Education

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Communications technology and education push Australia down digital rankings

Noticias

Oceania/ Australia/ 30.09.2019/ Source: www.abc.net.au.

 

The future of the economy and work is digital, but in a global ranking of digital competitiveness Australia has fallen one place to 14th in a study of 63 countries.

Key points:

  • Australia ranks only 54th out of 63 nations in communications technology and 38th for internet speeds
  • The nation is 44th for employee training and 53rd in graduating scientists
  • The US topped the digital competitiveness rankings, followed by Singapore and Sweden

The slide is comprehensive: in 2015 Australia was ninth. When the report compares countries with a similar population, Australia fell from 3rd to 5th, and for those in the Asia-Pacific region from 2nd to 5th: Australia has spent the past few years sliding down the ladder.

«It doesn’t surprise me. It’s as predictable as gravity,» said digital strategist Rowena Martin, who works with universities and major companies to help them compete in the new business age.

«The investment in digital literacy skills really hasn’t been there. From the federal government there’s been cuts and a lack of support for universities.

«The main thing is there’s going to be a really rude surprise: Australian businesses are going to lose profitability.»

Contributing to the fall are poor showings in the fields of business agility, tech skills and communications.

The World Digital Competitiveness rankings are collated by Swiss business school International Institute for Management Development (IMD).

Australia’s communications technology ranking is a woeful 54th out of the 63 nations surveyed. In internet bandwidth and speed Australia ranks 38th.

What the NBN has delivered

The Committee for the Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) released the results, and chief executive Melinda Cilento said it showed the need for companies and governments to invest if they want the Australian economy to keep up with its neighbours.

«The direction of change is what we should be focussed on,» she said.

«We risk being caught short because other countries are racing up the ladder.»

In the most recent rankings, Hong Kong and South Korea have entered the top 10. China has jumped from 30th to 22nd and Taiwan leap-frogged Australia, rising from 16th to 13th position.

‘Needs to be a focus on tech skills’

The survey has parallels with recent CEDA research that found business leaders placed a much higher priority on technology investment and research and development (R&D) than the general public.

«Business is investing in tech and see it as really important, but the community don’t,» Ms Cilento said.

«We need to have a serious conversation about education … there really needs to be a focus on tech skills.»

Interestingly, Australia’s digital slide is not due to a lack of appetite from regular Australians. When it comes to the national uptake of tablets and smartphones, Australia ranks third and ninth respectively.

Australia is on top when it comes to the amount of international students it takes in to educate. But when it comes to educating Australians, the nation ranks just 44th in employee training and a dismal 53rd in graduating scientists.

Ms Murray said Australia’s continual slide down the rankings had an impact that was being felt now on «the amount of tax paid, what people are earning», and that would get worse.

«There will be mass redundancies as companies are forced to evolve,» she warned.

«But the problem will be, after that, finding people who have those [digital] skills that are needed.»

The top five most digitally competitive countries have not changed in this year’s survey. The United States retains the title, followed by Singapore, Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland.

Source of the notice: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-26/internet-digital-ranking-australia-and-the-world/11550614

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Taleemabad: The app spreading education across Pakistan

Noticias

Asia/ Pakistan/ 30.09.2019/ Fuente: www.verdict.co.uk.

En Pakistan, 51% of people are expected to own smartphones by 2020, but 48% of children cannot read a simple sentence by the time they leave primary education. To bridge this divide, Haroon Yasin set up the Orenda Project to teach the national curriculum using digital learning. Verdict talked to him about how Orenda’s Taleemabad app is bringing education to children overlooked by traditional schooling.

Haroon Yasin grew up in a middle-class family in Islamabad but saw incredible disparity with poor areas on his doorstep devoid of any basic services. When he dropped out of college – though he did eventually graduate from Georgetown University in a different discipline – he got to know the children living in the slums where they started working at the age of four, picking up trash on the streets and chronically malnourished.

“I became consumed with wanting to do something for them,” he says. “I rented a two-room building and opening a day-care centre because all I wanted was for these really young kids to be off the street.”

Yasin’s team found that one of the best ways to keep them engaged and happy was to teach them in a way that they enjoyed, so they inadvertently became teachers. As they themselves had hated formal education as students, it gave them insight into what needed to be done to fix it.

“That school in the slum flourished and had 100 kids in the school at one point. We used to feed them and teach them a lot of different skills,” Yasin says.

“We started thinking about the fact that they were about 24 million of these [out of school] kids all across our country. We started travelling all around crisscrossing to small villages and towns, where it was almost impossible to get to by car or a motorbike, and we had to go down a track or take a bull cart to those places.”

Identifying the problem

Yasin would stay in the villages helping the farmers in the field and spending time with communities to really get to the heart of why, even where there was a free educational opportunity, most students were choosing to forego that.

“I was farming with this particular farmer and I became frustrated with the whole thing and said, look, why don’t you send your kids to school? It’s right there and it’s free. And he became really cross with me and said why should I send my kid to school?” says Yasin.

“He had two children and sent one of them to school while the other stayed in the fields. The one that had gone to school had eventually grown weak because he would be indoors all day studying and got glasses, which was a bit of a stigma for the people in the village because they’re, like, he has a disability now.

“Eventually, even after completing 10 years of education, he didn’t get a job. And so he came back to the village, not strong enough to do any work in the fields, not educated enough to be employed in a high-rise office.”

Yasin believes that farmer’s generation was failed when Pakistan established its public education system, and that failure has been repeated across the world. He also noted an unusual disparity; in Pakistan, 50% of the children grow up chronically malnourished, and many are taken out of school because they have to work long days.

But even among the poorest children he taught, their parents found the resources to somehow buy mobile phones as they are so essential to modern life. Even in areas with no electricity supply, they would bring phones to the local mosque to charge as there was always a small generator there.

3 Things That Will Change the World Today

Fuente de la noticia: https://www.verdict.co.uk/taleemabad-app-orenda/

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Half a million school children and workers turn out in mass calls for climate action

Noticias

Oceania/ Autralia/ 24.09.2019/ Source: www.9news.com.au.

 

Australians workers downed tools to join students who left school to attend climate change rallies. The protest drew around 500,000 people and shut down city centres across the country.
Lawyers, academics, tech company workers, members of unions and community groups, university students and retirees all joined the rallies in what was a huge expansion of a movement that started as a school strike against global warming.
The demonstrations in Australia were the first of similar rallies planned to roll around the world on Friday, as officials gathered at the United Nations in New York for the world bodies Emergency Climate Summit.
«We’re here for one reason: we want climate action,» said Carmel Allen, 63, who travelled with friend Margaret Armstrong, 76, from the Illawara region south of Sydney to join the march in the city. «We’re worried for our children and for future generations.
«We’re so happy with the turn out – we’ve seen guys in suits, young mums, unionists. It looks like everyone is here,» Armstrong added. «The climate affects everyone.»
Allen and Armstrong were among a crowd estimated to be 80,000 in Sydney. 100,000 people rallied in Melbourne, and with protests in more than 100 locations around Australia, the total involvement was double that of the climate rallies held in March.
Gabriel Anderson, a Year 4 student from a school in Sydney’s inner west, attended the rally with his mother and a group of other children.
«I’m here because the environment isn’t being looked after,» the 10-year-old said. «I hope now politicians will listen.»
Gabriel’s mother, Tamsin, said she felt comfortable giving her son the afternoon off school. «I feel like these kids are learning something crucial here – they are learning how to make change, how to be hopeful,» she said.
Gabriel Anderson, a Year 4 student from a school in the Sydney’s inner west, attended the rally with his mother and a group of other children from his school. (Nine)
Earlier, federal Education Minister Dan Tehan called on students to stay in school, and questioned whether so many young people would care so much if they were not missing some class time.
«The true test of the protesters’ commitment would be how many turned up for a protest held on a Saturday afternoon,» he said in a statement.
100,000 people were estimated to have attended the Melbourne rally. (Supplied)
Year 9 student Kyla said her Wenona School in North Sydney wanted students who attended the rally to have to make up lost class time later.
«It’s basically like detention,» she said. While she was disappointed at her school’s lack of support, she said she felt inspired by the rally. «It gives me hope,» the 14-year-old said. «We all need to stand together because we all have one problem.»
Katie, Scarlett and Kyla, 14, said they were inspired by the huge group who turned out for today’s rally. (Nine)
Rick Cavicchioli, a microbiology professor at the University of New South Wales, cancelled his classes for the day to attend the rally. «This gives the opportunity for my students to come down here as well,» he said. His demand was simple: «Change, now.»
Organisers are calling for no new coal, oil and gas projects in Australia, 100 percent renewable energy generation and exports by 2030, and a just transition for workers in fossil fuel-dominated industries and communities.
Tech worker Luke Foxton attended the rally after being encouraged by his software company, Atlassian. He said all employees were given the afternoon off, as well as paid time to prepare banners.
The Sydney rally in the Domain saw lawyers, academics, tech companies, community groups, university students and retirees among the atendees. (Nine)
Students, workers, and unionists spoke on stage at the Sydney event from 12pm to 1.30pm, and guided the crowd in chanting: «One struggle, one fight: climate action, worker’s rights!»
Addressing the crowd, Tommy-John Herbert, a wharfie from Port Botany, said he was at the rally because of the work of the Maritime Union of Australia.
«As I speak, not one of our cranes are running,» he said.
Port Botany wharfies attended the rally using protections for industrial action designed for enterprise bargaining. It is the first known instance of the protections being used for such an action, the Australian Financial Review yesterday reported.
Herbert said his employer sent out an email to all workers saying attending the rally is illegal. Many of the port workers came anyway.
Sylvie, 11, and Mae, 9, also attended the rally accompanied by their mum, travelling from the Northern Beaches. «It’s important the government sees that kids care, they are coming out of school,» Sylvie said. (Nine)
Other unions such as the Teachers Federations as well as charity organisations like Ozharvest and community groups like the Rozelle Climate Action group all urged their members to attend.
Community action group organizer Angela Michaelis, 64, said her group of mostly retirees who were turning out because «we owe to young people and we can support them».
National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) student Angela Doherty, 23, estimated 50 students from her university joined the rally.
Angela Doherty (left), 23, said 50 students from NIDA joined the action. (Nine)
«We’re here because we care about the climate,» she said. «There’s no point studying for a future we might not have.»
Source of the notice: https://www.9news.com.au/national/global-climate-strikes-attract-500000-students-and-workers-across-australia-national-news/d0aa9aeb-c9c4-4788-a7a5-f5b05411b04e
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Children in crisis want education more than money, food or water

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Africa/ 24.09.2019/ Source: www.savethechildren.net.

  • Surveys from toughest places on earth reveal top priorities for children in crisis
  • School ranks far higher than immediate needs like food, water and shelter
  • But education allocated just 2% of funding in humanitarian emergencies
  • 262 million children – one in five globally – denied an education
Children overwhelmingly identify education as their top priority at times of crisis, a new report by Save the Children shows today.
Education Against the Odds provides the largest analysis of what children – rather than aid planners – say they need during humanitarian emergencies.
The report’s surprising findings reveal children are more than twice as likely to rank going to school as their top concern, compared to immediate needs like food, water, shelter or money.
Education remains chronically underfunded during emergencies, representing just two per cent of aid for countries grappling with war, disease and disaster.
Of 1,215 children surveyed in six countries, nearly one in three (29%) said education was their top priority. [1]
That was more than twice the number who identified food (12%), health (12%), or water and sanitation (12%) as their primary concern. It was three times the number who said they needed shelter (9%) or money (9%) most.
Other concerns children identified as top priorities include clothing (3%), sport and leisure activities (3%), safety (2%) and family (1%). [2]
The surveys were conducted over the last five years with children aged 5-18, during humanitarian responses across Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Among the respondents were:
  • Children struggling to survive in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines;
  • Child refugees from Syria and Afghanistan;
  • Children living in conflict zones in the Democratic Republic of Congo;
  • Rohingya children in refugee camps in Bangladesh;
  • Children displaced by fighting in Ethiopia and South Sudan.

One child fighting against the odds to get an education is 10-year-old Ali from Idlib, Syria. He and his family fled their village to escape fighting. When they returned home, Ali’s school was in ruins after being hit by an airstrike. Nearly half of the schools in north west Syria are currently out of action. [3] Ali said:

«I saw my school was destroyed and broken down and it made me so sad. My friends and I, we will go back and study in it. I love my school – my wish is that it does not get bombed and destroyed again. We will rebuild it and make it better than before. I love to study. I want to become a doctor to treat people who are in need and serve my country.»

Save the Children’s analysis of UN data shows that – far from recognising children’s priorities at times of crisis – humanitarian aid for education trails far behind other sectors.

Just two per cent of funding for countries grappling with emergencies was allocated to education last year. That represents half the levels earmarked for medical care, and one tenth of the support dedicated to providing supplies of food. [4]

262 million children, one in five globally, are out of school, many of them due to sudden or protracted crises like wars, outbreaks of disease or natural disasters.

But, at current rates, the United Nations estimates 225 million children will still be out of school in 2030 due to stagnating levels of education aid globally. [5]

This week Save the Children is calling for world leaders to dramatically boost the funding available for education in emergencies through Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the first and only global fund dedicated to providing education in countries affected by crisis. [6]

In August the UK committed £90 million to the fund, and called for other wealthy governments to follow suit by dedicating more of their aid budgets to global education.

Other commitments of funding for the ECW are expected to be announced at a meeting at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday (September 25).

Save the Children’s Head of Education Policy, Joseph Nhan-O’Reilly, said:

“What children have been telling us is clear and unambiguous. Even when food is scarce, water dirty and medical care almost non-existent, children still want to go to school.

“They know an education will give them the skills they need to escape a crisis. They know it protects them from child marriage, exploitation and abuse. They understand it helps them recover from trauma.

“Children want more than to simply survive. Education gives them the power to build a better future.”

NOTES TO EDITORS:

[1] A vital part of Save the Children’s work is to ask children what they need. This helps to inform our own priorities and influence the priorities of others. We reviewed data from rapid field surveys by aid workers stretching back more than a decade, encompassing the hopes and fears of more than 8,000 children in the toughest places on earth. While most surveys we analysed were records of small group discussions, quantitative data was available from six countries between 2013 and 2018, from a combined total of 1,215 children aged 5-18. A simple average was calculated across the studies.

[2] All other priorities children identified were: clothing (3%), sport and leisure activities (3%), safety (2%), family (1%), insecurity (1%), phones (1%), transportation (1%), collecting firewood (1%), and unspecified concerns (4%).

[3] Out of the 1,193 schools in north west Syria, 635 continue to be operational, 353 have been abandoned or damaged, and 205 are being used as collective shelters, according to analysis by Save the Children partner Hurras Network in August 2019.

[4] International donors provided a total of more than $25 billion in humanitarian aid in 2018, according to the UN’s Financial Tracking Service (FTS). $606 million (2.41%) was allocated to education, $1.5 billion (5.98%) to health and $6 billion (23.85%) to food security,

[5] UIS data for the school year ending 2017, the latest available, shows 262 million children were out of school, or 18% globally. Estimates from UNESCO suggest 225 million children will still be out of school by 2030 without urgent action, missing a global commitment to get every child into education by that date.

[6] Since its establishment in 2017, the little-known Education Cannot Wait (ECW) fund has reached nearly 1.5 million children and young people – half of them girls – in 31 crisis-affected countries. Over the next four years, ECW needs to raise $1.9 billion to ensure 8.9 million children caught up in humanitarian emergencies get to go to school.

[7] Save the Children exists to help every child reach their full potential. In the UK and around the world, we make sure children stay safe, healthy and keep learning, so they can become who they want to be.

Source of the notice: https://www.savethechildren.net/news/children-crisis-want-education-more-money-food-or-water

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Sudanese families find refuge in an abandoned Libyan warehouse

Sara Creta

By: Sara Creta.

Sudanese newborns and expecting mothers are among the refugees who took shelter in the Tripoli hangar

Many refugees have fled to Libya from other war-torn countries, hoping to find respite from the violence at home. But their hardships have been far from over upon reaching the North African country, itself beset by conflict.

A number of Sudanese refugees spoke to Middle East Eye about their experiences since reaching Libya, as they have been repeatedly displaced by armed conflict and a lack of accommodations.

A group of Sudanese nationals, including newborn babies and pregnant women, have been living for several months in an abandoned warehouse in an area of Tripoli known as al-Riyadiya, after the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) and other humanitarian organisations failed to find them proper housing.

Before the warehouse, most had been staying in schools or mosques, with others sleeping in open fields or abandoned buildings. (MEE/Sara Creta)

Nafisa, 42, escaped genocide in Darfur, only to be displaced multiple times.

“My husband and two sons were set on fire, and my third son, Tayib, has survived and fled with me in Libya,» she told MEE. «We left Sudan into Chad before crossing the border and making our way to Umm al-Aranib, a town in Libya’s southern desert,» she said.

«There, my son Tayib was tortured: he was chained and burnt until we managed to collect money for his ransom.» (MEE/Sara Creta)

Nafisa said her son Tayib’s torture and humiliation lasted for two months, and stopped only after a sum of $3,500 was collected for his release.

«We decided to leave for Sabha and we searched for a trustworthy Libyan to take us to Tripoli,» she said.

Afterwards, Nafisa and her son initially found shelter in Ahmed bin Shatwan, a school that has been converted into a displacement camp run by the Libyan Red Crescent (LRC).

But a quarrel erupted between Sudanese refugees, an Iraqi refugee family and the shelter manager on 23 June. Meanwhile, armed groups raided the facility at night.

“They drove into the school’s courtyard and fired bullets in the air. We even saw weapons being exchanged at night,” Nafisa said. «The militia were trying to recruit my son. Even now I’m still afraid for his safety.»

It was only afterwards that her family and other Sudanese were moved to the warehouse. (MEE/Sara Creta)

Fatma Aroun Mansour and her husband Abu Bakr Adam are both from Darfur. They arrived in Libya in 2016 and lived in the town of Murzuq. But after recent clashes in the southwestern town, they decided to move to Tripoli.

They first stayed in Qasr bin Ghashir, 25km south of Tripoli. But when violent clashes erupted between forces of the internationally-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) and the Libyan National Army (LNA), they had to leave their house and then found themselves in the Ahmed bin Shatwan school in Dhara. Like Nafisa, they felt forced to leave the school last June and have since been waiting for a more permanent solution.

“We are registered with UNHCR but we do not receive any support. My husband cannot work safely in Tripoli as he doesn’t have any legal documents, and can get kidnapped any time,» said Fatma. «We don’t get any financial help and each time we ask for financial assistance, we get told to wait.

«I had a Caesarean delivery and I’m exhausted. I don’t know how we can survive in this situation. I don’t even have milk for my children.” (MEE/Sara Creta)

Asjad, 15, her mother Awaya Mohammed, 51, and sister Abak, 13, came to Libya from Sudan through Chad.

“When we fled to Libya, we had to cross the Chadian desert. We arrived in Kufra, then we continued to Ajdabiya,» the teenager said. «At the checkpoint, my mother was captured by an armed group and they kept her for 12 days before we were able to collect money to secure her release. When we arrived in Tripoli, we fled multiple times due to the insecurity.” (MEE/Sara Creta)

Awaya said all that she wants is her daughters’ safety and for them to obtain an education.

“Due to the situation in our region in Sudan, we can’t go back,» she said. «My husband mysteriously disappeared in 2013 and I don’t know if he’s still alive. I cannot go to work and leave my daughters alone. I’m so scared that something would happen to them.

«We need safety, stability and a future. I’m also against genital mutilation and I don’t want my daughters to return to Sudan so they don’t go through the same ordeal I faced.» (MEE/Sara Creta)

For two months, families of refugees have lived in this abandoned storage facility located some 400 metres from the UNHCR’s Community Day Center (CDC) in Gurji, waiting to be moved to safer housing.

With mats on the floor for beds and neighbours’ kindness as their sole source of food and water, their living conditions remain dire. “When we go to sleep at night, we don’t know if we will wake up in the morning. We often hear fighting all through the night,” said Nafisa. (MEE/Sara Creta)

Naima, 31, and her then-4-month-old daughter came to Libya in 2013. She initially worked as a nurse in a hospital in Tripoli.

«Our problems started in 2017 when my husband was abducted for the first time,» she told Middle East Eye, saying he was held for six months.

«A few months ago, while I was pregnant, he got abducted again and I couldn’t work anymore. After I gave birth, I moved in with my sister-in-law, but where she lived was very unsafe. We were saved by our neighbours who drove us out of there,» Naima said. Her youngest daughter was only seven days old when they arrived at the Ahmed bin Shatwan shelter.

«I don’t feel safe here with my two daughters. I really don’t know what to do.” (MEE/Sara Creta)

Mussa, 25, said he spent five months in Ahmed bin Shatwan school.

«In June, while I was on my way to the UNHCR office, I was captured by a militia at a checkpoint and was brought to Tajoura detention centre with four of my friends. I had been in the centre for seven days when air raids struck Tajoura on 2 July,» he recalled.

«We were inside the bombed hangar. We hid in the toilet before we were able to escape. My ribs were broken. They brought us to the hospital where many of us were injured and one of my friends died,» Mussa said.

The young Sudanese man said he has been requesting support from UNHCR, to no avail. «I have been trying to contact UNHCR and ask for shelter, but they sent me away. Some people may have been able to work and pay rent, but now with the war, it’s more difficult and unsafe. We risk being kidnapped or forcibly recruited by militia.

«Many of my friends have gone missing,» he said. «This is not a life.” (MEE/Sara Creta)

Asma Abdulrahman, 22, told a slightly different story.

She tried to cross the Mediterranean with her brother when they were stopped by the Libyan coast guard.

«They arrested us and brought us back here,» she said. «They kept us in detention for six months, after which I paid money to be released. I arrived in Tripoli with my brother and the only place we found was this shelter. We are afraid here and we can’t sleep at night. We just want safety, security and education. Our lives are destroyed.” (MEE/Sara Creta)

Suleiman is the father of seven children. His youngest son was just only a few months old when the family crossed the Sahara desert into Libya. They were among the many families that were driven out of the Ahmed bin Shatwan shelter. Like the rest, they have been awaiting assistance in the abandoned warehouse for two months. (MEE/Sara Creta)

Muna gave birth a few days ago and had just been discharged from the hospital with her newborn baby.

“My family faced many difficulties before arriving in Tripoli, especially during our journey to the city. My husband was kidnapped in Ajdabiya but managed to escape one month later. We lived in the Crimea district of Tripoli, but when the war broke out, we were forced to leave our house. We stayed in the Ahmed bin Shatwan school-shelter until this issue escalated,» she said.

Like other refugees at the warehouse, Muna said she is not receiving any support. «I don’t have any support for my baby. Nothing at all from UNHCR.” (MEE/Sara Creta)

With most families having now been displaced multiple times, the future is uncertain for the Sudanese in Libya. Many children and their parents are reportedly dealing with the psychological ramifications of displacement, loss and grief.

«I have no future in Libya, and the region where I grew up in is gone,» Nafisa said, her words echoing the sentiments of others in the warehouse. «We need safety.”

The families are now facing a new challenge. Only a few days ago they were asked to leave the warehouse. They have nowhere to go. (MEE/Sara Creta)

Source of the article: https://www.middleeasteye.net/gallery/pictures-refugees-left-no-haven-abandoned-warehouse-libya

 

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Instead of school supplies, this year I’m shopping for a bulletproof backpack

Judi Zirin

By: Judi Zirin.

After so many school shootings, I’m not worried my kid won’t fit in – I’m praying he won’t be carried out

Ihave always loved the end of summer’s lazy promise of infinite possibility, the late August back to school buzz of limitless potential. Instead of shopping for school supplies and first day of school outfits, though, I’m online looking at Kevlar hoodies and bulletproof backpacks. This year, I’m not worried my kid won’t fit in – I’m praying he won’t be carried out.

After so many school shootings, I’m scared. Scared of what happens when that student who seems a little off or angry or cruel, whose parents don’t notice or take it seriously, whose issues the school is “dealing with”, finds access to a gun. Terrified because I know I can’t protect my child – and the government won’t. Confused because these students need help and not stigma, and it’s oddly the guns who have the stronger lobby.

Prevention of gun violence depends now on the vigilance of other parents, school administrators and law enforcement. Parents and schools are generally forewarned. School shooters exhibit “behavioral warning signs that caused others to be concerned” 93% of the time, and shooters’ plans are known to others 81% of the time. When schools ignore bullying or overlook troubling or aberrant behavior, they create a dangerous atmosphere that arming teachers, lockdowns and drills can’t later prevent. Parents who ignore warning signs put both their own and other people’s children in danger.

Law enforcement is needed before active situations develop. The El Paso killer’s mother called the police to express her concern about her son having an assault weapon. The neighbor who took in the Parkland killer says she called police to express similar concerns. Seventeen states and Washington DC have variations of red flag laws, which allow the removal of guns by judicial order from those deemed a danger to themselves or others. When warnings are heeded and social media sites monitored, would-be killers can be stopped and numerous lives saved.

There are no easy answers, particularly given political resistance to gun control legislation, but we certainly we can try. Kids can be encouraged to share information, possibly using anonymous tip lines. Metal detectors and bulletproof doors and bag checks may be widely needed, and occasional assemblies just haven’t been cutting it.

Communities can be more involved in creating individualized solutions. Violence is a great equalizer; after shootings in Columbine, Sandy Hook and Parkland, parents in all economic strata recognize no community is safe. If this sways upcoming elections, meaningful legislation could move forward and much of this issue greatly mitigated.

It’s troubling that 74% of gun owners say the right to gun ownership is “essential to their own sense of freedom”. Freedom is now predicated on access to weaponry? Obviously your gun is for protection – though research shows it’s actually more likely members of your own household will be shot with that gun than any armed intruder … But you’re different – you will keep your gun safer, never develop mental health issues, your kid would never … Most gun owners believe they can control gun safety in their homes, their risk perception flawed despite statistical evidence.

Statistics. Evidence. The more than 100,000 people injured every year in shootings, and more than 36,000 people a year who die as a result of gun violence, a public health crisis according to the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, Jama, etc. The second amendment, which doesn’t confer a right to own any gun for sport or protection without limitation – that’s neither its language nor how courts interpret it. The campaign donations senators and other representatives receive from the gun lobby. These facts can no longer be ignored or manipulated.

Forty years ago, my back to school was JC Penney’s, Sears or Kmart clothing advertised in shiny newspaper inserts, black-and-white marbled composition books and, if I was lucky, a novelty pen with click tabs of multiple ink colors. I was scared of the “burnouts”: boys with thick chains swinging from the loops of their faded jeans who smoked openly outside school doors, scared of gum chewing tube top-clad cool girls with their Farrah Fawcett feathered, Sun-In blonde hair … and of practically everybody else. The district’s least academic track was nicknamed “pre-jail”, there was a pregnant seventh grader whose belly strained against her overalls as she struggled to decorate our homeroom door with paper flowers, and a tall unsmiling redhead rumored to have joined the Nazi party wore enormous black boots whose stomp echoed in the narrow hallway where he called my best friend “kike” every day as he passed her. But all I feared was that someone would call me fat and everyone would laugh at me and my fatness – never guns, never being killed.

Years later, I do worry about the possibility of a shooter at my son’s tiny suburban school, though there are no grappling tweens making out in front of lockers, no lingering smoke smell at its entryway, no older kids in pick up trucks zooming out of its parking lot. In other years, I shook with PTSD at back to school night, flashing back to my tween awkwardness and pain. Now, I sit imagining someone reaching into pocket or purse and shots ricocheting around the small auditorium. Because no matter how good our body armor, none of us are bulletproof, and our most effective weapon remains our vote.

Source of the article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/31/school-shootings-bulletproof-backpacks-kevlar

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Japan: 97% of schools eligible to provide free higher education

Noticias

Asia/ Japan/ 23.09.2019/ Source: the-japan-news.com.

The education ministry announced Friday that 97.1 percent of 1,074 universities and junior colleges in the nation have been recognized as eligible for a free higher education program (see below) for students from low-income households, a system that will be launched in April 2020.

A total of 31 private universities and junior colleges did not apply to the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry for accreditation. Institutions with financial difficulties are not eligible to provide free education. The ministry suspects that financial woes were the reason some institutions did not apply. Universities that are struggling financially could have further difficulty attracting students.

The ministry said that 1,043 out of 1,074 national, public and private universities and junior colleges have been certified. Of the 1,043 institutions, 744 are universities and 299 are junior colleges. All national and public universities, including the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University, have been granted eligibility. According to the ministry, the 31 institutions that did not apply were all private schools.

Of the 2,713 vocational schools in the nation, 1,688, or 62.2 percent, were certified. All 57 of the nation’s technical colleges were accredited.

The system will be introduced to prevent a divide in educational opportunities, as the percentage of people who go on to higher education is lower among low-income households. However, some people argue that the system should not serve as a life raft for financially stricken private universities.

In response, the ministry has created a benchmark: Incorporated entities that have liabilities in excess of assets, face payment deficits for three straight years and have a student enrollment of less than 80 percent of the school’s quota for three straight years are ineligible for the program.

“Of the universities and junior colleges that didn’t file applications, nearly 10 are believed to have judged that they couldn’t meet such administrative standards,” said an official of the ministry’s office for higher education support.

Medical and dental universities did not apply apparently because the upper limits on free tuition under the system meant their hefty tuition fees could not be covered.

Part of the revenue from an increase in the consumption tax rate from October will be used to make higher education free. The ministry estimates that up to about 750,000 people will be eligible for the program, and that the annual cost will be up to ¥760 billion.

■ Free higher education program

A program to waive or reduce the tuition and entrance fees of universities, junior colleges, vocational schools and technical colleges, while expanding grant-type financial aid, including for living expenses. Up to about ¥700,000 will be provided in annual tuition fees, and up to about ¥910,000 will be provided in grant-type financial aid. For example, in the case of a family with two parents and two children, the program will apply if the household makes an annual income of less than ¥3.8 million, in principle. Such households with an annual income of less than ¥2.7 million are exempted from residential tax. Speech

Source of the notice: https://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0006021575

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