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Our teachers and schools aren’t fit for sex education

By: Martin Williams.

 

Studies have found South African teachers unable to understand what they teach, including simple arithmetic and language.

Despite an unconvincing denial by the basic education department, there are plans to spruce up sex education for pre-adolescent children.

At what age that includes masturbation lessons remains unclear. Unsurprisingly the Sunday Times report, “Sex lessons for modern Grade 4s …” provoked outrage, ridicule and a touch of humour.

In a variation of an old Smirnoff advertisement, one nine-year-old says to another: “I thought Wankeng was a place in China, before I started Grade 4.”

How shocking that a child of that age would know anything about China.

After all, South African kids are among the world’s dunces. A Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (Pirls) report in 2016 showed 78% of South African Grade 4 children cannot read for meaning in any language. Bottom of the class, internationally.

We also specialise in pit latrines and teenage pregnancies. At last count there were 3,898 pit latrines in SA schools. Some have proved fatal. In 2017 there were more than 97,000 births to teenage mothers in South Africa, according to StatsSA. More than 3,000 of these girls were aged between 10 and 14. The number of abortions for teenage mothers is unclear, but there is much sexual activity among schoolchildren.

Not all the biological fathers in these instances are schoolboys. There are reports of teachers impregnating schoolgirls.

Now Life Orientation textbooks have been overhauled to be more relevant for pupils. The basic education department reportedly hired “celebrity sex therapist” Dr Marlene Wasserman (Dr Eve), among others, to help develop a “cutting-edge” life orientation curriculum for grades 4 to 12.

Not everyone agrees that young children should be taught at school about masturbation. Even supporters of sex education must concede that priorities seem skewed when kids aren’t learning to read properly.

The hype about a cutting-edge curriculum ignores the quality of teaching. While many teachers are of the highest calibre, there are problems, including sexual abuse, absenteeism and alcohol consumption.

Last month Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga expressed concern that the trend of teacher absenteeism is growing. Studies have found teachers unable to understand what they teach, including simple arithmetic and language. Yet the SA Democratic Teachers’ Union consistently refuses competency tests for members.

So the question arises, are SA teachers in general capable of implementing cutting-edge sex education? If neither the teachers nor the children are up to scratch, how will they interpret lessons that begin with a yoga pose and a “mindfulness exercise” and proceed to masturbation.

Crime in schools is part of the mix and this insecure environment is an obstacle to the fourth industrial revolution. It’s not conducive to healthy sex education. The combination proposed free tablet devices and masturbation classes prompted this tweet: “Result? Kids wank to internet porn. Such progressive thinking”.

Is a cutting-edge curriculum designed by celebrity sex therapists appropriate here, given the state of SA schools?

Source of the article: https://citizen.co.za/news/opinion/opinion-columns/2130702/our-teachers-and-schools-arent-fit-for-sex-education/

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Why education must keep pace with technology to stay relevant

The information-technology revolution over the last few decades represents the latest development in the innate desire of humankind throughout its history to thrive at an optimal level through the use of technology.

We now take for granted instant access to information anywhere on the planet, and the pace of advancement shows no sign of abating. Technology confined to the realms of science fiction and futuristic fantasy not that long ago is now embedded in our everyday life and is unfolding at a rapid pace.

The new kids on the block — artificial intelligence, big data with data log via AI, the “internet of things,” robotics and so forth — are even pushing us past the information-technology era. Self-driving cars, drones, artificial interpreters and care robots are just a few already in practical use.

As always, advancements bring challenges, not least of all in the field of education. Education has to keep pace with technology and utilize its benefits at the grassroots level — or risk creating a disparity between the classroom and the real world.

A working group under the umbrella of the Cabinet secretariat’s education reform council, of which I am a member, focuses on education innovation using advanced technology. The group meets every three or four weeks to discuss strategies to meet these challenges. One area of development that excites me is the possibility of producing personal records for each student containing their learning history. Using AI technology, such records could include continuous evaluations, achievements, health condition and more, from elementary to secondary and even to higher education.

Analyzing such information holds great potential. Students, for instance, could be offered a personalized study plan with suggested content identified to address their weaknesses as well as programs for improving their established strengths. A student who demonstrates manual dexterity could be made aware of that and guided into pathways leading to fulfilling opportunities in such fields as craftwork. A student with exceptional social skills could be made aware of possible careers in sales or services.

Such information could be particularly useful when choosing a field of study in higher education, and ultimately one’s career. Until now, university admission has been mainly determined by fixed points of observation and evaluation through testing. However, the method would enable an approach to observe students continually over a sustained period of time, helping to create a custom-made program for a student’s particular strengths and passions.

This continuous recording or portfolio approach could also be useful for businesses and improve the function of their human resources departments as they decide where best to place their newly employed college graduates.

The son of one of my friends recently quit his job two years after being appointed to the general affairs department because his strengths and personality were not suited for such a post. This had a devastating impact on his confidence and self-esteem.

This is not a rare case. Many high school students are advised to apply for any field of study in higher education depending on the level of their academic scores. It is not unusual for a student to apply for law at one university, economics at another, literature at yet another and even education at a fourth. Evaluating a personal portfolio record with AI would thankfully make this kind of practice in university admission a thing of the past.

Another area where technology can bring about dramatic and significant changes is with regard to resources made available to students at schools. Up until now, textbooks have been the main and almost only resource being used in classrooms. But technology offers a huge range of resources such as apps, YouTube videos and other online content. All of these can support students to have deeper and broader understanding in their learning.

Of course the proliferation of such resources requires that a new set of critical thinking skills should be developed; new and constantly changing information must be critically appraised for trustworthiness and appropriateness.

It is inconceivable that any school utilizing new technology would not have the support of IT engineers or technicians. Installing apps to support downloading resources, managing and running servers for information, sharing information with students to provide a network that respects privacy, and so on, means the work will be extensive. The support of IT sectors should be requested so that engineers would be dispatched to help such work at public schools.

The government should not be tempted to order schools to use teachers to take on IT roles of any kind in addition to their teaching task. It is no secret that teachers at Japanese public schools work notoriously long hours, in fact more than in any other OECD country. Implementation of advanced technology for education requires specialist skills, which take years to develop.

It is essential that manpower is made available to provide material for teachers to use in the classroom. The material should be derived from a wide array of resources and follow the national curriculums for every grade.

If this manpower cannot be provided, then a solid resource database updated almost daily can be provided for teachers to use. Teachers should be able to scan the database with ease and choose the content suitable for their class to use.

The challenge is to bring the latest technology effectively into schools and at the same time allow teachers to concentrate on the important job for which they are trained: nurture and care for our future generations

Source of the article: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2019/01/31/commentary/japan-commentary/education-must-keep-pace-technology-stay-relevant/#.XPWFl9IzbMx

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Infancy and early childhood matter so much because of attachment

  1. By: Nikki Martyn.

We are born to connect. As human beings we are relational and we need biological, emotional and psychological connection with others.

We learn how to connect and create the patterns we form during our infancy and early childhood.

These patterns and experiences become embodied in us and become the way we understand how the world and people work. Such early experiences with our primary caregivers teach us what to expect throughout life.

Attachment is the relational dance that parents and babies share together. You can think of this when you see a baby look at their parent and they catch each other’s eyes in a wonderful gaze: the parent smiles and the baby smiles and then the parent kisses and the baby coos. Or, when an infant cries to tell their parent they are hungry, and the parent picks up the baby and provides a warm cozy snuggle and the baby is satiated with a full heart and belly.

This is the dance that creates the framework for the interactions that we have our whole lives and how we understand love.

Babies need loving connection to thrive

René Spitz was a psychiatrist who studied infants and children in orphanages and prisons before Western medicine understood the importance of attachment or connection.

Through his research in the 1930s, Spitz discovered infants and children could die if they were not connected with or touched: they could receive adequate nutrition and health care, but fail to thrive from lack of loving contact.

Spitz filmed babies and toddlers who were deprived of healthy attachment and the images were used to promote changes in how institutions cared for infants and children. Today such images may seem profoundly disturbing and haunting.

How we learn to interact and engage with our primary caregivers is how we engage with people our whole lives. This is how fundamental relationships are to us.

Peek-a-boo is more than a game

Attachment is a relational process which builds throughout infancy and is established at eight months old when the child develops certain cognitive skills. The child develops the cognitive capacity for what educators call object permanence — the understanding of cause and effect, and that people and objects exist when we can’t see them. The child who loves the game peek-a-boo is in this stage of development.

Peek-a-boo is about understanding that people exist when we can’t see them. (Shutterstock)

What we learn throughout infancy and childhood are a set of behaviours and ways of thinking and feeling about ourselves and others, to understand how relationships work.

These are what psychologists call working models of the world, the schemas or views of the world the child develops.

For example, how a child understands what is happening if they are hit with a ball will reflect their working model. Do they think the other child hates them and is being mean or does the child who was hit think it was an accident?

A sense of safety or insecurity

These patterns of attachment or ways of understanding interactions are what we learn through our relationships with our caregivers.

A child develops a secure attachment (or relationship) to their parents when the child experiences the parents as safe to explore the world from. The parents’ ability to respond to the child sensitively when the child needs them is crucial to the child forming a secure attachment to them.

Attachment theory provides four categories or ways of understanding attachment behaviour: secure, insecure avoidant, ambivalent and disorganized.

The child with a secure attachment pattern has learned their emotional needs will be met. As an adult, this person finds it relatively easy to be close to others and doesn’t worry about closeness or being abandoned.

The child with an avoidant attachment pattern has learned the parent is not emotionally available and won’t respond when needed. As an adult this person is dismissive of emotions and relationships and doesn’t like to get too close to people.

The child with an ambivalent attachment pattern has learned the parent is sometimes attuned and sometimes emotionally unavailable. As an adult this person is preoccupied by relationships they often worry about being abandoned.

Finally, insecure disorganized attachment — believed to impact 15 per cent of the population — occurs when children have experienced a significant trauma. The child with a disorganized pattern of attachment expresses fear during interactions.

The parent’s attachment classification — the patterns of how they themselves interacted with their own parent — is often passed between generations. That means we tend to parent the way we were parented.

Attachment can shift

Attachment patterns can be different with each parent-child relationship. Patterns can change from insecure to secure.

A child can become more secure if a parent becomes more sensitive to the child’s cues. An adult can become more secure by having a significant relationship that allows them to trust the other to respond to their emotional needs.

Attachment can also change from secure to insecure if the person experiences stressful life events or if the parent becomes less emotionally available to the child.

A child can become more secure if a parent becomes more sensitive to the child’s cues. (Shutterstock)

Helping your child connect

Helping your child to build the foundations to create positive adaptive relationships with people throughout their whole life is important. Here are some tips:

Comfort your child when they are physically hurt, ill, upset, frightened or lonely.

Respond to and notice your child.

Give your child a sense of trust in the world and the people in it.

Share warm joyful experiences and memories and establish family traditions.

When you leave your child, let them know where you’re going and when you’ll be back and give them a security object to remember you.

Try to be as predictable and positive as possible when reacting to your child’s behaviour.

Physically play and share time, making eye contact, touching and sharing emotions.

Be aware of the amount of time your child is in front of or using technology. All experiences, including the use of technology, affect brain development.

Think about what you want or think is important for the adult you want your child to be. Provide the experiences in childhood to support that vision.

Source of the article: https://theconversation.com/amp/infancy-and-early-childhood-matter-so-much-because-of-attachment-117733

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Alabama: LGBTQ Visibility Isn’t Just Educational, It Is Vital Education

Por: bamapolitics.com/29-05-2019

The best educators don’t just reinforce the ideas we already know, they expand our boundaries of knowledge by exposing us to the real-life challenges and conditions that exist outside of our mental bubbles. To prepare our children for the future, they must be aware of the diversity that exists in the world outside of Alabama. They need to be fully exposed at an early age to families who speak other languages, have different religious views, and may have different familial structures than our own.

Diversity isn’t just important in a civilized society, but an important concept in the business world where the best ideas come from a wide array of minds. Children who aren’t exposed to diversity and taught to celebrate it are being set up to fail both at work and as responsible and productive citizens.

So, I was deeply disappointed – but not surprised, when Alabama Public Television (APTV) refused to air the Season 22 premiere episode of children’s cartoon Arthurcalled “Mr. Ratburn and the Special Someone” where Arthur’s teacher Mr. Ratburn gets married to his same-sex life partner Patrick.

After facing public backlash, Mark McKenzie (the Director of Programming at APTV) said the decision not to air the episode came down to airing programs that parents can ‘trust’ their children to watch. In an interview with People magazine, Marc Brown (the creator of the animated series) disagreed with their decision.

 «I’m really proud of that episode. And I will defend it to anybody who wants to talk about it. Why shouldn’t their teacher marry another man? We all know people who are gay, who are trans, and it’s something that is socially acceptable. Why is there this discomfort that it takes a leap into our national media? I don’t want children or people who are different to feel excluded. That’s not the kind of world we want to live in. And we want children to be educated so they can see there’s not just one type of family. Everyone should feel represented. I think we did that with Arthur.» Mac Brown

Roughly 10% of the world population (and that includes Alabama) identify as either lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ). What some describe as homosexual behavior has been observed in over 1,500 other animal species. Pretending the LGBTQ community (or any other minority) doesn’t exist not only damages our society as a whole, but it is deadly to the community who is marginalized and who are disproportionately suffering from violence, abuse, homelessness, and suicide.

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) recently released their annual Studio Responsibility Index (SRI) report that examines not only the visibility of LGBTQ characters in films but how those characters are portrayed. While great progress has been made in the seven years since SRI has been grading film studios, in 2018 out of the 110 releases from major studios only 20 (or 18.2%) of them included LGBTQ characters, and no studio has yet earned the top grade of excellent. According to their five-tier grading system, two studios received ‘failing’ ratings (Disney and Lionsgate) and three received ‘insufficient’ (Warner Brothers, Paramount, and Sony). The remaining two (Fox and Universal) received ‘good’ grades. It will be interesting to see now that Disney has acquired Fox how those grades may change next year.

The LGBTQ being represented accurately in the media isn’t just educational for those that are outside of our community, but it is vital education for the LGBTQ! I graduated from Huntsville High School in 1989 and the only visible students were two lesbians who were treated very harshly, and my first love committed suicide at the age of 15, which only drove me deeper into the closet of denial. I remained in the closet until after I joined the Navy and was finally exposed to people outside of the Alabama bubble. Until I was 20 years old, I honestly thought I was the only gay man in north Alabama. It sounds silly to say that aloud now, but because there was no LGBTQ visibility in the media, I felt alone, depressed and hopeless. I thought I was somehow broken, but it turned out that it was our society that was broken. Through exposure and education, that tide is now turning.

Because our state is so far behind on education, I do not support a boycott of donations to APTV, but I do ask people to please take time to express their views to them. The Parents and Friends of Lesbians And Gays (PFLAG) recently started a petition to thank PBS for airing the Arthur episode, so I have asked them to also forward all of those comments to APTV when completed and they agreed to do so. APTV could have taken a leading role in bettering our society through education, but unfortunately chose otherwise.

It is hard to find a member of the LGBTQ community who hasn’t been a victim of discrimination and in many cases much worse. The violence and suicide rate of LGBTQ has skyrocketed in recent years. And while one in five transgender Americans will experience homelessness at some point in their lives, the current administration is rolling back all of the legal protections for them.

My challenge to my fellow Americans and Alabamians: We have to not only deeply examine our own behavior against people who may be different than ourselves, but we must quickly put an end to victimizing the ‘other’ for political gain. There is an entire political party whose platform is based on irrational fear and marginalization of minorities, and many who try to mask their bigotry and racism under the cloak of their religion.

As a nation, we can’t fix a real problem that we refuse to even recognize as a problem and you don’t have to fully understand Constitutional Law to see the problem. The preamble to the United States Constitution states:

«We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.»

Preamble U.S. Constitution

However, before there was a Constitution there was the Declaration of Independence that stated:

«We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.»

Declaration of Independence

When we refuse to recognize an entire swath of our population, we are invalidating the very principles on which our great country was founded.

Our nation is not yet a ‘perfect Union’ but if we all come together as Americans, we can work towards achieving the goal that our founders envisioned. That all people are created equal by their creator, and that equal justice under the law is possible. That is a vision worthy of this nation, and of the world. Let’s work to make that a reality – and hopefully, APTV will eventually see the value in those founding principles.

Fuente de la información: https://www.bamapolitics.com/28438/lgbtq-visibility-educational-vital-education/

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School choice increases social segregation and inequity in education

Oceania/ Australia/ 28.05.2019/ Source: au.educationhq.com.

A new OECD report, Balancing School Choice and Equity, shows that school choice policies have increased social and academic segregation between schools which, in turn, reduced equity in education

Australia is a prime example of the impact of choice on social segregation in schools. School choice has been at the centre of education policy for the last 20 or more years. Australia now has one of the most socially and academically segregated school systems in the OECD and has highly inequitable education outcomes.

The OECD report looks at changes in school enrolments in countries that participated in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and examines the extent to which schoolchoice policies impacted on the social and academic segregation of students and on equity in education outcomes.

It concludes that school choice can benefit some students but, overall, it increases social segregation of students as choice is mostly used by middle-class and wealthy families:

Empirical results in this volume suggest that weakening the link between place of residence and school allocation is related to a higher level of school segregation by social status. Some resilient disadvantaged students may have access to schools that would otherwise be inaccessible if a strict residence-based policy were applied. But that, in itself, does not offset the social-sorting effects that result when it is mostly middle- or upper-class families that take advantage of school-choice policies. [pp. 11-12]

This social segregation is associated with increased inequity in education outcomes for disadvantaged students:

Panel estimates in this report show that an increase in the isolation of high achievers from other students is associated with lower scores in PISA amongst socio-economically disadvantaged students, without any significant impact on advantaged students. [p. 12]

Extent of school choice

The report considers school choice in terms of changes in the proportion of students in private schools and the extent to which students are allocated to schools according to residence. It also considers the degree of local school competition as perceived by school principals and the extent to which parents are actually able to exercise some form of school choice in systems where schools select students based on socio-economic status or academic ability.

According to PISA data, an average of 18 per cent of 15-year-old students across OECD countries were enrolled in a private school in 2015. This compares with 44 per cent in Australia. Australia has one of the highest proportions in the OECD and is only exceeded in Chile, Netherlands, Ireland and the UK. The report found little change in the proportion in most OECD countries between PISA 2000 and PISA 2015. However, the proportion in Australia increased by three percentage points between 2009 and 2015 which was one of the largest increases in OECD countries, exceeded only in Chile, the Czech Republic and the UK.

In almost all school systems, students are assigned to schools based, at least partly, on their home address. In Australia, 48 per cent of students are enrolled in schools where residence is considered for admission. This is larger than the average of 40 per cent across OECD countries but far lower than in many countries such as Canada (69 per cent), Finland (67 per cent), Norway (70 per cent) and the United States (66 per cent). In the majority of OECD countries that participated in PISA 2000 and PISA 2015, the proportion of students attending schools that consider residence for admissions fell, but there was no statistically significant change in Australia.

Despite a relatively high proportion of Australian students enrolled in schools where residence is a factor in admissions, there is also a very high degree of competition between schools. The report shows that Australia has the highest percentage of students in schools that compete with at least one other local school of all OECD countries except Belgium. Some 94 per cent of students in Australia are enrolled in such schools compared to the OECD average of 77 per cent and 35 per cent in Norway.

However, local competition does not always translate into more choice for parents. Choice may be restricted by several factors such as tuition fees as in private schools, access to transport and using prior student achievement as part of admission criteria. As the report notes:

Because of local competition, schools may be tempted to skim off the most affluent or highest-achieving students. Restricting enrolment to the most able students makes it easier for a school to rank high in public evaluations, thus maintaining its attractiveness to parents…. Low-achieving students may have little opportunity to choose schools if schools base their admissions on prior academic performance. [p. 34]

In Australia in 2015, 34 per cent of students were enrolled in secondary schools in which academic performance is always considered for admission. This was slightly lower than the average for the OECD of 39 per cent. In Denmark, Finland, Greece, Norway, Spain and Sweden less than 10 per cent of students were enrolled in selective schools. The rates are similar for public and private schools in Australia – 34 per cent and 35 per cent respectively – whereas it is much more common in private schools in most OECD countries. In 2015, selection of students on academic criteria was used more by private schools (56 per cent) than public schools (39 per cent) on average in OECD countries.

There was a large increase in the proportion of secondary schools in Australia using academic performance in admissions since 2009 when the percentage was 24 per cent In the case of lower secondary schools, the proportion doubled in Australia from 16 per cent to 33 per cent. The report notes that selectivity in admissions increased in many OECD countries over this period.

Thus, choice and competition between schools in Australia appears to have increased over the PISA cycles, certainly since 2009. A higher proportion of students are enrolled in private schools and a very high proportion are enrolled in schools facing competition from other schools in the local area. Concurrently, selectivity in enrolments by all schools, public and private, has increased significantly.

Choice and segregation

A major issue about increased school choice is the impact on the segregation of students by ability or socio-economic status. The evidence presented in the OECD report suggests that choice increases segregation because it is mostly middle- or upper-class families that take advantage of school-choice policies.

Empirical evidence from systems with country- or state-wide school-choice policies, such as Chile, New Zealand, Sweden and the United States, suggests that providing more opportunities may increase school stratification based on students’ ability, socio-economic status and ethnicity. [p. 20]

In addition, choice means a greater likelihood that the schools most in demand will screen (“cream skim”) for the most promising students – resulting in greater sorting of students by academic results. Evidence shows that selective admissions are a source of greater inequality and stratification within a school system.

The international evidence suggests that schools that are selective in their admissions tend to attract students with greater ability and higher socio-economic status, regardless of the quality of the education they provide. Given that high-ability students can be less costly to educate and their presence can make a school more attractive to parents, schools that can control their intake wind up with a competitive advantage. Allowing private schools to select their students thus gives these schools an incentive to compete on the basis of exclusiveness rather than on their intrinsic quality. [p. 82]

The OECD report uses a dissimilarity index to measure the extent of academic and social segregation between schools. This index ranges from 0 (no segregation) to 1 (full segregation). A high dissimilarity index means that the distribution of disadvantaged students across schools is different from that of students who are not considered to be disadvantaged.

Social segregation of disadvantaged students in Australia is extremely high compared to most other OECD countries. Australia has the 4th highest degree of social segregation amongst 35 OECD countries. Only Mexico, Chile and Hungary have greater social segregation of disadvantaged students than Australia.

The report also uses two other measures of social segregation between schools – the isolation index and the no-diversity index. Australia has a high degree of social segregation on both measures. It has the 5th highest degree of social segregation as measured by the isolation index for disadvantaged students and equal 4th highest as measured by the no-diversity index.

The no-diversity index allows for decomposition of sources of segregation. It shows that social segregation between public and private schools and social segregation between private schools is high compared to most other OECD countries while social segregation between public schools is less than the OECD average.

Segregation and equity in education

The report notes that there is widespread evidence that the social composition of a school impacts on the academic performance of its students. It says that a clear consensus has emerged from research studies on the detrimental impact of attending schools with many low achievers and the benefits of having high-achieving schoolmates.

….this evidence suggests that sorting students into schools by ability or social status may adversely affect both the efficiency and equity of the school system…. social and academic segregation in schools may create additional barriers to success for disadvantaged children and reduce equity in education. [p. 20]

Moreover:

School stratification may also have long-term negative consequences for social mobility. Disadvantaged students may develop biased education and career aspirations because of the absence of inspiring role models that are usually found in schools with a greater social mix. More generally, social stratification amongst schools may threaten social cohesion, as children are not accustomed to social or ethnic diversity. [p.21]

The report found added evidence of these effects from PISA 2015. It found that countries where schools were more socially segregated also had less-equitable education systems. Increasing social segregation amongst schools tends to widen the achievement gap between disadvantaged and advantaged students.

In 2015, countries where schools were less socially diverse also had less-equitable education Systems. [p. 67] Empirical evidence suggests that social segregation across schools is negatively correlated with equity in education…[p. 68]

Australia is one of those countries. It has high levels of choice, high competition between schools, high social segregation between schools and high inequity in education.

Balancing choice and equity

Choice of school is highly desired by many families. There can be no going back to totally residencebased admissions to schools. It would also mark a return to segregation in schools based on housing segregation. The issue is how to reduce social segregation and inequity in the presence of choice.

The report considers how school systems can combine sufficient flexibility to fulfil the aspirations of many parents to choose a school for their children and provide enough incentives for schools to improve the performance of all students without reducing equity in education. It says that governments should provide checks and balances to prevent choice from leading to more segregation of students.

One option is to design school catchment areas to ensure the equitable distribution of students between schools. This can be done by combining districts with different socio-demographic characteristics within a single catchment area.

Another option is to introduce specific criteria for the allocation of students across local schools. The criteria used by oversubscribed schools to select their incoming students should be monitored and regulated to prevent “cream skimming”.

Different forms of “controlled choice” have been used to reduce high levels of student segregation, for example, by reserving a given number or share of places in oversubscribed schools to students from different socio-demographic backgrounds to maintain a balanced distribution of students. The use of lottery systems to assign places in oversubscribed schools or formulae aimed to maintain a diverse student composition can also be considered.

Incentives can also be provided to schools to select disadvantaged students, such as weighted student-funding schemes that fund schools according to the socio-economic profile of their student populations. Many governments around the world have adopted such schemes. The Gonski funding model in Australia is one.

The report also suggests that in order to avoid unfair competition between public and private schools, all publicly funded schools should face the same regulations regarding tuition and admissions policies.

The conditions under which private schools are eligible for public subsidies influence the ways in which school-choice programmes affect the accessibility, quality and equity of the school system. Risk to equity can be mitigated if all publicly funded providers are required to adhere to the same regulations regarding tuition and admissions policies, and compliance with these regulations is monitored. Adequate accountability and transparency requirements are also important to ensure that subsidised private schools serve the public interest in providing high-quality education, and to provide parents with the information they need to evaluate different schools’ processes and outcomes. [p. 84]

Governments in Australia should consider how to minimise/reduce the impact of choice on social segregation and equity in education. Some key changes to consider are:

  • Tighten registration requirements for private schools;
  • Eliminate over-funding of private schools;
  • Increase funding loadings for disadvantaged students;
  • Investigate controlled choice models for public schools;
  • Review admission policies for high demand public schools;
  • Contain the growth of selective public schools;
  • Use urban planning and housing policy to develop more socially integrated neighbourhoods

Save Our Schools

Source of the notice: https://au.educationhq.com/news/59848/school-choice-increases-social-segregation-and-inequity-in-education/

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Somalia will turn off social media access to stop high school exam cheating

Africa/ Somalia/ 28.05.2019/ Source: 

African nations have increasingly taken to blocking social media access during protests and contentious elections. Now, Somalia is doing the same—to stop students cheating.

The government has announced it will shut down social media during upcoming national high school exams after officials at the ministry of education discovered papers were being sold and shared on social media platforms. Education cabinet secretary Abdullahi Godah Barre canceled tests that began last Saturday (May 11), postponing them to May 27 through May 31.

“During those five days, no social media outlet will function in the country,” Abdullahi said (link in Somali) during a broadcast on state television. Abdullahi didn’t specify which platforms were used to share the papers and which ones will be blocked.

The decision to delay the exams has sparked nationwide protests. The rescheduling will affect over 31,000 students across the Horn of Africa nation, which is struggling to rebuild (pdf) its education system after decades of war. Unqualified teachers, multiple curricula in different regions, and limited financial and technical resources are among the challenges, with many of the primary and secondary schools in the country managed by non-state providers.

Cutting off social media access to try control events is a growing trend across Africa. Just this year, DR CongoAlgeriaSudan, and Benin all cut off connectivity to platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp during crucial elections or anti-government protests. Citizens of Chad, meanwhile, haven’t had access to social networks for over a year. Recent research has shown that internet disruptions in Africa were correlated with authoritarianism, with dictatorships blocking access more than partial or full democratic states.

Mogadishu’s decision isn’t the first time social networks have been blocked in the country. Somaliland, the self-declared republic in northwestern Somalia, also restricted access to social media during its 2017 elections. Activists and entrepreneurs say the move will negatively impact the nation’s nascent but growing tech space.

Amnesty International has dubbed the social media blackout “unjustified,” saying officials were “ridiculous” to block access when they failed on their duty to safeguard exam papers.

“They should instead explore ways to secure the integrity of the exams without resorting to regressive measures that would curtail access to information and freedom of expression,” said Amnesty’s deputy regional director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes Seif Magango.

Source of the notice: https://qz.com/africa/1619810/somalia-to-block-social-media-during-national-high-school-exams/

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Japan: Discipline or treatment? Schools rethinking vaping response

Asia/ Japan/ 27.05.2019/ Source: www.japantimes.co.jp.

A glimpse of student athletes in peak physical condition vaping just moments after competing in a football game led Stamford High School Principal Raymond Manka to reconsider his approach to the epidemic.

His school traditionally has emphasized discipline for those caught with e-cigarettes. Punishments become increasingly severe with each offense, from in-school suspensions to out-of-school suspensions and, eventually, notification of law enforcement.

But Manka began thinking about it more as an addiction problem, and less of a behavior issue, after seeing the two players from another school vaping near their bus. “It broke my heart,” said Manka, whose school is now exploring how to offer cessation programs for students caught vaping or with vaping paraphernalia.

“We’ve got to figure out how we can help these kids wean away from bad habits that might hurt their body or their mind or otherwise create behaviors that can create habits that will be harmful for the remainder of their lives,” he said.

Schools elsewhere have been wrestling with how to balance discipline with prevention and treatment in their response to the soaring numbers of vaping students.

Using e-cigarettes, often called vaping, has now overtaken smoking traditional cigarettes in popularity among students, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Last year, one in five U.S. high school students reported vaping the previous month, according to a CDC survey .

E-cigarettes produce an aerosol by heating a liquid that usually contains high levels of nicotine — the addictive drug in regular cigarettes and other tobacco products — flavorings and other chemicals. Users inhale this aerosol into their lungs; when they exhale, bystanders often breathe it in too.

Compared with regular cigarettes, the research on the health effects of e-cigarettes is painfully thin. Experts say that although using e-cigarettes appears less harmful over the long run than smoking regular cigarettes, that doesn’t mean they’re safe — particularly for youth, young adults, pregnant women or adults who do not currently use tobacco products.

“Studies have shown that e-cigarette use among young people is potentially associated with an increased risk of progressing on to cigarette use and to vaping cannabis, which has become increasingly common in recent years,” said Dr. Renee Goodwin, a researcher and professor of epidemiology at the City University of New York and Columbia University who studies tobacco and cannabis use.

Besides nicotine, e-cigarettes can include other harmful substances, including heavy metals like lead and cancer-causing agents. The vaping liquid is often offered in a variety of flavors that appeal to youth and is packaged in a way that makes them attractive to children. And the long-term health effects, Goodwin noted, are unknown.

Experts say the CDC classifies e-cigarettes as a tobacco product, and many schools lump vaping in with tobacco use in applying codes of conduct, treating offenses similarly.

In Connecticut alone, administrators dealt with 2,160 incidents in which students were caught vaping or with vaping paraphernalia in violation of school policies during the 2017-18 school year, up from 349 two years earlier. The schools issued 1,465 in-school suspensions and 334 out-of-school suspensions, according to the state Education Department.

Nationwide, some schools have removed bathroom stall doors or placed monitors outside of restrooms to check students in and out. Others have installed humidity detectors that sound an alarm when vapor clouds are detected.

Lawmakers are beginning to show similar concerns. Oklahoma has passed legislation to ban vaping on school property, and a dozen states have passed legislation to increase the age for smoking and vaping to 21.

Nevertheless, some school districts have begun taking a more comprehensive approach by emphasizing treatment and prevention.

The Conejo Valley Unified School District in Southern California recently shifted from suspending students for a first offense to sending them to a four-hour Saturday class on the marketing and health dangers of vaping. A second offense results in a one-or-two-day suspension coupled with several weeks of a more intensive six-week counseling program that includes parents.

“I think we are seeing quite a bit of success, basing it on the reduction this year in both the number of incidents reported on campus and the number of suspensions,” said Luis Lichtl, the district’s assistant superintendent.

“The schools that seem to be most effective are those that are of course enforcing their disciplinary code — they can’t do otherwise — but are using that as the floor and not the ceiling,” said Bob Farrace, a spokesman for the National Association of Secondary School Principals.

Linda Richter, an expert on vaping and adolescent substance use who works at the New York-based Center on Addiction, suggests that schools provide information about the health consequences and how companies have manipulated students to use vaping products by making it appear fun and cool. She said that two-pronged approach led to a successful decrease in the use of traditional cigarettes.

“To expect a 13-, 14- or 15-year-old to break an addiction by yelling at them or suspending them, it’s just not going to happen,” she said. “They need help, treatment, counseling, support, education and understanding.”

Dr. J. Craig Allen, medical director at Rushford, a mental health treatment center in Meriden, said suspending teens for vaping may be counterproductive.

“If your solution is to send these kids home, what do you think they are going to be doing at home,” he said. “They are going to be taking rips off their Juul all day long to kill the time.”

Thomas Aberli, the principal at Atherton High School in Louisville, Kentucky, said it began an intensive anti-vaping education program this year with the help of the American Association of Pediatrics. Teaching teens about how vaping companies have been courting them with flavored products seems to be having an effect.

“You could tell how angry they were getting with this sense of manipulation,” he said. “That was really a turning point for us in knowing the best way to approach this problem.”

Other schools have continued to emphasize discipline in crackdowns on teen vaping.

At the Mattawan Consolidated School District just outside of Kalamazoo, Michigan, Principal Tim Eastman recently wrote to parents that students found congregating in bathrooms or parking lots will be taken to the office and searched.

“Anyone found with vaping equipment will face suspensions,” Eastman wrote. “Although this may seem extreme, the health and safety of our students is too important to ignore.”

Eastman said the school is not currently providing those caught vaping with any additional education or medical intervention, but is considering it.

Source of the notice: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/05/27/world/science-health-world/discipline-treatment-schools-rethinking-vaping-response/#.XOutY9IzbMw

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