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United States: Schools kill creativity – education expert

Noticias

United States / March 26, 2018/Newshub

Resumen: El experto en educación, Sir Ken Robinson, quiere revolucionar la forma en que funciona la educación, diciendo que el sistema actual prioriza una definición estrecha del intelecto.

Education expert Sir Ken Robinson wants to revolutionise how education works, saying the current system prioritises a narrow definition of intellect.

«There was a time that being educated meant you could speak Latin. Then there was a time that it meant having gone to university. I’m trying to get people to think differently.»

Sir Ken, a professor at the University of Warwick, says education systems worldwide have become overly focused on a narrow kind of ability that we call «academic work».

«What happens is we often confuse academic ability with intelligence more generally and I think that’s something we really need to revisit.»

Sir Ken has given a TED Talk on the subject, titled ‘Do schools kill creativity?’ viewed over 50 million times online.

He says being educated should mean understanding the world around you and how it came to be the way it is.

«Being educated means being literate in a cultural sense.»

He says that while subjects such as science and math are important, equally important subjects such as art and music and drama are being pushed out, to children’s detriment.

«I think it’s important that everyone practices the sciences in a creative and inquisitive way but I think it’s equally important for them to practice the arts».

When discussing standardised testing, Sir Ken says the evidence everywhere is that they don’t work. He says an emphasis on grades has caused us to «los a sense of the vitality of education and how it ought to work».

«We aren’t manufacturing sprockets. These are people. Young people whose education has a crucial bearing on the life they lead and whether or not they discover the possibilities that lie in themselves.»

He says education should be more personal to the individual student but acknowledges that there should be a broadly agreed framework for the curriculum.

«What personalisation means in this case is making sure that teaching is differentiated to the different talents and rates of learning of individual children. Teaching isn’t just a process of transmission, it’s a relationship.»

Sir Ken thinks that teaching is as much about knowing how to engage students as it is about being an expert in your field.

«My contention is that creativity is as important in education as literacy and should be given the same status.»

Fuente: http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/shows/2018/03/schools-kill-creativity-education-expert.html

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France: La Minute Éco : mobilité, éducation, qualité de l’air… 20 jeunes créatifs imaginent le futur à Aix

Noticias

France / 24 mars 2018/La Prvence

Resumen: Nombre del programa: «Colmena». Misión: explorar y hackear el mundo del mañana mediante el desarrollo de soluciones concretas. Ambición: contribuir a la creación de un futuro más humano y sostenible. El 27 de septiembre, «The Hive», un programa internacional lanzado por The Camp, organizó su primer Young Creative Award para una expedición de colaboración de seis meses.

Un programme international lancé par The Camp a permis à 20 jeunes de développer des projets innovants et futuristes.

Nom du programme : «Hive». Mission : explorer et hacker le monde de demain en développant des solutions concrètes. Ambition : contribuer à la création d’un futur plus humain et durable. Le 27 septembre dernier, «The Hive», programme international lancé du côté de The Camp, accueillait sa première promotion de jeunes créatifs pour une expédition collaborative de six mois. Âgés de 16 à 30 ans, ces «Hivers» étaient designers, ingénieurs, codeurs, hackers, artistes 3D et venaient du monde entier : Sénégal, Brésil, Taiwan, Pays-Bas, Colombie, Etats-Unis. Le défi lancé par The Camp : qu’ils expérimentent de nouvelles méthodes de travail et que, de leur rencontre, naissent des projets répondant à des challenges d’intérêt général.

Une résidence dédiée à la création collaborative

«Nous voulions, à The Camp, créer un cœur créatif battant en permanence», indique Sylvia Andriantsimahavandy, co-directeur de la Hive. «Ce qui fait de nous une résidence du futur, c’est le fait d’être dédié à la création collaborative. Les jeunes talents sélectionnés ne sont pas venus pour développer leur propre concept. Ensemble, ils ont choisi des projets sur lesquels ils ont travaillé. Ils ont ainsi constitué leurs équipes au sein du groupe et nous les avons aidés à prototyper leurs idées. La seule règle du jeu imposée était de développer des projets ayant un impact pour notre société, car c’est l’un des enjeux de The Camp», ajoute-t-elle.

Des projets développés dans des secteurs variés

Près de six mois plus tard, ce jeudi 22 mars, les sept premiers projets Hive, développés autour de la mobilité, de l’éducation, de l’énergie ou l’environnement, ont été officiellement présentés. Parmi les plus concrets, il est possible de citer le projet «Beeyond : Bees For Good», qui prend la forme d’un drone autonome mesurant la qualité de l’air. Équipée de capteurs miniatures, cette technologie collecte et analyse les données de son environnement avec un objectif à terme : cibler les zones industrielles. Il est également possible de mentionner le projet «Mergy», un système qui récupère l’énergie et les données des mouvements de foule lors de grands événements. L’énergie produite se réinjecte par la suite dans le réseau électrique du lieu et les données collectées s’expriment à travers diverses expériences utilisateur.

Si tous les projets présentés ont reçu un accueil très favorable du public lors de leur présentation, seulement quelques-uns vont désormais être développés et pourraient très prochainement passer en phase d’industrialisation.

Fuente: https://www.laprovence.com/article/economie/4891128/minute-de-leco-les-hivers-inventent-le-futur-a-aix-en-provence.html

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Pencils and Bullets: Girls’ Education in Afghanistan

Entrevistas

Five years ago, after the Taliban years, two Turkmen girls in Afghanistan were finally able to attend school.

Five years ago Al Jazeera travelled to Afghanistan to see one of the most dramatic social changes in Afghanistan in the previous decade – the vastly improved access to education, especially for girls.

After 2001, when the Taliban were toppled from power by US-backed Afghan forces, three million girls returned to school. Women had previously been banned from work and education under Taliban rule.

But the team found that periodic attacks against female students, their teachers and their school buildings, were continuing. And fears were growing that gains in girls’ education could soon be traded away as Western forces prepared to leave and the Afghan government sought peace talks with the Taliban.

Pencils and Bullets focuses on two young girls from the minority Turkmen community in northern Afghanistan. Hayt Gul wants an education rather than sitting at home carpet-weaving with her mother. Nooriya wants to become a doctor. Both are eager students who seek to shine in their class.

Through these two young girls, the film explores their situation back in 2013, the future prospects for girls’ education in Afghanistan, and the efforts of a minority to educate its children.

Five years on, the director of that film, Melek Demir, returns to Afghanistan for REWIND to find out what has become of Hayt and Nooriya – and education for girls in Afghanistan 2018.

Melek Demir: Can you tell us what grade you’re in and how the school year has been for you?

Nooriya: Ninth grade started very well. My lessons are very good and I am very happy with my teachers. Our teachers are striving to help us.

However, I wish I could study in town rather than the village. But we have some difficulties so I do not have that kind of opportunity.

Melek Demir: How do your parents view your education?

Nooriya: Every family has the same problem: it is not appropriate for girls to go to school. It does not look good.

My father and mother let me study because I am still young. Our neighbours and relatives do not approve. My father never told me not to study. He actually encourages my education.

Melek Demir: How would you feel if your father said you couldn’t study anymore?

Nooriya: I cannot say anything to my father, he is our elder. If he tells me to study more I will, but if he opposes it, then I have to give up. I have to do what he says.

If my father says I’ve grown up and need to quit school and get married, then I have to accept this. To prevent gossip and rumours. I will have to quit and stay home.

But I told my father I want to study and I want to be a doctor. I want to be a surgeon. I am even talking about future professions with my relatives. I am telling them I will be a doctor.

I love studying and being away from school would make me very sad. Giving up my studies will make me sad.

Melek Demir: If you marry and your husband allows you to go to school, how do you think your family and relatives will react?

Nooriya: In that scenario, my father cannot say anything to me. If my husband’s family allow me to study, then my father will support me as well. He has never told me not to study.

I cannot even think about marriage at this age. I think it is wise to just think about studying. It is not for me to marry at my age.

I personally want to finish my school. When someone pursues their education, they are then never afraid to study anywhere. If I can go abroad, I can test my courage to continue my education there.

I believe can do it because I have this courage. I believe I can do it.

Melek Demir: What is your journey to school like?

Nooriya: Until exams start, we go to school in small carts bound to motorcycles. Four of us travel together at any given time. We are afraid on the way to school because it can be a long way to walk.

I once had to walk to school by myself. On my way back home, a man with a motorcycle began circling me. I walked home as quick as I could, all the while he was trailing. If I had not seen a brother of a friend, that strange man could have done anything he wanted.

I’m scared of the guy on motorcycles. I know there are good men and bad men; there are all kinds of people in the world. Only God knows their hearts, but because we do not know their intentions, we get scared.

Melek Demir: Will you send your daughters to school in the future?

Nooriya: Yes, when I grow up and have a child I will certainly let my children to study. Nothing is more important than education. I want my children to be educated and do as much as possible.

Melek Demir: How do you feel about coming to school?

Hayt: I am ashamed of being the only girl sitting among the boys. I have a hard time on the way to school. I do not feel comfortable.

Melek Demir: Why don’t other girls come to school?

Hayt: They don’t come because there is no female teacher. Also, they have to sit with the boys. Their fathers don’t allow them to come to school.

Actually, because the level of education is so bad and even the male teachers can’t teach us anything, the boys hardly come, too.

At one point, two girls were coming to school, but the male teacher didn’t look after us.

Melek Demir: How do your parents view your education?

Hayt: My family tells me to study and realise my dreams. I have a passion for my education. I want to go into the city and study there. Only younger girls go to school here; I am older and soon, I will not be able to come anymore.

I am ashamed to be there because I’m older than them, but we cannot afford travel cost for schools in town.

All girls should study, so the numbers of female students can increase. There is not a single female student that is my age.

Melek Demir: Will you continue attending school next year?

Hayt: I want to; I want to continue my education and become a doctor. I want to help my relatives. Doctors heal and bring happiness. That is why I want to be a doctor. I want everybody to be happy.

I don’t know if I will actually be able to attend school next year, though. God knows everything.

Editor’s note: Nooriya and Hayt’s interview updates with Melek Demir have been edited for clarity and brevity.

Source: 

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/rewind/2018/01/pencils-bullets-girls-education-afghanistan-180125052513143.html

 

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United Kingdom: Education Day 2018: To inclusivity and beyond

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United Kingdom/20 de marzo de 2018/by Murray MacKay/Source: https://www.imperial.ac.uk

This year’s Education Day brought together staff and students to explore how to make learning and teaching more inclusive.

Opening the event the College’s Assistant Provost (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion), Professor Stephen Curry, said: “Actions often speak louder than words. We must ask ourselves tough questions – do certain teaching methods perpetuate bias? As an institution what can we do to add value to this debate?

“Progress has been steady since the passing of the Equality Act in 2010, but more can be done. I’m proud that the principles behind this legislation are threaded throughout the entirety of the College’s Learning and Teaching Strategy, as well as our Curriculum Review.”

«At the heart of a positive student experience must be a strong sense of belonging.»Professor Liz Thomas

Education experts from across the College were joined by keynote speaker Professor Liz Thomas, member of the Teaching Excellence Framework panel, as well as an author and editor of over ten books, and many journal articles, reports, briefings and best practice guides.

Professor Thomas said: “At the heart of a positive student experience must be a strong sense of belonging. Embedding inclusivity is as much about changing the culture of teaching as it is related to the structure of teaching.”

Professor Thomas also set out some of the signs of a positive student experience:

  • Supportive peer relationships
  • Meaningful interaction between staff and students
  • Developing knowledge and having confidence in your identity
  • Having a higher education experience that is relevant to your future goals

Investigating inclusivity

The day included a number of break-out workshops which allowed attendees to discuss issues in more depth. Attendees enjoyed a wide range of conversations and activities, including ‘Breaking Bag’ – an escape room challenge set by Principal Teaching Fellow, Giskin Day.

Giskin Day and attendees try out a workshop challenge
Attendees attempt the ‘Breaking Bag’ escape room challenge

 

Imperial’s ambition to transform teaching and learning

Education Day 2018 forms part of a plan to radically transform teaching at Imperial, the UK’s most international and innovative university. By investing significantly in education the College is empowering students to solve challenges facing the world today and in the future.

Attendees listen to lecturerAs part of this ambition the Learning and Teaching Strategy will create and nurture a supportive environment for staff and students. A healthy learning and working environment will foster a community in which different backgrounds and cultures are cherished and recognised.

Source:

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/185347/education-day-2018-to-inclusivity-beyond/

 

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United Kingdom: The only way to beat the robots is to back arts education in schools

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United Kingdom/March 20, 2018/By: ROHAN SILVA/Source: https://www.standard.co.uk 

If you’re doing a job involving creativity it’s less likely to be replaced by software: robots are hopeless on that front.

You can’t beat a good paradox. One of my favourites comes from Peter Moravec, a scientist at Carnegie Mellon university in the US — he points out that lots of things that humans find difficult, and have to study for years to master — such as chess, complex mathematics and financial analysis — are actually tasks that computers excel at.

Meanwhile, things that come naturally to a young child — recognising a face, interacting with people, moving around and so on — are some of the toughest skills to teach machines.  This insight has come to be known as Moravec’s Paradox, and it’s something technologists have been grappling with for decades.

As US academic Steven Pinker puts it: “When it comes to technology, the hard problems are easy and the easy problems are hard. The mental abilities of a four-year-old that we take for granted — recognising a face, lifting a pencil, walking across a room, answering a question — in fact solve some of the hardest engineering problems ever conceived.”

Nowhere is this more true than when it comes to creativity. Children are good at using their imagination, making things up, telling stories and concocting new games — but this innate human ability is fiendishly difficult to train software and computers to do. That means if you’re doing a job that involves creativity, no matter what the industry or field, it’s less likely to be replaced by software — because luckily for us, robots are hopeless on that front.

That’s great news because it shows how we can ensure we don’t lose out to technology — by doing more of what humans are good at, and nurturing people’s creative abilities.

Rohan Silva

At a time when the Bank of England is predicting that as many as 15 million British jobs could be lost to automation, politicians should be pulling out all the stops to ensure our education system is equipping people with the skills they need to find high-quality work. Sadly, we seem to be heading in the wrong direction.

The English Baccalaureate — known as the EBacc — now evaluates schools on their performance in English, maths and a handful of other subjects but excludes the creative arts. As a result, creative subjects are in steep decline in state schools across the country.

According to a report by the Education Policy Institute, the number of hours secondary schools spend teaching the arts has been reduced by 17 per cent in recent years, while the number of students taking at least one creative subject at GCSE level has fallen fast.

Changes to school funding are further adding to the squeeze. A recent BBC survey found that nine in 10 schools are cutting back on lesson time, staff or facilities in at least one arts subject.

Music education has been hit especially hard, with free musical instrument lessons being removed from many UK schools. This is tough on poorer families, and it’s bad for social mobility too.

As Andrew Lloyd Webber rightly says: “The removal of funding from music in schools is fast becoming a farce as well as a national scandal. Music is a proven asset to everything from children’s behaviour to academic achievement.”

To Lloyd Webber’s immense credit he’s put his money where his mouth is, and donated millions to provide music classes to children who wouldn’t otherwise get the chance to learn an instrument.

But if Britain is going to keep producing the employment, businesses and industries of the future, we’re going to need more than philanthropy — government needs to step up and make sure arts subjects are properly taught in schools. There would be plenty of other benefits too.

Right now, countries such as China and India are evolving fast, and moving away from low-cost manufacturing towards domestic consumption and higher-value goods. This means hundreds of millions of new middle-class purchasers of creative content like films, music and video games — as well as growing creative industries such as fashion, advertising and technology.

That’s a huge opportunity for the UK — but one we risk squandering if we don’t have the right education policies in place.

There’s another upside too — related to science, which you might think has nothing to do with the arts. On the contrary — an American study recently found that Nobel Prize-winning scientists are almost three times more likely than the general population to play a musical instrument or regularly participate in the arts.

It’s a similar story with members of the Royal Society, Britain’s most illustrious scientific body — compared with other scientists, they’re twice as likely to have an artistic hobby.

As Nick Hillman, of the Higher Education Policy Institute, notes: “The UK’s future success depends on excellence in breadth and deeper links between the arts and the sciences.”

It would be so easy for the Government to start to put things right — for instance, by including at least one arts subject in the EBacc, and making clear that performance in the arts should count towards school league tables.

But the first step would be for politicians to recognise the economic importance of fostering creativity, at a time when technology is replacing so many human jobs.

Unfortunately, as another paradox shows, we’re not always smart at valuing the things that really matter.

More than 150 years ago, the economist Adam Smith described the paradox of value — the fact that essential goods such as water, which we couldn’t survive without, are often very cheap, while much less useful items such as diamonds are incredibly expensive.

If we’re going to win the race against the machine, and ensure we keep creating well-paid new jobs, we have to start valuing arts education properly — and put creative subjects back into schools. If we don’t, we’ll be much the poorer.

Source:

https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/the-only-way-to-beat-the-robots-is-to-back-arts-education-in-schools-a3790916.html

 

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EEUU: Baerren. Religion is the agenda of our education secretary

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EEUU/ March 20, 2018/ By: Eric Baerren/Source: http://www.dailytribune.com

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), at National Harbor, Md. DeVos has given state education chiefs some «tough love» as she pushed them to innovate and do better by students. Speaking March 5, 2018, at a conference of the Council of Chief State School Officers, DeVos blasted some schools for exposing children to rats, mold and danger. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

There’s important context missing from this week’s disastrous Betsy DeVos interview by 60 Minutes. As she has done every time she’s been asked non-scripted questions in venues beyond the control of her handlers, DeVos looked unprepared and uninformed. People have taken this as a sign that she is and will continue to be unfit for her office.

She is, and there is no debating it. She was appointed not because she has “qualifications,” “training” or “experience,” but because she and her family back dump trucks of cash up to the Republican Party reliably every year. This makes her no different than any other wealthy person who thinks the quantity of their assets qualifies them as experts in everything.

This is also beside the point. Understanding why Betsy DeVos is such a terrible education secretary requires understanding what motivates her, which is family and her religious beliefs.

We’re not supposed to impugn these motivations because it is beaten rhetorically into us for most of our adult lives that people who cleave to god and family are beyond reproach, that no one motivated thusly can do wrong. History, of course, tells a different story.

That philosophy is predicated on a simple idea. Secular public schools have replaced church as America’s centerpiece institution. The DeVos family as a whole has set itself on a course to correct this, to diminish secular public schools and restore the church to its rightful place.

It’s great coincidence that we are reminded of this the same week that Stephen Hawking, who argued that science and reason have become a much better explainer for the universe than religion. That creates a conflict between the democratizing power of science offered in secular public schools and the top-down authority of organized religion.

Achieving this in Michigan started with a direct frontal assault on the state constitution. The DeVos clan engineered a petition drive to ask voters to approve an amendment allowing for vouchers under the guise of choice. What it really meant was allowing the funneling of public dollars from public schools to private schools, many of which if allowed to operate as freely as they liked would be no better than Muslim madrasas on the Pakistani-Afghan frontier commonly associated with Islamic extremism.

That failed. Voters rejected this worldview a second time in electing Jennifer Granholm to a second term over Dick DeVos in 2006. Their path has since been much more circuitous, financing the Republican majority in the state House and ushering education policy down the path where the idea that unfettered choice leads to better outcomes is treated as religious dogma. The result has been a kind of educational Wild West, with for-profit charter schools operating with little or no oversight competing for tax dollars against public schools with elected school boards and publicly accountable administrators.

In every respect, it has failed badly. Choice’s acolytes, however, remain blinded in part because their children are isolated. Thanks to disinvestment coupled with deindustrialization of Michigan’s cities, that failure has fallen disproportionately on people of color. The majority of people responsible for education policy have been outstate and suburban white lawmakers.

Like most political dogmas, the failure to deliver isn’t a feature but an omelet’s broken eggs. The choice advocates DeVos leads have been at it for years, faithful that if they just try harder that they can supplant quality secular education with quality religious education. And if not totally supplant, at least crush teachers’ unions so they can continue to finance their experiments with public dollars.

This has been the raison d’etre for DeVos’ advocacy in education. It’s been about religious belief, not educating kids, although for kids who are more poorly educated for her efforts it’s probably all the same to them.

Eric Baerren is a Morning Sun columnist. He can be reached at ebaerren@gmail.com or on Twitter at @ebaerren.

Source:

http://www.dailytribune.com/opinion/20180315/baerren-religion-is-the-agenda-of-our-education-secretary

 

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Eastern Ghouta students: It’s suicide if we leave our basements

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Ghouta/ March 19, 2018 /aljazeera

Three students explain what life is like in rebel-held besieged enclave, as they try to keep up with their studies.

It has been nearly five years since Syrian government forces imposed a siege on the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta.

The past month has been one of the deadliest in the enclave, with more 1,200 civilians killed since the aerial and ground bombardment began on February 18.

As the campaign against Eastern Ghouta continues, schools and universities have either been destroyed or shut down, leaving students with few options for continuing their education.

Some have enrolled in online universities, while others have joined new, start-up medical academies to address the extreme shortage of medical staff in the area.

Three students spoke to Al Jazeera about the obstacles they face as they try to continue their education in Eastern Ghouta.

Majed Daas, 22, computer science student

Ever since 2013 [start of the siege], I began searching for a way to continue my studies, but it was difficult because of the siege and we frequently have no fuel, internet or electricity.

So I sat down with some of my friends who are older than me, have already graduated or studied computer science and I started to learn how to run computer programs and software with them.

It was tough at the beginning, very complicated, but computer science has always been my obsession. After training with my friends, I completed my high school exam and did quite well.

Before the campaign started [against Eastern Ghouta], I was going to an internet shop to study, which cost a lot – nearly $3 per session every day. The books that I had to print cost me a fortune. I earn only $150 a month and printing a book costs about $30.

Studying on my laptop was challenging too. We never have electricity so I have to pay $5 a week to get electricity for a few hours and sometimes it doesn’t work properly because of the attacks.

Two months ago, I applied at the University of the People [an American online institution] and signed up for two courses only, but I couldn’t continue because of the intense attacks. Sadly, I had to withdraw since I can’t complete the courses under these circumstances.

Our days now are horrifying; I just can’t describe it. As I am talking to [you] right now [by phone] seven air strikes have struck around me. We stay all day in basements; sometimes I go outside to use the internet to talk with friends and family.

A photo of what is left of Majed Daas’ home that was destroyed last week [Courtesy of Majed Daas]

Warplanes, helicopters, mortar attacks – everything that you can imagine is being dropped on us by Russian forces and the [Bashar al-Assad] regime. We are expecting something like [the atomic bombings of] Hiroshima and Nagasaki to happen so they can kill us all and finish us off.

We have spent the last three weeks underground sleeping, waiting, going up and down, helping to bring some water and whatever we can to women and old, sick people who are struggling to death in these tombs or so-called basements.

Bassam Yousef, 22, physiotherapy student

The crowds of injured people and the shortage of medical staff in Eastern Ghouta is what drove me to continue my studies. With Sham Medical Academy, I found what I needed and it opened many doors for me to continue my studies. The academy opened to support the liberated areas with properly trained medical staff who don’t have medical certificates.

For sure, studying in Ghouta is very different. We had class interrupted countless times because of the relentless shelling campaign these last years, especially in Jobar area, close to me.

In each of these shelling campaigns, medical checkpoints and hospitals have been drowning with patients. Where I work, we were targeted more than three times, and it affected me badly in my studies as I was conducting medical research with Sham Medical Academy.

Since three months ago, we’ve been suffering from a lack of materials and supplies, food and fuel prices have increased gradually, schools have closed after many massacres and directed attacks against them. Education has come to a halt in all of Eastern Ghouta. I want to continue my Masters in psychological sciences at the academy, but can’t because of the intense campaign against Ghouta.

We have been living in the basement for the last few weeks. We hardly have any food supplies and water. There are roughly 200 people in each basement. The continuous attacks have prevented us from leaving it for hours sometimes; it’s quite stinky and humid.

Bassam Yousef helps a patient at a medical checkpoint in Eastern Ghouta [Courtesy of Bassam Yousef]

Can you imagine the amount of people held in a small place, breathing heavily and struggling with lung illnesses and other diseases? We are being hit right now as we speak [over the phone]. We will be hit by regime forces until we die or they force us to leave the city.

Mohammed Nizar Arbash, 22, computer science student

When the siege hit the city, we weren’t able to go out or get any supplies. I couldn’t find any way to study so I started working on some computer programs for video editing and was developing these skills with help from friends. I learned how to do many things like app programming.

I worked during this time with the civil defence team, helping them with video editing in their media office, which helped me to develop my computer knowledge.

By the beginning of 2016, I enrolled at the virtual University of the People in computer science. It was [a] hard decision to make as I couldn’t give up working, which my family and I depend on in order to survive and I had to pay the university’s expenses as well. [The university charges an assessment fee of $100 per course.]

Before studying at the virtual university, I studied computer science for two years in Eastern Ghouta, which was supported by the temporary government of the opposition, but my certificate wasn’t recognised by international universities because the university didn’t belong to the regime.

Mohammed Nizar Arbash says ‘the virtual option has been the best solution’ for obtaining an education in Eastern Ghouta [Courtesy of Mohammed Nizar Arbash]

The certificate that I received was practically useless and I had to start from scratch all over again. To complete my studies and get a masters degree, I registered in the virtual university as I knew I would otherwise face difficulties in continuing my higher studies.

But this semester I withdrew from all of my courses because of the ongoing extermination war that we are under now.

These days I go out to bring water for people, bring some batteries to light the shelter or go out to find a medic or anything the elderly urgently need. It’s suicide every time we leave our basements, but if we don’t leave it for some time we’ll suffocate from the bad smell. It’s more like prisons that we’re living in, stuck under the shelling of Assad’s forces and its allies.

Fuente: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2018/03/eastern-ghouta-students-suicide-leave-basements-education-180317160631282.html

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Tu voz en Otras Voces

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