Access to education

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This women’s college in Ghana leads the way on e-learning during the pandemic

Wunpini Fatimata Mohammed

By: Wunpini Fatimata Mohammed.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, many universities are currently deliberating what to do for the forthcoming semester. St. Teresa’s College of Education, one of five female-only colleges in Ghana, is leading the way with e-learning by consolidating the use of messaging applications like Telegram and WhatsApp.

Established as the Women’s Training College in 1961 and later becoming the St. Teresa’s College of Education, Hohoe, Volta region, in 1964, the college is one of 46 colleges of education in Ghana.

In March, the college sent its students home as part of measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus and most classes shifted online. While some students have been asked to return to school to prepare for their final exams, many students continue to learn online from home.

The college does not have an in-built e-learning platform like Sakai, Canvas or Blackboard, and there are no officially recognized learning platforms in Ghana. At other colleges, tutors often use whichever platform they feel works best and as a result, many students download multiple applications like Google Classroom, Zoom, Telegram, and WhatsApp, some of which consume a lot of data. In many cases, students are not formally enrolled on these platforms by their institutions to take lessons.

At St. Teresa’s, however, online learning is mostly conducted on WhatsApp and Telegram. After consulting with tutors and students, the apps were designated as the official learning platforms for the college. Tutors switch to WhatsApp if they run into network problems while conducting classes on Telegram. Students observe that these platforms are low-cost, and this helps them save money on internet data.

Speaking to Global Voices by phone, Benedictus Mawusi Donkor, a tutor at the college, explained why the college decided to enroll all students on WhatsApp and Telegram for e-learning:

When we were using the Google Classroom and YouTube, downloading videos becomes a problem when the network is not that strong. But when it comes to Telegram, I think with a little bit of network you easily get access to text mostly and audio. And some too, just a handful even with the Telegram they have a problem, so we try to engage them on WhatsApp. They have a WhatsApp platform as well as the Telegram.

By consolidating and centralizing platforms for e-learning, tutors have found creative methods to keep students engaged in classes conducted on these messaging apps. Some of these methods include close monitoring of student engagement and attendance, customizing available digital platforms for learning, listening to and addressing students’ and tutors’ concerns and providing monthly digital training for tutors in need.

Doreen Mensah, a first-year student, said that tutors and the college’s authorities found ways to motivate students to participate in online lessons.

The tutors have been motivating us. They know it’s not easy, so they tell us to try. When they are online, and you are not available he will pick his phone to call and find out what is going on. And then they will give you words of encouragement to convince us to go online.

However, there are still structural issues that mitigate learning at St. Teresa’s. According to Jennifer Nyavor, a first-year student, students are struggling financially since their allowances have not been paid since March when they were sent home:

When we were in school, we depended on the allowance but now that we are home, they stopped paying allowances and some of us use it to pay school fees so it’s making life difficult. Since we came back home in March when the president said no school till further notice, that was when they stopped paying the allowances. The allowance is 200 Ghana cedis [$34.54] per month. Unless my parents give me something small to buy data. So when I come online, I can’t ask questions because then the class is over.

High student engagement

According to a Transforming Teacher Education and Learning (T-TEL) report, while some colleges reported attendance rates as low as 31 percent in June, St. Teresa’s reported a 97 percent attendance rate. Tutors were highly engaged and in touch with students’ pedagogical needs. Tutors checked in regularly with students who were missing classes to work with them so that they could maintain regular class attendance.

In phone conversations with Global Voices, students and tutors observed that the college’s principal, vice-principal and quality assurance officer were added to each course platform to observe classes and work to address challenges as they emerged.

According to Jennifer Agyekum, a second-year student at the college, the efforts of tutors to keep students engaged have been effective:

Those who do well in assignments, tokens are being given to students in the form of [internet data] bundles. They are really motivating us to participate in the virtual learning and they are doing their best.

However, tutors and students still had to deal with other structural issues that specifically affected student engagement while they studied remotely.

Sophia Adjoa Micah, the principal, said:

As students are at home, some parents may not understand the whole business of learning online. Seeing their wards online they may not take kindly to it. And being females, some of the students have to do chores at home. It is a challenge to learn online and concentrate without any distractions.

Other tutors took the initiative to call parents and talk to them about creating conditions at home to enable their daughters to learn online with as few distractions as possible.

At the end of each month, tutors are required to write reports detailing the progress of their online classes and identify the challenges of mitigating teaching and learning. These reports are then submitted to school management who review them and work with tutors and students to develop strategies to address these issues.

The college also adopted an open communication style where conditions were created for students to share their concerns and challenges. The students who spoke to Global Voices found that this communication style was helpful for supporting their learning.

A model for higher education e-learning

While some lecturers in other higher education institutions in Ghana have struggled to navigate teaching online, St. Teresa’s College has worked in close collaboration with tutors to ensure that they are properly equipped to use digital tools to teach their classes.

Some tutors said that the Information Technology (IT) department of the college organizes monthly programs and workshops to help tutors who are struggling to navigate digital platforms in their classes.

In an email conversation with Global Voices, Principal Micah explained how some of the college’s support funds from T-TEL were used to enroll tutors in an online certificate course organized by Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences.

The college is doing well with limited resources, but Micah believes that the establishment of a state-of-the-art ICT center will help them improve the quality of e-learning. Micah has also appealed to telecommunications companies in Ghana to provide support for students via free data packages to improve access to education, especially for marginalized students.

Source of the article: https://globalvoices.org/2020/07/10/this-womens-college-in-ghana-leads-the-way-on-e-learning-during-the-pandemic/

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New US campus sex assault plan gets pushback

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North America/United States/10-05-2020/Author and Source: www.bbc.com

US universities must hold hearings on campus sexual assault claims where alleged victims and attackers can be cross-examined, according to federal guidelines.

The mandate is part of a new set of US Department of Education rules on how places of learning must handle sexual misconduct cases.

The agency said the rules will ensure fairness to accusers and accused.

Critics said they will discourage victims from reporting attacks.

The new policy, issued on Wednesday following an 18-month review, limits what complaints private and public universities are obliged to investigate and raises the burden for holding a school liable for sexual assault.

They have until August to comply with the rules, which are a marked shift for addressing how universities enforce Title IX, the federal law barring discrimination in education based on gender.

The previous administration had sought to expand university responsibility for sexual misconduct on campuses under Title IX.

Under the Trump administration rules, the institutions are required to provide a live hearing and allow advisers to cross-question parties and witnesses involved – a practice discouraged by the previous administration.

In announcing the policy, Betsey DeVos, the education secretary, said: «Too many students have lost access to their education because their school inadequately responded when a student filed a complaint of sexual harassment or sexual assault.

«This new regulation requires schools to act in meaningful ways to support survivors of sexual misconduct, without sacrificing important safeguards to ensure a fair and transparent process.»

Some initial rules to limit schools’ liabilities and apply the requirement for hearings to secondary school pupils Ms DeVos proposed in November 2018 were scrapped amid dissent from victims’ groups.

However, advocacy groups said the final policy cut back on victims’ rights.

Fatima Graves of the National Women’s Law Center told the New York Times that «if this rule goes into effect, survivors will be denied their civil rights and will get the message loud and clear that there is no point in reporting assault».

The group will challenge the rules in court, Ms Graves said.

Source and Image: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52566997

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Affordable education still out of reach for Indians

Ishan Anand

By: Ishan Anand.

Before last Sunday’s attack in Jawaharlal Nehru University, the students’ union was protesting a fee hike in the university for months. An analysis of National Statistical Organisation (NSO) data shows that affordable education is a larger problem that needs to be seriously discussed.

The NSO recently released a report based on an all-India survey conducted in 2017-18. The survey shows that only 10.6% of the Indian population aged above 15 years has successfully completed a graduate degree. This proportion is only 5.7% in rural India and is 8.3% among women. The proportion of graduates in the same age group was 8.2% as per the 2011 Census.

Since micro data for the 2017-18 survey on education is not yet available, it is not possible to go into the socio-economic background of those who received higher education. Another NSO survey, the 2017-18 Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS),can be used for this, though.

The PLFS data confirms the intuitive belief that social and economic disadvantages perpetuate educational inequalities. The proportion of the population (15 years and above) with a graduate or a higher degree is much lower for the socially backward sections than others. Muslims fare worse than even the Scheduled Caste (SC) Hindus. To be sure, the social gap has been reducing over the years, but it still remains significant. There is also a gender gap when it comes to access to education. (See table 1)

A similar pattern can be seen by economic status as well. Disaggregation by deciles of monthly per capita consumer expenditure shows a strong correlation between economic status (spending) and educational attainment. Data clearly shows the social gap in educational attainment as well as the gap by economic status across and within socio-religious groups. (See table 2)

The NSO report on education also tells us about the average cost of education in the country.

The average annual expense on a graduate course was Rs 10,501 in a government institution, and almost double in an unaided private institution (Rs 19,972). The expenditure for a graduate degree in technical courses in a government college was Rs 36,180 as compared to Rs 72,712 in private unaided institutions.

This must be seen along with the income data available from PLFS (2017-18): 45% of the regular workers, 60% of the self-employed and almost all casual workers earned less than Rs 10,000 a month.

Overall, about 67% of Indian workers earned less than Rs 1,20,000 in a year.

India remains a country with an overwhelming number of poor people who cannot afford expensive education.

The NSS report on education spending also reveals that in the age group of 3 to 35 years, 15% of men and 14% of women never enrolled in an educational institution because of financial constraints; 5% of women never enrolled as there was ‘no tradition in community’.

Among those who were enrolled at some point in time but were not attending at the time of the survey, 24% of men and 18% of women cited financial constraints as the reason for dropping out; 13% of women cited marriage as the reason for dropping out.

What is the importance of a graduate degree in India? If we look at the distribution of graduates in the workforce, 62% were in regular jobs in 2017-18. The wage for a worker with a graduate (or higher) degree in salaried jobs was 1.6 times the overall average wage of a regular worker.

Here, it must be noted that the unemployment rate is much higher among the educated.

Quality education leads to better job prospects and higher wages for all, but also provides a path for social mobility. Students’ demand for better and just prospects for all is completely justified.

Source of the article: https://www.hindustantimes.com/opinion/affordable-education-still-out-of-reach-for-indians/story-Ud6MFDKYfUrnTKMnqX4Y8J.html

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Ending child marriage and teenage pregnancy in Kenya

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Africa/ Kenya/ Fuente: www.kbc.co.ke.

 

Early pregnancy and early marriage worsens poverty conditions of families and girls, instead of reducing it, Machakos County Director for Education, Mrs. Shamsa Adan Mohammed has said.

She said access to education was the surest way to breaking the vicious cycle of poverty that teenage pregnancy and early marriages sustained in families.

She girls should take advantage of the Free Primary and Day Secondary Education programme the government provided to break the chains of poverty by completing primary and secondary education.

She made the remarks at Makivenzi ABC Girls Secondary schools during a Joint Mission to assess the preparedness of the Counties in implementing Secondary Education Quality Improvement Project (SEQIP) in 110 sub counties are the most disadvantaged sub counties in 30 counties.

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The team was led by the National Coordinator of the Project, Ms Jane Mbugua, and World Bank Task Team Leader, Ms Huma Ali Waheed. The team visited eight schools in Murang’a and Machakos Counties, which is among 30 Counties to benefit from the project.

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The Project worthy Shs.20 billion, and funded by the World Bank, aims at improving student learning and transition from Primary to Secondary education in 110 sub counties that the most disadvantaged areas in 30 counties.

The Project targets 7,852 Primary Schools and 2,147 secondary schools in 110 Sub counties in the 30 Counties.

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Under the project, Class 7 and 8 and forms 1-4 in targeted schools have already received textbooks in Mathematics, English and Science subjects, thereby achieving a student-textbook ratio of 1:1.

Under the project, Kenya Institute for Curriculum Development (KICD) has received technical support in developing Competence based curriculum grade 4, 5and 6.

Schools in the target regions have been selected schools and are set to benefit from infrastructure support which includes classrooms, science laboratories, library, toilets, water facilities and electricity.

Embedded in the project, is a scholarship programme to enable vulnerable students to complete secondary schools.

The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has recruited 600 teachers to serve the targeted region in the last financial year, to address teacher shortage in the area. Kenya National Examinations Council has been able, under the auspices of the Project, to strengthen national examinations and assessments systems.

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The strengthening of the national examinations and assessments systems follows adoption of the Competence based curriculum. KNEC will now examine and assess the effectiveness of the teaching and learning of the repertoire of skills that learners are expected to learn and internalise.

The project aims at, among others, addressing barriers to access to inclusive quality education in the region, as part of the strategy to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals.

Source of the notice: https://www.kbc.co.ke/ending-child-marriage-and-teenage-pregnancy-in-kenya/

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UN chief calls for ending child poverty

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United Nations/20-10-2019/Author: Mu Xuequan/Source: www.xinhuanet.com

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday urged the international community to empower children to end poverty.

In his message for the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, which falls on Thursday, the UN chief said children are more than twice as likely to live in extreme poverty than adults, and poverty condemns many children to lifelong disadvantage and perpetuates an intergenerational transfer of deprivation.

He highlighted that girls are at particular risk, but they are also a force for change. «For every additional year a girl remains in school, her average income over a lifetime increases, her chances of being married early decrease, and there are clear health and education benefits for her children, making it a key factor in breaking the cycle of poverty,» he said.

One of the keys to ending child poverty is addressing poverty in the household, from which it often stems, said Guterres, adding that access to quality social services must be a priority, yet today, almost two-thirds of children lack social protection coverage.

He added family-oriented policies are also indispensable, including flexible working arrangements, parental leave and childcare support.

The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty is observed on Oct. 17 each year since 1993. This year’s theme is «acting together to empower children, their families and communities to end poverty.»

Source: http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-10/18/c_138480403.htm

Image: billy cedeno en Pixabay

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Zambia’s education curriculum is rigid- Education PS

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Africa/ Zambia/ 26.08.2019/ Source: www.lusakatimes.com.

 

General Education Permanent Secretary Jobbicks Kalumba says the country’s current education curriculum is rigid and not favorable to the career needs of Zambians.

Dr. Kalumba said most subjects offered are not compatible with what the pupils want to do in future.He said there is urgent need to transform the curriculum to ensure it becomes relevant to career paths of children.

Dr. Kalumba said the educational reforms being implemented are meant to improve education standards and that the PF government has pro poor policies. He stated that reduction in school fees will ensure all Zambians have access to education.

Source of the notice: https://www.lusakatimes.com/2019/08/18/zambias-education-curriculum-is-rigid-education-ps/

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Ghana: “Free SHS, most people centered policy»

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Africa/Ghana/ghana.gov.gh

Reseña:  La Jefa Suprema del Área Tradicional de Yagaba, Naa Sugru Wuni Mumuni, describió la implementación de la Política de SHS por parte del gobierno, como una de las estrategias más centradas en el ser humano que ayudaron a aliviar la pobreza en el país. El jefe, por lo tanto, ha exaltado al presidente Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo por el cumplimiento de la mayoría de sus promesas de campaña de 2016, que incluyen la implementación de la política de la escuela secundaria gratuita. Naa Mumuni dijo «muchos de los que dijeron que nunca cumplirían esta promesa de campaña. De hecho, los escépticos dijeron que simplemente estaban desesperados por el poder, de ahí las promesas jugosas e inalcanzables. Sin embargo, la historia ha cambiado hoy. Gente de esta parte «El país nunca podría soñar con inscribirse en las prestigiosas escuelas conocidas, en su mayoría ubicadas en el sector sur». Dirigiéndose a los jefes y al pueblo de Yagaba, el viernes 17 de mayo de 2019, en un durbar celebrado en honor al presidente Akufo-Addo, en la Región Noreste, el Jefe de Yagaba confirmó que no menos de 20 estudiantes del distrito de Mamprugu Moagduri tenían admisión en escuelas como Prempeh College, Adisadel College y las otras escuelas secundarias de prestigio en el país.

The Paramount Chief of Yagaba Traditional Area, Naa Sugru Wuni Mumuni, has described the government’s implementation of the Free SHS Policy, as one that will go down in history as the most human-centred strategy that helped in alleviating poverty in the country.

The Chief has, therefore, extolled President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for the fulfilment of most of his 2016 campaign promises, which include, the implementation of the Free Senior high school policy.

Naa Mumuni said “many were those who said you will never fulfill this campaign promise. In fact, the skeptics said you were simply desperate for power, hence the juicy and unattainable promises. The story has, however, changed today. People from this part of the country could never dream of enrolling into the known prestigious schools, mostly located in the southern sector.”

Addressing the chiefs and people of Yagaba, Friday, 17th May, 2019, at a durbar held in honour of President Akufo-Addo, in North East Region, the Yagaba Chief confirmed that not less than 20 students from the Mamprugu Moagduri district had admission into schools such as Prempeh College, Adisadel College and the other prestigious senior high schools in the country.

“The Free SHS has helped in reducing kayayei in Mamprugu Moagduri, because your government takes care of school fees, and students do not need to travel down south to engage in menial jobs in order to enable them to pay their fees,” the Chief added.

Naa Mumuni apprised that “ever since you were voted into power by the overwhelming people of this country, you have never let us down. You inspire and keep inspiring hope in the good people of this country.”

He expressed the appreciation of the Chiefs and people of Yagaba to the President for initiating pro-poor policies to help cushion the people of Yagaba and all Ghanaians.

“Mr. President, this area is predominantly a farming community. Your social intervention policy of Planting for Food and Jobs led to a bountiful harvest in this district. Fertilizer subsidies under this flagship programme have boosted our local economy,” he said.

The Chief also thanked President Akufo-Addo for the “expansion of the LEAP programme”, which, he said “has equally reduced economic and social suffering. We continue to pray that all of these initiatives and those yet to come will move Ghana beyond aid as you have envisioned.”

Fuente; http://www.ghana.gov.gh/index.php/media-center/news/5632-free-shs-most-people-centered-policy-in-ghanaian-history-yagaba-chief

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