Education System

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India ranks 37 in quality of education

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Asia/ India/ 07.11.2018/ Source: www.deccanchronicle.com.

Singapore has the best education in science and math in the world, followed by Finland, Switzerland, Lebanon, Netherlands, Qatar, Belgium, Estonia, Honh Kong and the US, according to the World Economic Forum. India stands at the 37th position.

The quality of math and science education depends upon public funding and the education system.

The countries ranked up to 36 spent more than 6 per cent of their GDP on education against 3.3 per cent in India.

“Our education system gives more stress on marks and grades rather than quality. Our education policy should be changed to address quality concerns,” an expert said.

Dr Srini Bhupalam, an education expert, said, “It has been proven that quality of education can be provided pretty effectively to small populations.”

“If you look at the list, most of the countries population is very small. It’s always a challenge to do the same for very large populations. Nevertheless we have a lot of scope to do better,” he added.

He said Indian students were good at reproducing on paper due to rote learning. “We cannot expect any change in our rankings until the method of teaching is transformed into practical, concept and application based,” he said.

“Our testing and evaluation methods also need to be transformed to measure students understanding and application for creative problem solving,” Dr Bhupalam said.

Dr Narsimha Reddy, Principal, Hyderabad Public School, said, “Small countries are progressing in science, math and technology. The government must take education as a challenging field. The curriculum and methodology should be altered to teach science and math’’.

He said most teaching happens to score marks. “What, why, where, when and how are the most important questions in science and math. How many schools are really making students curious and inquisitive,” Dr Reddy asked.

He said hands-on experience was given top priority in developed countries.

“What facilities are available in our schools. Teachers are busy finishing the syllabus and parents are worried about marks. Curriculum and pedagogy have to be changed,” Dr Reddy said.

Not everyone was in agreement that Indians did poorly in maths.

P. Obul Reddy Public School principal Anjali Rajdan said Indian students do very well in maths but the WEF ranking did not reflect it.

“I can accept the ranking in science as our labs and infrastructure are not at par with other countries, so standing 37th is humbling.”

Source of the notice: https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/current-affairs/041118/india-ranks-37-in-quality-of-education.html

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Taiwan: Dalai Lama stresses role of education on environmental issues

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Asia/ Taiwan/ 05.11.2018/ Source: focustaiwan.tw.

The Dalai Lama emphasized the role of education in addressing global environmental issues during a talk Saturday with Nobel laureate Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲), and he asked scientists to take more responsibility to communicate with the public.

In discussing with Lee the challenges and opportunities for a sustainable planet in Dharamsala, India, where the Dalai Lama lives in exile, the Tibetan leader said he hoped scientists could reach out to the public on environmental issues instead of focusing solely on research.

Though science has provided hard data documenting changes to the environment, people will still be resistant to changing their behavior unless they are made fully aware of the situation around them through education, the Dalai Lama said.

It is therefore important for scientists to have a voice and bring that knowledge into the education system, he said.

The Dalai Lama made the comments after Lee, who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1986, briefed him about the environmental challenges that humanity is facing and the need to curb climate change.

The Earth is sustaining an extreme imbalance of energy due to global warming, Lee said, explaining that the greenhouse gases produced today have kept incoming solar energy from being reflected back to the universe.

The excessive energy the planet is absorbing is equal to that generated by 350,000 atomic bombs every day, Lee said, and the situation will only get worse as a fast-growing global population that could increase to an estimated 9.7 billion by the middle of the 21st century needs more energy to live.

Global warming has also resulted in more extreme weather across the globe, according to Lee, citing Typhoon Morakot that struck Taiwan in 2009.

The storm, which caused severe mudslides, took nearly 700 lives and wiped out a village in one day, Lee said.

Seeing pictures of Xiaolin village, in which more than 400 residents were buried alive by a massive landslide, before and after the natural disaster, the Dalai Lama seem shocked, asking «same place?»

Lee stressed that climate change is a global problem that needs global solutions, and that from a technological point of view, people must learn to store, transform and share energy from the sun instead of relying on fossil fuels.

«People must go back to nature, back to sunshine,» he said, encouraging people to lead a less materialistic lifestyle.

Lee also mentioned the importance of improving equality around the world to help less developed countries combat global warming.

The Dalai Lama replied that those who are capable should «try to promote poor people’s living standards, their economic conditions, and teach them more practices of contentment.»

Along with other scholars, a group of Taiwanese scientists led by Nobel laureate Lee joined a three-day discussion from Nov. 1 with the Dalai Lama on quantum mechanics in Buddhism.

It was the first time the Dalai Lama engaged in such a dialogue with scientists mainly from the Chinese community.

Source of the notice: http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aedu/201811030011.aspx

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The segregation in our education system – Part 1 (video)

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Africa/ South Africa/ 29.10.2018/ Source:

In this first of a five-part series on the state of education in South Africa, six activists from Equal Education discuss how our current education system severely prejudices the black working class and keeps them stuck in the poverty trap.

Street Talk is a groundbreaking television series aired weekly on community television. From grassroots to the establishment, our engaging programmes expose the lived realities and uncensored views of ordinary South Africans. DM

Street Talk was launched in 2008 and is a non-profit organisation – visit us www.streettalktv.com

Source of the notice: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-10-26-the-segregation-in-our-education-system-part-1-video/

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Social mobility Our failing education system means it’s still no easier to climb life’s ladder

Yvonne Roberts 1 comentario

By: Yvonne Roberts.

You are 15, your school building is falling apart, your teachers long ago lost faith in the power of aspiration, and you learned early on that you are considered a loser in life’s game of snakes and ladders, so how do you feel? Grim, obviously– but, as we learned last week, not as grim as your peer in Turkey. That is little cause for cheer.

In its latest social mobility report, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said that the poorest pupils in this country were more unhappy and discouraged than in any other developed country bar Turkey. Fewer than one in six feel resilient, satisfied with their lives and integrated at school, compared with an OECD average of one in four – one in two in the Netherlands.

One in six represents a huge swathe of our future. The OECD report also said that disadvantaged children in the UK who are educated together are two years behind those in schools with middle-class pupils.

At the current rate of “progress”, it will take 50 years to reach an equitable education system. Something is going badly wrong. It impacts on hundreds of thousands of children and young people. Yet, so far, across the political parties, and for decades, there has been a lack of imagination about what needs to be done to tackle such profound levels of misery, class division and wasted human capital.

At least in the 1940s we made no bones about it. The Education Act 1944estimated the country would need 80% manual workers and 20% clerical and professional staff for the postwar industrial economy. Now technology rules – the robots are coming. Even the middle classes are in peril of sliding down the snake, while those anchored to the bottom will continue to have little money, poor health and shocking housing.

For Labour, social mobility has traditionally meant focusing on the cleverest poorer children, measured in non-vocational terms. In 1959, the arrival of the 11 plus incensed the social entrepreneur Michael Young, Lord Young of Dartington, co-creator of the Open University among other ventures. He saw too many children prematurely branded failures.

Sixty years ago he published The Rise of the Meritocracy, a dystopian satire in which he presciently detailed the rise of women and national populism. The narrator, a sociologist, describes the negative outcomes of a system in which the elitist hereditary principle has been replaced by a society based on the formula, IQ + Effort = Merit. This system ossifies into yet another self-serving oligarchy. What Young believed is this “merit” – genes dictating the ability to pass exams, – fails to take into account the value to society of virtues such as kindness, courage, imagination, sympathy and generosity.

Education in the UK has always been a middle-class mincing machine in which too many poorer children are written off too soon because they don’t display certain habits of mind. “Effort” is very much harder in a damp, overcrowded, unheated home. Andreas Schleicher, OECD director of education and skills, said last week that, in the UK, poorer children did better in schools with a good disciplinary regime, by which he meant an environment for learning in which pupils respected and trusted teachers, and teachers had high expectations of pupils.

Arguably, what fosters that mutual respect is an understanding of the influences on children in all their diversity. For instance, a 10-year American study showed that parents of children from a low socio-economic group valued obedience, neatness and honesty, while middle class parents emphasised curiosity, self-control and consideration. We know that early years and schools can do much to compensate for this when a child does not come from a home bursting with social skills, activities, tutoring, self-discipline and ambition – so why do we still do so little?

Young, in his own patriarchal way, was trying to redefine what is meant by social mobility and “success”. How do we create a fair society in which every individual is able to develop what economist Amartya Sen called “capabilities” – the right to feel of value, to engage in society, to have the resources to live a thriving life, not merely survive? The aim, for all our sakes, ought to be that six out of six poorer pupils have the knowledge that life offers promise.

 

Fuente del artículo: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/oct/27/education-inequality-uk-schools-failure-of-meritocracy

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This Holocaust survivor is pushing schools to teach students about genocide

Reseñas

By Spencer Parlier and Christina Zdanowicz, CNN

He was the only one in his family to survive the Holocaust. Now Alter Wiener is committed to sharing his story with as many young people as he can.

The 92-year-old sat in front of the Oregon State Senate Education Committee this week to share his deep desire to educate, inspire and spread love throughout America.
«Be better, rather than bitter,» Wiener said.
His first big step is to convince Oregon state legislators to create and pass a bill that would mandate educators to teach students about the Holocaust and genocide.
Holocaust remembrance has fallen, especially in younger generations. A 2018 survey from The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany found that 22% of millennials «haven’t heard» or «are not sure if they have heard of the Holocaust.»
The survey also found that 31% of all Americans believe that 2 million Jews or less were killed during the Holocaust, when the actual numbers state that approximately 6 million Jews were put to death during the Holocaust.
Wiener was one of the few who survived. His tumultuous life included spending three years in concentration camps, including the infamous Auschwitz camp in Poland.
He has received approximately 88,000 letters in response to his life story, whether it was from people who heard him speak or read his autobiography.
Alter Wiener as a young boy, in a concentration camp.
Wiener isn’t the only one hoping to change things within the Oregon education system. Claire Sarnowski, a Lakeridge High School freshman pleaded her case as well. She met Wiener at one his speaking engagements.
«Each time I hear (Alter Wiener’s) story, walking away, I learn a different lesson — gratitude, love, appreciation, respect, compassion and most importantly, live life to the absolute fullest,» Sarnowski told the state Senate committee, holding back tears.
Claire Sarnowski speaks to the Oregon Education Committee.
Along with the Holocaust, women’s suffrage and civil rights aren’t listed as a specific teaching requirements for high school educators, according to CNN affiliate KATU.
Wiener has made strides to change the law, and has met with nearly 1,000 groups to share his story.
Alter Wiener addresses a group of students at River Grover Elementary School in Lake Oswego, Oregon.
«It’s alarming the amount that (teens) don’t know about the Holocaust or genocide. For me as a student, it is crazy to me that this is not common knowledge,» Sarnowski told KATU.
State Sen. Rob Wagner told CNN he is currently working on draft legislation regarding Wiener’s request. He hopes to introduce it in late January.
Not only was Wagner motivated by Wiener, who he describes as a «bright light» and «sharp as a tack,» he was also struck by some of the things his daughters saw in school.
«Where my children are in school, there were swastikas and anti-Jewish posters that were plastered in our schools,» Wagner told CNN. «That precipitated a conversation with my children, and really was (what lead to) the decision that I wanted to run to help change the culture in our schools.»
The state senator hopes his bill will become a statute in May 2019.
«If we’re teaching the history of the 20th century, we should not be glossing over the Holocaust,» Wagner said.
If passed, Oregon would join 10 states in the United States that have similar mandates. Some of those states are California, Florida, Kentucky, Michigan, and New York.
Fuente de la reseña: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/09/28/us/holocaust-taught-oregon-trnd/index.html
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The 15.3% budget allocation for Education will transform the sector-Mabumba

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Africa/Zambia/10.10.2018/Source: www.lusakatimes.com.

 

General Education Minister, David Mabumba says the 2019 national budget says the proposed 2019 national budget focuses on reforming and transforming key components in the education system.

Mr. Mabumba cited industrialization as one key component that the budget will help to transform by supporting the local production and purchase of school items such as uniforms, linen and furniture.

The Minister told ZANIS in an interview that recapitalisation of the Zambia Education and publishing House (ZEPH) is another milestone in ensuring that production of books for pupils is localised.

Mr. Mabumba further said the budget will promote the construction of new secondary schools and upgrading of some primary institutions.

He explained that the move will help to cushion on the demand for secondary education because there are more primary than secondary schools in the country.

Minister of Finance, Margaret Mwanakatwe presented the K86.8 billion 2019 National Budget under the theme ‘Delivering Fiscal Consolidation for Sustainable and Inclusive Growth’.

She proposed to spend K13.3 billion in 2019 which translates into 15.3 percent of the budget allocation on education and skills training development.

Source of the notice: https://www.lusakatimes.com/2018/10/01/the-15-3-budget-allocation-for-education-will-transform-the-sector-mabumba/

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Foreign students up 4,5 % in french tertiary institutions

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Europe/ Francia/ 08.10.2018/ Source: thepienews.com.

There were 343,400 foreign students in the French higher education system, signalling a growth of 4.5% since 2016 according to figures released by the Ministry of Education.

The number of foreign students in tertiary education in France has grown 18% since 2012 and almost doubled between 2000 and 2017, the ministry document states.

“France presents an alternative to the [Anglophone] model of higher education”

“We are thrilled to see that French universities continue to attract many students coming from abroad and we hope that the trend will continue to grow,” Campus France’s director of communications Florent Bonaventure told The PIE News.

There are many factors behind the growth, Bonaventure explained. Beyond the quality of French higher education and its growing international reputation – and increased visibility in university rankings –  France has seen a rapid growth of English-taught programs and offers a cost-effective alternative to other destination countries, he said.

International students, Bonaventure explained, are treated the same as French or EU students, with the same fees, the same social security, and the same insurance regulations.

“France presents an alternative to the [Anglophone] model of higher education,” Bonaventure said.

“Education is of high quality, its research is known worldwide – see the Make our Planet Great Again program in natural science and climate change, for instance – and it is cheap for students as it is highly subsidised by the French state. France is also famous for its quality of life,”

According to the ministry figures, about half international students are from an African country, while 22% are from Europe ( 18% from the EU), 21% from the Asia-Pacific and 9% from the Americas.

All students who declared a nationality other than French are included in these figures, which include all foreign students already living in France, and also excludeS? exchange students.

Universities are by far the most popular institutions – that’s where over 70% of international students are enrolled, making up 14.6% of the student population.

The proportion of international students was shown to be varied across educational levels, though it was growing at postgraduate and doctorate level.

International students represent 11.6% of undergrad enrolments, 17% of master’s and 41% of doctorate level students.

The proportion of students who haven’t completed secondary education in France also grew: they make up 65.7% of international students at undergraduate level, 83% at postgraduate and 92% at doctorate level.

“[Along with EMI courses] Students have the opportunity to learn French while in France”

At university, the percentages of students from various countries vary only slightly: almost one international student in every five is from the EU (18.6%) and one from Asia (18.6%), while half are from Africa (49.9%).

Again, the proportion of students from a specific nationality varies across the study level. Asian students are overrepresented at PhD level, where they make up the 29.8% of all international students, and 55.3% of international students at master’s level are from Africa.

The most numerous nationality is Algeria, followed by Morocco and China – but while Algeria and Morocco register a strong growth from 2016, numbers from China are stagnating. There are slightly fewer students from Morocco and China in universities than in other tertiary education institutions.

Among European students, Italy is the most represented nationality, followed by Germany, Spain and Portugal.

In general, international students prefer literary disciplines (31.3%), followed by the sciences (29.1%) and economics (17.8%). Students from Africa show a slightly different trend, with most oriented towards the sciences (35.5%).

As for the future, Bonaventure said Campus France is planning on welcoming more students coming from Francophone countries, especially in Africa, and further promoting France as a study destination in non-Francophone countries, such as China, Vietnam, India, Brazil and African and Middle Eastern countries.

  1. “Universities have developed many English taught programs tailored for them and students have the opportunity to learn French while in France,” he said.

Source of the notice: https://thepienews.com/news/foreign-students-up-4-5-in-french-tertiary-institutions-figures-reveal/

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