Education

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Labour must be bold, and finally abolish private schools

Steven Longden

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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

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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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New Zealand: Education Minister Chris Hipkins refuses ‘crisis’ meeting with ECE groups

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Oceania/ New Zealand/ 09.07.2019/ Source: www.rnz.co.nz.

Four groups representing early childhood centres and kindergartens are seeking an urgent meeting with Education Minister Chris Hipkins.

The Early Childhood Council, Te Rito Maioha, New Zealand Kindergartens and Montessori Aotearoa New Zealand said services were struggling to survive because of chronic underfunding and a shortage of qualified teachers.

The chief executive of the Early Childhood Council, Peter Reynolds, said early childhood centres were in a financial crisis and the 1.8 percent increase to subsidies included in the most recent government Budget was nowhere near enough.

«We’ve had over a decade of cuts, 1.8 percent just really doesn’t do it though we’re grateful for anything we can get, but you’ve got services going to the wall,» Mr Reynolds said.

«I’ve got centres where the owner-operator of the business hasn’t taken any drawings out of their business for the last several years at least. I’ve got centres where one person’s telling me as the centre manager that she’s earning less than the maintenance person.»

Mr Reynolds said his organisation and three others, Te Rito Maioha, New Zealand Kindergartens and the Montessori Association had asked the Education Minister, Chris Hipkins, for an urgent meeting without Ministry of Education staff present.

«We want to talk to the minister directly, we want to have an off-the-record conversation and we want to get a very clear idea about what the minister has proposed to do and by when.»

Mr Reynolds said early childhood services needed to see a light at the end of the tunnel and it needed to be realistic.

Services could not simply make more money by increasing their fees because many parents could not afford to pay more for early childhood education, he said.

Mr Reynolds said the minister had turned down the request for a meeting and asked for further information, which was highly disappointing.

Mr Hipkins said he had asked for a detailed breakdown of key issues «as a means of facilitating further talks».

He said the government had increased early childhood subsidies by 1.6 percent this year and 1.8 percent next year, which was significantly more than the sector had received since 2009.

Mr Hipkins said the ministry did not hold figures on the early learning workforce but there was «a clear tightening of teacher supply».

But the chief executive of Te Rito Maioha, which represents several hundred services, Kathy Wolfe, said government had not done enough to deliver on pre-election promises such as raising the minimum number of teachers required to work with children under the age of two, and re-introducing a higher rate of funding for services where all teachers were qualified, registered teachers.

Ms Wolfe said early childhood services felt the government had put them in a holding pattern and many were struggling while they waited for things to improve.

«We have had members closing their centres over the last few years due to the financial crisis,» she said.

Ms Wolfe said many centres had used their financial reserves and the government needed to significantly improve subsidies for the sector.

«Just to meet the shortfall of funding from the last seven years we need the government to inject 7 percent into the sector just to catch up, that’s about $130 million.»

The owner of six early childhood centres, Maria Johnson, said the entire sector was struggling and one of the biggest problems was a shortage of qualified teachers.

«We are really struggling at the moment with a number of things, particularly the massive, massive shortage of teachers in the sector, not just the qualified teachers but teachers with a real understanding of our early childhood curriculum,» she said.

«Our staff just aren’t paid what they should be getting paid.»

Ms Johnson said the sector was badly under-funded and some centres had been forced to close while her own centres had increased their fees.

The government needed to increase subsidies in a way that ensured the money went to teachers’ pay and to improving the quality of education, she said.

Many people in early childhood had hoped a Labour-led government would make significant changes but that had not happened yet, she said.

Education Ministry figures showed 83 early childhood services closed last year and 82 closed in 2017, an increase in the roughly 50 a year that closed in most of the preceding years.

Meanwhile, the number of new services last year reached its lowest point since 2007 at 146.

Source of the notice: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/393873/education-minister-chris-hipkins-refuses-crisis-meeting-with-ece-groups

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Victoria to ban mobile phones in all state primary and secondary schools

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Oceania/ Australia/ 08.07.2019/ Source: www.theguardian.co.

 

Education minister James Merlino announces move aimed at reducing classroom distraction and cyberbullying

Students at Victorian public schools will be banned from using their phones from next year.

In an effort to reduce distractions and cyber bullying, and hopefully improve education outcomes, students will have to switch off their phones and store them in lockers during school hours until the final bell, the education minister, James Merlino, has announced.

In case of an emergency, parents or guardians can reach their child by calling the school.

The only exceptions to the ban will be where students use phones to monitor health conditions, or where teachers instruct students to bring their phone for a particular classroom activity.

“This will remove a major distraction from our classrooms, so that teachers can teach, and students can learn in a more focused, positive and supported environment,” Merlino said.

“Half of all young people have experienced cyberbullying. By banning mobiles we can stop it at the school gate.”

The ban will start from term one in 2020.

Some Victorian schools had already banned mobile phones, but the new laws impose a statewide ban for the first time.

McKinnon Secondary College, a high performing public school in Melbourne’s south-east, was among those that banned phones from its grounds.

The principal, Pitsa Binnion, said the school had “observed improved social connections, relationships and interactions” at lunchtime and that students were “more focused”.

It also comes amid a push from the federal education minister, Dan Tehan, for states to adopt the move.

The Victorian policy goes further than the ban imposed in NSW at the end of last year, which was was limited to all state primary schools.

Teachers unions in New South Wales expressed scepticism at the ban, which they said would be ineffective and would limit the ability of students to learn how use their phones safely and responsibly. The Catholic education office had also opposed the ban when it was floated in NSW.

But principals have also acknowledged that managing smartphones had been a big challenge for schools.

The child psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg welcomed the Victorian policy. “All schools have a legal obligation to provide a safe environment in which to learn,” he said.

“This significant policy initiative is designed to ensure the wellbeing of young people while at school, free of distraction and potentially cyberbullying.”

The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, had dismissed a ban when asked about McKinnon Secondary College’s new policy last year.

“This is school-by-school issue and they have made their choice,’’ he said at the time.

“Individual schools will make these choices. On a matter like this, and indeed many other matters, it is not for us to be directing schools.”

Victoria’s Liberal opposition had first proposed a phone ban in February last year.

The opposition’s education spokesman, Tim Smith, suggested Labor was “endorsing” the Liberals policy.

“Let’s see what the [Australian Education Union] says,” he said in a tweet.

The party’s former leader, Matthew Guy, said in a tweet on Tuesday night that “policy imitation is the greatest form of flattery”.

Source of the notice: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jun/25/victoria-to-ban-mobile-phones-in-all-state-primary-and-secondary-schools

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Japan’s junior high school teachers face longest average working hours in OECD survey

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Asia/ Japan/ 08.07.2019/ Source: www.japantimes.co.jp

 

Japanese junior high school teachers worked the longest hours on average among 48 countries and regions surveyed by the OECD, it said Wednesday.

Junior high teachers in the country worked 56 hours per week on average, compared with 38.3 hours a week among all of the participants in the “2018 Teaching and Learning International Survey.”

It is the second time in a row that the OECD has found that Japanese teachers work the longest hours, and their hours increased an average of 2.1 hours from the previous survey in 2013.

Similarly, primary school teachers in Japan worked 54.4 hours a week, longer than their peers in 15 countries and economies surveyed.

The survey for Japan was conducted by the Paris-based institution from February to March 2018, with questionnaires sent to 3,568 junior high school teachers, 3,321 elementary school teachers and around 400 principals.

The education ministry decided in January to cap overtime for teachers at 45 hours per month, or 360 hours over 12 months.

A junior high school teacher spent an average of 7.5 hours per week on students’ extracurricular club activities, compared with the overall average of 1.9 hours a week, while administrative work took up 5.6 hours, compared with the total average of 2.7 hours.

Primary school teachers in Japan spent longer on planning, preparing lessons and paperwork than those in other countries. Such teachers devoted an average of 0.6 hour to extracurricular activities.

Japan’s new curriculum guidelines promote deeper learning through independent and interactive means, but the percentage of secondary school teachers who frequently or always gave “tasks that require students to think critically” was 12.6 percent, the lowest figure and a far cry from the 61 percent average among all the countries surveyed.

Further, only 16.1 percent of teachers in Japan presented “tasks for which there is no obvious solution,” compared with the 37.5 percent average among all the countries surveyed.

A 57-year-old teacher at a public junior high school in Saitama Prefecture said much of the overtime at his school is not recorded. As a veteran teacher, he is loaded with tasks, such as helping managers and taking care of younger teachers. He arrives at work just after 6 a.m. and finishes work at 7 p.m. at the earliest. On his busiest days, he works until around 9 p.m. He sometimes has to clear his backlog of work before and after the school’s extracurricular activities that he supervises on weekends.

A board of education in his local area has set a goal of not exceeding 80 hours of overtime per month, which is regarded as the threshold for karōshi, or death caused by overwork. His school introduced a system to keep track of teachers’ work hours about six months ago.

The teacher’s amount of monthly overtime topped 80 hours in April, yet his managers only prodded him to leave work as early as possible, and the school has shown little intention of overhauling teachers’ assignments in detail.

The man has since learned to record fewer hours than he has actually worked. Many of his colleagues do likewise.

“The number of work hours has decreased, when you take it at face value,” the teacher said. “But that is meaningless.”

Another teacher at a public junior high school in Tokyo said he now has reduced workloads related to extracurricular activities and other tasks.

But the 35-year-old still works 80 to 100 hours of overtime per month. He said he spends a lot of time attending to students’ parents and other things.

“The amount of work for teachers has been increasing for the sake of students. We should consider what it really means to ‘serve students well’ and review our work,” he said.

Source of the notice: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/06/20/national/japans-junior-high-school-teachers-face-longest-average-working-hours-oecd-survey/#.XSKS9OgzbIU

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Can homeschooling replace formal education in Egypt?

Reseñas

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Collection of testimonies and experiences of parents as well as educators on homeschooling

Alternatives to formal education are on the rise, homeschooling became one of the alternatives available to parents, allowing them a chance to offer a richer, more personalised educational experience than any of traditional school curriculum can.

Nouha Hafez, one of the parents –currently working in an academy offering homeschooling option– who decided tread on that path. She believes that homeschooling her son Ali, allowed him to be less stressed, and unleash his talents.

Another parent, Nesma share a similar view, Nesma felt the long hours her children spent at school with a poor curriculum and a lack of activities were of no benefit to them, and that now her daughter became more eager to study.

However, Egypt doesn’t recognise homeschooling, and the children has to be enrolled in a school, the only option available for them to be homeschooled, is to be enrolled in a school that allow them to enroll without attendance, they only need to go take the exams in such school.
According to Kamel Mogheith, an educational expert, modern technology made homeschooling more efficient, as social media allowed better communication between homeschooled students and their tutors.

Furthermore, Moustafa Farouk who currently is the head of an academy that offer homeschooling option to the parent, said that the idea started when he faced problems with the schools where her kids are enrolled at. So he decided to look for alternative options, and review the experience from different countries.

Another parent, says that his daughter personalty has changed, as she became more interested in learning, not out of fear of punishment, but instead she became eager to learn.

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New Zealand: Polytechnic reforms damage international students

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Oceania/ New Zealand/ 01.07.2019/ Source: www.scoop.co.nz.

The Government’s proposed tertiary reforms have gone much further than first thought, and could damage New Zealand’s international students, National’s Tertiary Education spokesperson Dr Shane Reti says.

“The international student market, worth $500 million, is at risk under the polytechnic reforms.

“A perfect storm is brewing around our international polytechnic market, including domestic uncertainty, branding uncertainty and delayed visa processing in Mumbai.

“International students are vital to polytechnics and the New Zealand economy. But in the Cabinet document outlining the reforms, which was leaked to National, barely three sentences were given to international students.

“The sector is very concerned that key parts of the international student journey, including local recruitment may be taken by the new mega polytechnic head office.

“Even Education Minister Chris Hipkins was concerned when his officials urgently asked how the reforms were being received in the Chinese market.

“The sector and the market urgently needs clarity and stability, way beyond three sentences. The Minister needs to bite the bullet and lay out detailed plans.”

Source of the notice: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1906/S00275/polytechnic-reforms-damage-international-students.htm

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