Education

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A play-based and non-didactic approach to primary education

Anurag Behar
 

Vibrant classrooms with engaged teachers are an integral part of the New Education Policy vision

Puducherry has systematically gone about starting pre-primary classes in all its government primary schools. Anyone you ask there, they point to this levelling of the playing field as a key reason for enrolment increases in these schools, and the drop on that metric in private schools. Many teachers in Puducherry, on their own initiative, have expanded the “play-based» and “non-didactic» pedagogical approach of pre-primary classes to primary classes. Both these matters, on which action is visible in Puducherry, pre-empts the draft National Education Policy 2019 (NEP).

Gomathy was teaching class 3 at the Savarirayalu Government Primary School in Puducherry. The students were involved in addition of 3- and 4-digit numbers, working in five groups of five students each. Each group had some locally made (or very low-cost) pedagogical aids to help with the exercise. Observation made it clear that each group had a mix of students based on their comfort with the exercise. Gomathy ensured that students who were at ease with the problems did not dominate the proceedings and helped others who were struggling.

Energy was flowing in the class, with kids racing to their teacher for more problem sheets after finishing one. Gomathy explained how the school’s teachers had collectively decided to adopt a “cohort-teacher» approach, meaning the same teacher teaches a cohort of students all subjects as they progress from class to class, till they move out from primary school. This system is very useful in the early classes, when the basis of learning is primarily the relationship of trust and care between students and teachers. Learning from experience, they had tweaked this system to ensure that no cohort of students is put at a disadvantage by the cohort-teacher’s limitations.

Such vibrant, adequately resourced classrooms, with engaged teachers who have an empathetic relationship with their students, are an integral part of the NEP’s vision. So is the importance of empowerment of schools to take key educational decisions. It also highlights the centrality of the role of teachers, and the importance of “professional learning communities» of teachers.

Gomathy surprised me when she told me that she had translated Chapter 14 (National Research Foundation) of the NEP into Tamil. Her initiative and competence are not limited to school classrooms. She was as a part of a collective civil society exercise to translate the entire 484 pages of the NEP to Tamil. Later in the evening at a consultation meeting on the NEP, I saw the result of this remarkable effort—neatly printed Tamil versions of the Policy. About 40 people were involved in this effort, most of them government school teachers.

Over the course of the next three days, I was in three such meetings across the country, attended mostly by teachers and activists for public education. These were lively discussions. There were several clarifications, many constructive suggestions, a few disagreements, and a widespread acknowledgement of the much-needed transformations of Indian education that the NEP lays out. With hundreds of such points of feedback, the NEP in its final form will surely be significantly improved.

In sharp contrast to such constructive engagement is the reaction of some educationists. Many have read non-existent sections and intentions into the draft. As an example, many have seen the horrors of commercialization and privatization writ in the NEP, despite the painstaking effort of the committee to underline the importance of public education. Others are exhibiting narcissism of small differences. Both sets are being irresponsible to the very causes that they have fought for most of their lives. Because most of these causes, fought and advocated by almost everyone committed to a vibrant public education system, including these educationists, are now integral to the NEP.

Such educationists also seem to be losing sight of the fundamental nature of public policymaking—always an exercise in negotiation and balance between contending perspectives. Education in our country is a tricky battlefield. Any policy initiative that manages to stick to basic principles and succeeds in avoiding egregious mistakes or surrendering to fringe interests is definitely a success. The Kasturirangan committee has done more; while avoiding such mistakes with remarkable diligence, it has actually created a blueprint for what most in education have for decades wished for.

The final word goes to one of the wisest and most competent of public administrators in the country, who wryly commented at the end of a consultation meeting with a large group of powerful people in education, “If so many people with deep vested interests are dead against the NEP, it must be absolutely the right thing to do; let’s implement it immediately.»

Until our public intellectuals of whatever hue, liberal, left, centrist or right leaning, are more thoughtful about the reality of policymaking, are alive to the political moment, and are intellectually non-partisan, policymakers will continue to be very suspicious of experts. And that is not good for society in the long run.

Source of the article: https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/opinion-a-play-based-and-non-didactic-approach-to-primary-education-1563384928852.html

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Primary school teachers want to see Sats scrapped

Sally Weale

By: Sally Weale.

A resounding 97% would like a ‘sensible alternative’ to the high-stakes attainment tests

A resounding 97% of primary school teachers would like to see high-stakes Sats tests scrapped, according to the largest poll undertaken on the subject.

More than 54,000 primary members of the National Education Union (NEU) took part in an indicative ballot last month. The vast majority said they supported their leaders’ campaign for “a sensible alternative” to the national standard attainment tests, which they say are damaging children and narrowing the curriculum.

The NEU said the result sent a clear message to the government that the assessment system must change. The results of a second question on the ballot paper, asking whether members would be prepared to take industrial action and boycott Sats, have not yet been released.

The NEU’s national executive will meet later this week to consider the next steps in their campaign, including industrial action, though the 39% response rate (more than 140,000 ballot papers were issued) would not meet the government’s industrial action ballot threshold.

The teachers’ poll coincides with the publication on Tuesday of the key stage 2 Sats results for 600,000 10- and 11-year-olds in England who took tests in reading, maths and spelling, punctuation and grammar (Spag) in May.

The tests are used by the government to assess school performance and hold schools to account. The NEU argues that young children should not be tested as it leads to hothousing, stress for both pupils and teachers, and a narrowing of the curriculum.

Kevin Courtney, the NEU’s joint general secretary, said the union’s indicative ballot showed there was “resounding support” for a change to primary assessment. “Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Green party all have major concerns about our Sats-dominated system and have pledged to change it.

“Government now needs to listen, and to accept the need to change a culture in which too many classrooms are dominated by teaching to the test, at the expense of the learning and wellbeing of our children.”

The schools minister, Nick Gibb, dismissed the ballot, saying that scrapping Sats would be a backward step. “The NEU’s indicative ballot does not even represent half their members, let alone the whole teaching profession.

“These tests have been part of school life since the 90s and have been pivotal in raising standards in our primary schools. Abolishing these tests would be a terrible, retrograde step. It would enormously damage our education system and undo decades of improvement in children’s reading and maths.”

Jeremy Corbyn received a standing ovation when he announced to teachers gathered at the NEU’s annual conference in April that his party would scrap Sats. Delegates at the conference voted in favour of a ballot over a possible boycott of Sats tests, seeing off an amendment from the executive arguing that a ballot was not the most appropriate tactic.

Responding to the NEU ballot, the shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner, said: “These results should send the government a clear message that Sats aren’t working for teachers or pupils, and it’s about time they listened.”

More Than a Score, a campaigning group of parents, teachers and education experts, said: “It’s not right or accurate to base a school’s overall performance on the test results of primary-age children. There are more supportive ways to assess children and fairer ways to measure schools, without the need to turn pupils into data points.”

Source of the article: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/jul/09/primary-school-teachers-want-to-see-sats-scrapped

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Australia: Sending new teachers to difficult schools could be driving them out of the profession

Noticias

Oceania/ Australia/ 16.07.2019/By: Michael McGowan/ Source: www.theguardian.com.

Teachers’ union says poor job security and lack of autonomy contribute to teachers leaving the field early

Up to half of all new teachers in Australia leave the profession in the first five years and a new report identifies a possible reason: programs which encourage sending novices into the country’s most challenging schools.

An annual survey of teachers around the world highlighted teacher shortages as “one of the most pressing problems faced by current education systems”.

The report pointed to Australia – where between 30% and 50% of teachers leave the profession in the first five years – as one of the most glaring examples of how placing early-career teachers in “challenging schools” affects attrition.

Teacher retention has long been a problem for Australian schools. Australian Bureau of Statistics data consistently show that many people who hold a teaching degree do not work in education, and in 2014 a government reportestimated that 20% of education graduates do not register as teachers on graduating.

In its submission to a parliamentary inquiry into the status of teaching last year, the Australian Education Union blamed job security, lack of professional autonomy and being forced to teach out-of-field for extended periods for early-career teachers leaving the profession.

Australia funds a number of programs at state and federal levels which send early-career teachers to schools in regional and remote areas, as well as areas with a lower socioeconomic status.

For example, since 2009 Australia has spent millions of dollars funding the controversial Teach for Australia program which places non-teaching graduates in regional or low socioeconomic schools.

Last year Guardian Australia revealed the Australian Capital Territory had cut ties with the program over what it said was a lack of value for money, citing retention rates as one of the main reasons.

Released by the OECD on Wednesday night in Australia, the Teachers and School Leaders as Lifelong Learners report suggested sending early-career teachers into difficult school environments could contribute to the problem.

“Several education systems have introduced financial incentives to attract teachers into schools with more challenging circumstances, with mixed results and little evidence of the effect of such measures on teacher allocation across schools,” it said.

“One solution to reduce attrition in the early years is, thus, to review how novice teachers are distributed across schools, with a view to assigning them to less challenging working environments in their first placements.”

It suggested redirecting incentives to later-career teachers, which would potentially help foster equity “as students in challenging schools would be taught by more experienced teachers”.

The report also found teaching was the first-choice career for only 58% of teachers in Australia compared with 67% across the OECD countries, and that although Australia had a higher-than-average proportion of female teachers, that was not backed up in leadership positions.

It also revealed that Australian teachers were more concerned about increasing support staff to limit administrative burden than about individual pay.

Source of the notice: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jun/20/sending-new-teachers-to-difficult-schools-could-be-driving-them-out-of-the-profession

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Growing Through Education in Nigeria

Noticias

Africa/ Nigeria/ 16.07.2019/ Source: blogs.imf.org.

Our chart of the week, drawn from the IMF’s 2019 economic health check for Nigeria, highlights substantial inequality in access to education between girls and boys, and between rich and poor.

It is widely accepted that addressing educational gaps results in rapid and large benefits for children, their families, communities, and the country more broadly.

Limited schooling for girls

According to a survey conducted by the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics, a girl born into a Nigerian family in the poorest fifth of society spends about 1 year in school—approximately a third of the already limited schooling enjoyed by, say, her brother.

Access to education improves as a family gets richer, but gender inequality in education is entrenched and barely disappears for the richest 20 percent of households.

We believe that closing gender gaps in education across all income groups could boost GDP by 5 percent in one generation. It would lower income inequality by 2¼ points as measured by the Gini coefficient—a reduction that many countries strive to achieve over decades.

Spending beyond education

The government and development partners all recognize that more resources and structural changes are needed to improve access to education and make it more equitable.

Adequate funding for teachers and schools can help raise the quality of education. But spending beyond the classroom can also yield educational benefits. For example, investments in safe access to water and sanitation facilities will improve health and therefore learning opportunities for all kids, while giving an extra boost to school attendance. Mobilizing revenue through, for instance, comprehensive VAT reform and improved tax administration will be critical to fund these efforts.

Other reforms require few additional resources and are important in shaping priorities. Passing into law the Gender and Equal Opportunities Bill and implementing a Children’s Rights Act are examples of legal changes that would put equality of opportunity on the statute books—a move which would have a positive impact for generations to come.

Source of the notice: https://blogs.imf.org/2019/06/24/growing-through-education-in-nigeria/

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Japan to boost education support for non-native children

Noticias

Asia/ Japan/ 16.07.2019/ Source: asia.nikkei.com.

 

Japan will provide more support for educating children of foreign nationals from early childhood through high school, including by increasing Japanese-language classes, under a plan released Monday.

The education ministry’s proposals follow changes in April to immigration law that allow certain foreign workers to bring family with them to Japan. Schools had already been facing a rise in students learning Japanese as a second language, prompting criticism that efforts on this front were lagging.

Monday’s plan, which calls for working «to ensure that all children of foreign nationals have educational opportunities,» seeks to provide seamless support to learners from preschoolers to job-seeking international students.

It proposes multi-language guides to ensure parents have information on how to enroll students at kindergartens and elementary schools.

Public schools are to receive more teachers for Japanese as a second language as well as aides who speak the languages of foreign students. Some schools currently have no such staff. Regions with a shortage of human resources will use translation and distance-learning systems.

Public high schools will be asked to give special considerations for Japanese-language learners when taking admissions tests, such as making it easier to read kanji characters and allowing the children to bring dictionaries into the exam rooms.

The ministry proposes creating an evening middle school program in every prefecture and major city for those who could not receive compulsory education in their home countries.

The initiative also will help international students in higher education find jobs in Japan, proposing the certification of collaboration programs between universities and businesses.

The plan covers Japanese-language learners of all ages.A 14-language online curriculum for self-study will be developed for residents of areas that lack easy access to Japanese-language classes

Source of the notice: https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Japan-immigration/Japan-to-boost-education-support-for-non-native-children2

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Labour must be bold, and finally abolish private schools

Steven Longden

By: .

These schools are core to Britain’s inequality problem. Labour should emulate Finland and integrate them into state education

As a teacher of ethics, philosophy and religion at a Manchester comprehensive school, students often ask me why politicians allow 7% of children in this country to access exclusive schools that enable them to dominate the top professions – schools whose main entrance criteria is the size of parents’ bank accounts. These days, I usually answer, “because the politicians are wrong”.

I sometimes inform my students of the latest Sutton Trust reports which highlight that 65% of senior judges, 49% of armed forces officers, 44% of newspaper columnists and 29% of MPs are all privately educated. Being a good teacher, I integrate maths into my subject and get them to work out the extent to which private school students are disproportionately represented in these professions. You should see the disheartened looks on their faces.

I tell them not to lose hope and that there is something called “social mobility”, which means that if they work really hard, get to university and then work hard in their careers they might be lucky enough to get one of those remaining top jobs that haven’t gone to the privately educated. They don’t look convinced. The Social Mobility Commission wasn’t convinced back in 2017 either, which is why its commissioners resigned en masse a year and a half ago.

I’d hoped under Jeremy Corbyn that my party would have been up for finishing off what Clement Attlee failed to do after the second world war: phase out private schools. There was a welcome commitment in Labour’s last manifesto to add VAT to private school fees, but the impact of this will be minimal and certainly won’t hasten the demise of private schools.

Labour’s pledge to create a National Education Service is exciting. The party has published a National Education Service charter that commits it to “tackling structural, cultural and individual barriers which cause and perpetuate inequality”. Earlier this year, Corbyn quite rightly pledged to focus on promoting social justice rather than social mobility, but I was bemused by the silence on private schools. How, precisely, does one tackle structural inequalities in England without phasing out private schools? Are we serious about these inequalities or just tinkering?

In the past Labour has missed opportunities to integrate private schools into the state sector – we can’t let that happen again. That’s why we have launched the Labour Against Private Schools campaign. Our first goal is to make the full integration of private schools into the state education system official party policy, by getting a motion passed in support of this at Labour’s annual conference this September.

There are models of excellent education systems that exist without private schools. Finland is often held up as a system that consistently achieves some of the best educational outcomes across Europe and the OECD countries. In Finland, private schools were effectively brought into the comprehensive education system over the course of a decade. It is time England started to seriously plan a school system without private schools, so that in the future teachers like me can look their students in the eye and tell them that this country has removed one of the biggest barriers that the richest people erected to unfairly advantage their progeny.

So I am proud to tell my students that I am a founding member of the Labour Against Private Schools campaign, and that I will do everything I can to encourage the Labour leadership to commit to dismantling the private schools sector that continues to uphold gross levels of inequality in this country.

Source of the article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/09/labour-phase-out-private-schools-britain-inequality-finland

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Congo: UNICEF DRC Humanitarian Situation Report May 2019

Documentos

Africa/ Congo/ 10.07.2019/ Source: reliefweb.int.

During the month of May 2019, 8,795 school aged boys and girls (5 to 17 years) affected by crisis received learning materials

• In May 2019, a total of 83,896 persons benefited from a WASH package delivered by UNICEF partners, of which 23,544 people affected by ongoing conflicts, 60,117 persons affected or at risk of cholera epidemics

• In May 2019, a total of 11,105 children (5,174 girls, or 47%) affected by conflict received a child protection assistance

• Ebola outbreak: as of 26 May 2019, 1,920 total cases of Ebola, 1,826 confirmed cases and 1,187 deaths linked to Ebola have been recorded in the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri.

Situation Overview & Humanitarian Needs

• The latest nutrition surveillance and early warning system sheet as of April 2019, reveals that 49 out of 452 (10.8%) health zones are in alert. The most affected province is Kasai central (with 13 health zones out of 26), Kasai (with 6 out of 19), Kwango (5 out of 14), Sankuru (5 for each out of 19) and Kwilu (5 out of 24). The results of nutritional surveys conducted in the health zones of Camp de Meri and ABA (Haut Uele province); Biringi (Ituri province) and Yumbi (Mai Ndombe province), have been validated. The key results are summarized in the table below:

Provinces Health zones GAM prevalThe nutritional situation is considered most worrying in Yumbi health zone in Mai Ndombe province with a GAM rate of 16.5% and a SAM of 5.0%.

• As of March 31, 2019, Tanganyika has 480,283 IDPs and 669,141 returnees over the last 18 months. 12 IDP sites are located around the city of Kalemie with an estimated population of 72,618 people. To date, 5% of IDPs in camps have access to health care. Response capacities in WASH and education is required with a long-term perspective as UNICEF’s humanitarian interventions are implemented for the last two years in the affected sites.

• In May 2019, in the Kasai region, the Kamwina Nsapu conflict led to the looting of 653 schools and 223 heath centers.

• In South Kivu, 125,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) and 10,000 returnees have been identified in Minembwe Highlands, following intercommunity conflicts between the Fuliro and Bembe group against the Banyamulenge Twagineho.

• As of May 2019 in South Kivu, 9,284 households have been displaced in Uvira territory and Ramba health zone as a result of conflicts between the Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC) and militia groups.

• Ebola outbreak: as of 26 May 2019, 1,920 total cases of Ebola, 1,826 confirmed cases and 1,187 deaths linked to Ebola have been recorded in the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri.

Link de descarga del documento: 

UNICEF DRC Humanitarian Situation Report MAY 2019

Source of the document: https://reliefweb.int/report/democratic-republic-congo/unicef-drc-humanitarian-situation-report-may-2019

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