – Colaborando con Comunidades Indígenas en Proyectos Fílmicos».

La Embajadora de Nueva Zelanda para Colombia, Jacqui Caine, inauguró la actividad y el periodista Simón Granja fue el moderador de la actividad que contó con la participación de estudiantes, académicos y personas interesadas en la industria fílmica y el trabajo audiovisual con poblaciones autóctonas.

Javiera Visedo, Senior Market Development Manager de Education New Zealand, declaró que “Nueva Zelanda es líder mundial en modelos de la industria cinematográfica que han superado con éxito la brecha entre las comunidades tanto indígenas como no indígenas, y la educación que reciben los estudiantes neozelandeses tiene mucho que ver en esto. Nuestro sistema educativo se basa en que los estudiantes aprenden habilidades y conocimientos que los preparan para trabajar y desempeñarse en las áreas que está demandando el mercado actual y la industria audiovisual no es una excepción”.

Fuente de la Noticia:

http://hsbnoticias.com/noticias/vida-moderna/colombia-y-nueva-zelanda-buscan-el-rescate-de-culturas-indig-348304

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Australia: Tertiary education watchdog moves on Study Group

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Australia/Septiembre de 2017/Autor: Ben Butler/Fuente: The Australian

Resumen:  El grupo de estudio del gigante de la formación de capital privado está bajo investigación por parte del regulador de educación terciaria, después de que su modelo de negocio fue golpeado por una ofensiva del gobierno federal sobre los fondos de financiación en el sector. La compañía, que Providence Equity Partners compró a su rival CHAMP por 660 millones de dólares en 2010, obtuvo una rebaja de 166 millones de dólares el año pasado debido a una «disminución de las inscripciones» tras las reformas de financiación. Esto ocurrió después de que el ministro de Educación, Simon Birmingham, en octubre cubrió los préstamos para ayudar a los estudiantes de educación vocacional, después de un dramático estallido en el costo del plan a alrededor de 2.900 millones de dólares. Las cuentas presentadas ante el regulador corporativo por la Comisión de Estudio muestran que a pesar de una pérdida después de impuestos de casi 140 millones de dólares, sus directores encontraron a la compañía financieramente lo suficientemente sólida como para aspirar más de $ 100m offshore hacia su propietario final.

Private equity-owned training giant Study Group is under investigation by the tertiary education regulator, after its business model was battered by a federal government crackdown on funding rorts in the sector.

The company, which Providence Equity Partners bought from rival private equity group CHAMP for $660 million in 2010, took a $166m writedown last year due to a “decline in enrolments” following the funding reforms.

This came after Education Minister Simon Birmingham in October capped VET Fee-Help loans available to vocational education students, following a dramatic blowout in the cost of the scheme to about $2.9 billion.

Accounts filed with the corporate regulator by Study Group show that despite an after-tax loss of almost $140m, its directors found the company financially sound enough to hoover more than $100m offshore towards its ultimate owner, a fund in tax haven the Cayman Islands.

Study Group, run in Australia by managing director Warren Jacobson, claims to educate 55,000 students a year, but it is unclear how many of these pass through its plethora of Australian institutions as it also has operations in Britain and the US.

In Australia, it offers both vocational education, regulated by the Australian Skills Quality Authority, and university-style courses, regulated by the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency.

A TEQSA spokesman told The Australian it was assessing the adequacy of a Diploma of Commerce course Study Group offers at its Taylors College subsidiary that the company hopes to extend to its Flinders International Student Centre.

The regulator’s move came after it placed conditions on Study Group’s accreditation last June, giving it until the end of 2016 to provide evidence comparing the academic standards achieved by commerce students to those of students at other institutions.

Yesterday, a TEQSA spokesman said the company provided the information by the due date.

“However, TEQSA has not made a decision on this condition as it is being considered alongside a current assessment of the Diploma of Business intended for delivery through the Flinders International Student Centre.

“Essentially, both courses are drawn from a largely common curriculum, so both matters are being assessed at the same time.”

He said TEQSA expected to finish the assessment “within the next month”.

A Study Group spokesman said it was “awaiting the outcome of the accreditation applications as a normal course of business”.

ASQA, which imposed additional reporting conditions on Study Group in 2015 after finding it didn’t comply with assessment standards, declined to comment.

Assistant Vocational Education Minister Karen Andrews said she would “await the outcome of the investigation”.

In a financial report filed with the Australian Securities & Investments Commission, the company that sits atop the Study Group corporate structure in Australia, EDU Holdings SPV, said that after spending $105m to buy back preference shares from its offshore parents, its current liabilities exceeded its current assets by $216m.

It said that “in order to address the group’s capital structure and due to an improving liquidity position and increasing foreign exchange risk” it redeemed the preference shares on October 27 — three weeks after Mr Birmingham announced his VET Fee-Help crackdown.

This was partly funded from a short-term loan from its immediate British parent, EDU UK Management Services, of $72m.

“The financial statements have been prepared on a going concern basis, as the directors are satisfied that the group will have sufficient future cash flows to meet its financial obligations,” the company said in the report.

This was because the shortfall arose due to it receiving payments in advance for courses not yet undertaken, it said. In addition, related companies in Britain have agreed not to seek repayment of $163m in debt until the Australian group is able to pay.

Study Group’s spokesman said the underlying Study Group Australia business “reported a profit in 2015 and 2016 and will report a growth in profit in 2017.”

Fuente: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/tertiary-education-watchdog-moves-on-study-group/news-story/8d72e13863d15b93a0b1398a6bc4d3b6

 

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Australia: Why is a ‘sugar daddy’ funded education being sold as empowering to women?

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Australia/ September 19, 2017/By: Kasey Edwards/ Source: http://www.smh.com.au

Concerned about that HECS debt, ladies? Worry no more, because here’s a great new way to afford your education. Get yourself a rich old guy to pay for it!

That’s the message from a recent press release sent to me by a dating site that pairs young women with «sugar daddies». As the website says, all you have to do in return for your free education is «cater to [his] needs» with «no strings attached».

«These men and women are taking a proactive approach to tackle their student debt, while so many other students will be haunted by it for years to come,» squeals the press release.

I know what you’re thinking. There must be a catch? And there is: a never-ending risk of blackmail. Because even though you might not be «haunted» by a HECS debt, there’s the lifelong risk of being outed as a sugar baby.

To be clear, I am not suggesting that there’s anything wrong with young women hooking up with rich old men. If that’s what floats your boat, then more power to you.

But exchanging sexual services for an education isn’t likely to play out well when these sugar babies hit the workforce and start to rise in seniority.

Imagine if a sugar baby were to enter politics, become a CEO or get a job in the media or public life. One phone call from a jilted sugar daddy, his wife, or a disgruntled employee at the dating website, and she would be accused of sleeping her way to the top faster than you can say «Monica Lewinsky 2.0».

Hell, he doesn’t even have to be jilted. The guy might just be mischievous or decide that he doesn’t like his former sugar baby’s success. Because that’s what men often do to women they decide are too powerful: they use a woman’s sexuality to discredit her.

A woman’s level of education, experience, and track record of success counts for nothing if she can be portrayed as relying on sex to achieve her status and power. She becomes the water cooler joke as the Boys Club wonders aloud about who she had to blow to get her job.

By contrast, there’s seemingly no downside for powerful men who have sexual arrangements with less powerful women.

In the corporate world a man can even end up with a pay rise after being forced to settle a high-profile sexual harassment case, a footballer can be involved in infidelity and a group sex scandal and be rewarded with his own radio show, and a president’s affair can improve his approval ratings.

While sugar daddy funded education is being sold as empowering to women, businesses like this dating website are actually appropriating sex-positive language to exploit women.

Businesses like this dating website are actually appropriating sex-positive language to exploit women

Let’s be clear: sugar babies have no status and no power. And the power imbalance for the women lasts well after the arrangement has been terminated.

There is a big difference between supporting women who choose to be sex workers, and a business model that sells women the least-crappiest short-term option to avoid a debt, but may potentially ruin the careers they worked so hard to achieve.

Because as wrong as slut-shaming is, it exists. It ends careers and it can be financially and socially devastating to women.

It would be interesting to know how many young men have to rely on providing «no-strings-attached» romantic services to anyone in order to afford their educations. And how many sugar daddies have exchanged sex for qualifications? Most likely, when they were at uni, education was free.

It’s not surprising that business has latched onto education as a way to entice young women to submit to a sugar daddy.

On average, women will earn significantly less than men in their careers due to the gender pay gap and taking time out of the workforce to have children. And given the ever-increasing cost of a tertiary education and the constant threat from successive Liberal governments to reduce the HECS repayment threshold – which will disproportionately hurt women – a tertiary education is fast becoming a risky financial gamble for many women.

Women retire with half as much superannuation as men, so having someone cough up tens of thousands of dollars for your education at the beginning of your working life could quite literally mean the difference between living above or below the poverty line at the end of your career.

Dangling the carrot of financial security via a free education in front of young women, who may not yet fully appreciate the gendered barriers they will face in the workforce, is a cynical abuse of male power.

The idea that a sugar daddy is an easy and sex-positive solution to lifelong student debt isn’t progress. It’s an expression of the fundamental inequality between men and women.

Source:

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/news-and-views/opinion/why-is-a-sugar-daddy-funded-education-being-sold-as-empowering-to-women-20170917-gyja3d.html

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