Education

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Education in Vietnam: very good on paper

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Asia/ Vietnam/ 31.10.2018/ Source: www.ft.com.

Good exam results alone will not prepare pupils for the next industrial revolution

The second-year students at Nguyen Hue specialised high school in Hanoi are an unusually motivated bunch.

Entrance exams for university are coming up in a year. Then there is the matter of their parents’ high expectations, competition from other children in this elite school, and the tests of various kinds they are given every week.

“Everybody here is so talented, it makes me feel pressure,” says Nguyen Phuong Thao, 16. Ms Thao wants to become a journalist, but her favourite subject is maths, which she says her parents “forced” her to study when she was small.

“My first goal is to get into a good university in Vietnam,” says Nguyen Tung Chi, another second-year student, who wants to work in marketing. “All the classmates are obsessed with getting good grades.”

Vietnam outperforms neighbouring countries in south-east Asia on education rankings, and does well globally too. Its high test scores contributed to its place in the World Bank human capital index — 48th — the highest rating for any lower middle-income country. It stands out relative to its wealth.

The country spends the equivalent of nearly 6 per cent of its GDP on education — high by global standards, and a greater proportion than most of its neighbours.

Apart from the government’s investment in schools, observers of Vietnamese culture attribute children’s strong test scores to cultural and historical factors. These include the work ethic prized under Confucianism and the need to rebuild the country after the war.

Vietnam’s current generation of under-20s are an unusually large demographic cohort who will be competing for university places and jobs in an economy that is going through major transformation as the manufacturing jobs on which it relies undergo profound change.

“The generation of their and my parents needed to work hard, and they realised the fastest way to develop the country was to study,” says Hoang Kim Ngoc, 24, an English teacher at the Nguyen Hue school.

“The demands of the current workforce are so high,” she adds. “We are going through the fourth industrial revolution, where we not only expect to compete with machines, but we need to control them.”

Pham Hiep, a researcher based in Hanoi who specialises in university education, attributes Vietnam’s strong international test rankings in part to a well-designed curriculum for maths and science. “Shadow education” — extra tutoring in maths and other subjects outside school — is also common, he says.

Another factor, Mr Hiep says — echoing the children at Nguyen Hue school — is intense competition for university places as the country undergoes a demographic boom. “We don’t have enough places in tertiary education,” he says. “The supply doesn’t meet the demand.” The private universities in Vietnam, he says, account for only about 15 per cent of total enrolment, low compared to Vietnam’s regional neighbours, including the Philippines, Malaysia, and China.

There is little doubt that Vietnam’s education system is good at teaching children to do well on tests, especially in maths and science. But is it teaching them to think and reason too? And how reliable are the test scores themselves?

The World Bank’s rankings for Vietnam are based on the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) tests, run by the OECD, and involving international tests taken by 15-year-olds. However, one critical observer tells the FT the results are influenced by a sampling issue that makes Vietnam’s results look better than they are because about half of children have left school by age 15.

As the school leavers tend to be poorer and lower-achieving than average, the wealthier and more studious ones who are tested push the overall results up.

“The Pisa sample for Vietnam is skewed, [as] it only includes the richer, higher-achieving kids,” says John Jerrim, a lecturer at University College London’s Institute of Education. “This is a significant part of the explanation why Vietnam does well.” Mr Jerrim says that Vietnam will face a “paradox” moving forward, as improving education means more and more children remain in school.

Its Pisa scores are likely to decline rather than increase. However, he adds, even taking the statistical anomalies into account, “Vietnam probably does quite well compared to other countries with similar levels of development”. The Vietnamese government has been pursuing educational reforms for more than a decade, focused on reducing students’ workloads, boosting private investment in higher education, and improving vocational training.

The results so far have been limited. The children at Nguyen Hue school, while benefiting from some of the best secondary education Vietnam has to offer, have a few cavils of their own. “We focus on how to be a good worker and a good citizen rather than developing our own skills and learning to chase our dreams,” says To Duc Manh. “How we judge students to get a job: [is] not based on who we are, but the test numbers.”

Source of the notice: https://www.ft.com/content/da4387d0-aba8-11e8-8253-48106866cd8a

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Rethinking the Purpose of Education

E.J. Hutchinson

By E.J. Hutchinson

If most politicians — on both left and right, “liberal” and “conservative,” Democrat and Republican — could have their way, “education” would mean little more than training docile cogs to enter the “workforce.”

Recall Marco Rubio’s quip three years ago that “[w]e need more welders and less [he meant ‘fewer’] philosophers.” (He recanted earlier this year, realizing that, after all, both are important.)

There is, of course, a great lie at the heart of this point-of-view — one in which employers are complicit — that leads untold numbers of young adults to amass untold amounts of debt in pursuit of a career for which, in fact, a four-year degree is unnecessary.

But there is another, more ennobling way of construing the function of education. Frivolous as it may seem to technocrats, it situates education firmly in much more fundamental questions about ourselves and the world that compel us to pursue knowledge of self and of reality, not first and foremost for the sake of a job but simply because such things are worth knowing, irrespective of vocation.

This way of thinking can be found in the tradition of the Italian humanist Giambattista Vico as interpreted by contemporary philosopher Donald Philip Verene. According to this strand of humanistic reflection, we might consider the goal of education to be threefold.

First, education aims at “wisdom.” What is wisdom? It is, in the opinion of the ancient philosophers Cicero and Seneca, “knowledge of things human and divine.” It is an ordered reflection on the nature of reality in the broad sense. It is reflection on how the parts comprise a whole, and it is knowledge of that whole. Wisdom knows the human arts and sciences, it has some sense of the way those are ordained and arranged by God, and it knows how to tell the difference between the two.

Second, education aims at “prudence.” What is prudence? It is improvisatory wisdom. It is the application of the contemplative knowledge of the whole to the practical considerations of everyday life. It asks, “What does wisdom require of me in this situation?” And it knows how to answer.

Third, education aims at “eloquence.” What is eloquence? It is not flowery speech. It is not purple prose. It is not verbal pyrotechnics. It is the cultivated ability to discuss a subject with intelligence from all angles and comprehensively. It is the transformation of wisdom’s knowledge into human speech. This third aim is not optional, but is demanded by our very nature. For man is a speaking animal, and if ratio, “reason,” compels us to seek the fellowship of other rational animals, no less does oratio, “speech,” compel us to find the company of other creatures as loquacious as we are. Eloquence, furthermore, makes what we have learned available to others and makes it known in a persuasive way.

There is little hope that such a view of education will make great waves with our current educational establishment. It is too impractical, offers few material or corporate rewards, and creates too much potential for thought and the unapproved opinions to which such thought will give birth. Still, perhaps it’s not too late to see that this view is more in keeping with the kind of beings we are — those whose heads are raised from the earth — and is therefore better attuned to our higher aspirations. We are men before we are employees. Perhaps it is time for our educationalists to acknowledge that fact.

Fuente: https://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2018/10/30/rethinking_the_purpose_of_education_110301.html

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Northeast China urged to enhance education

Noticias

Asia/ China/ 31.10.2018/ Source:  www.xinhuanet.com.

Vice Premier Sun Chunlan has stressed the importance of tapping into the strength of education to serve the revitalization of northeast China during a recent inspection to the region.

The remarks were given when Sun made a research tour to Liaoning from Thursday to Saturday. She said it was important to boost the capability of serving economic and social development via education and lay a solid foundation for the revitalization of the northeast through modernizing the sector.

During her stay in Liaoning, Sun visited primary and middle schools, vocational and technical schools, as well as key labs and research and development institutions at universities, to get first-hand information about aspects, including training of personnel with technical skills, application of scientific and technological achievements.

She also presided over a symposium to discuss how to serve the revitalization of northeast China via education.

While urging government departments to spend more resources in education, Sun said education, closely linked to the development of science and technology as well as the supply of high-level work force, is vital for revitalizing the old industrial bases.

She also asked local governments to prioritize education and address the difficulties concerning application of advances in science and technology and construction of normal universities.

Enterprises should be encouraged to finance vocational education and great efforts should be made to train personnel with specific skills for service sectors, such as tourism, healthcare, and elderly care, she said.

Source of the notice: http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-10/27/c_137562873.htm

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Japan steps up efforts to detect bullying in schools as cases reach record high

Noticias

Asia/ Japan/ 30.10.2018/ Source: www.straitstimes.com.

The number of bullying cases at schools has reached a record high, according to a survey released by the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry.

Efforts are being made to detect bullying at an early stage. However, the number of serious cases, which includes cases that result in suicide, increased compared to the previous academic year, underscoring the challenges schools face in addressing bullying.

At Miyagino Junior High School in Sendai, students are asked to fill out a «worksheet» every month about their daily behaviour, including questions about whether they know of any bullying cases.

The teachers received a sheet this year in which a student had written, «My classmate’s attitude hurt me.»

Teachers talked to both the student and the classmate and found that the classmate had jokingly taken a cold attitude towards the student. The classmate later apologised to the student and their relationship improved.

This school year, the school confirmed 14 bullying cases by the end of September, such as incidents in which a particular student is ignored.

«We frequently discuss cases with other teachers, including the head teacher of a grade,» said a teacher in charge of student guidance at the school. «Now we more stringently address cases, even smaller ones.»

The Sendai city government and individual schools are taking various measures to detect bullying cases, such as conducting questionnaire surveys themselves. The city government also increased the number of school counsellors from this school year.

In Sendai, the number of students in first- and second-grade elementary school classes and first-year junior high school classes is capped at 35. The city has expanded the smaller class sizes to second-year junior high school classes, aiming to monitor even subtle behavioural changes among students.

Efforts to detect bullying are being implemented throughout the country.

To counter bullying online, the Miyazaki prefectural government has set up a website through which it offers consultations to students. Since August, images can be posted to the website, which helps students receive support for bullying via social media.

In Osaka city, the city sometimes instructs schools to conduct a re-examination if the schools say there were no reports of bullying.

There are also large gaps in the number of recognised cases among local governments. According to the ministry survey, only 8.4 recognised cases of bullying were reported per 1,000 students in Saga Prefecture, the lowest among all 47 prefectures.

«We’d like to encourage local governments to more actively recognise (bullying cases),» a ministry official said.

The number of serious bullying cases is not declining nationwide. According to the survey conducted by the education ministry, among 474 «grave incidents» in which children’s safety was endangered by bullying, 55 cases involved life-threatening harm that could trigger suicides, among other dangerous outcomes.

In the 2017 academic year, the Niigata city government began conducting a mandatory questionnaire survey on bullying at least three times per year at all municipal schools to address the problem.

When bullying is discovered, the city government requires schools to hold internal school meetings involving staff in managerial positions other than homeroom teachers and student guidance teachers.

In Niigata Prefecture, a first-year student at a prefectural high school who had been bullied killed himself in November 2016.

It was noted as problematic that information about the bullying was shared with only some teachers and that the boy’s claims of victimisation were not broadly shared with other teachers and school officials.

«In some cases, teachers may try to only address problems themselves. Therefore, we’ll take thorough measures so these problems don’t lead to serious bullying,» an official of the city’s board of education said.

«At schools nowadays, teachers are so busy that they don’t have enough time for their students,» said Kwansei Gakuin University Professor Chieko Saku-rai, who specialises in pedagogy.

«It’s important to create an environment in which children can easily consult (teachers), and a system in which schools as a whole tackle bullying.»

The number of truant students at elementary and junior high schools hit a record high of about 144,000.

«Children and their parents increasingly believe that there is no need to go to school if it causes great pain,» an education ministry official said.

In February 2017, the law to ensure educational opportunities came into force, stipulating that the central and local governments support truant students by providing opportunities for them to study at alternative schools and other venues outside regular schools.

In Komae, Tokyo, the city government has dispatched clinical psychologists to the homes of truant students, and the city helps them build relationships of trust with others through overnight nature excursions and other initiatives.

«There have been many cases in which students return to school after receiving long-term support and not being pressured,» an official of the city’s board of education said.

Source of the notice: https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/bullying-cases-reach-record-high-in-japan-education-ministry-says

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The segregation in our education system – Part 1 (video)

Noticias

Africa/ South Africa/ 29.10.2018/ Source:

In this first of a five-part series on the state of education in South Africa, six activists from Equal Education discuss how our current education system severely prejudices the black working class and keeps them stuck in the poverty trap.

Street Talk is a groundbreaking television series aired weekly on community television. From grassroots to the establishment, our engaging programmes expose the lived realities and uncensored views of ordinary South Africans. DM

Street Talk was launched in 2008 and is a non-profit organisation – visit us www.streettalktv.com

Source of the notice: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-10-26-the-segregation-in-our-education-system-part-1-video/

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Social mobility Our failing education system means it’s still no easier to climb life’s ladder

Yvonne Roberts 1 comentario

By: Yvonne Roberts.

You are 15, your school building is falling apart, your teachers long ago lost faith in the power of aspiration, and you learned early on that you are considered a loser in life’s game of snakes and ladders, so how do you feel? Grim, obviously– but, as we learned last week, not as grim as your peer in Turkey. That is little cause for cheer.

In its latest social mobility report, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said that the poorest pupils in this country were more unhappy and discouraged than in any other developed country bar Turkey. Fewer than one in six feel resilient, satisfied with their lives and integrated at school, compared with an OECD average of one in four – one in two in the Netherlands.

One in six represents a huge swathe of our future. The OECD report also said that disadvantaged children in the UK who are educated together are two years behind those in schools with middle-class pupils.

At the current rate of “progress”, it will take 50 years to reach an equitable education system. Something is going badly wrong. It impacts on hundreds of thousands of children and young people. Yet, so far, across the political parties, and for decades, there has been a lack of imagination about what needs to be done to tackle such profound levels of misery, class division and wasted human capital.

At least in the 1940s we made no bones about it. The Education Act 1944estimated the country would need 80% manual workers and 20% clerical and professional staff for the postwar industrial economy. Now technology rules – the robots are coming. Even the middle classes are in peril of sliding down the snake, while those anchored to the bottom will continue to have little money, poor health and shocking housing.

For Labour, social mobility has traditionally meant focusing on the cleverest poorer children, measured in non-vocational terms. In 1959, the arrival of the 11 plus incensed the social entrepreneur Michael Young, Lord Young of Dartington, co-creator of the Open University among other ventures. He saw too many children prematurely branded failures.

Sixty years ago he published The Rise of the Meritocracy, a dystopian satire in which he presciently detailed the rise of women and national populism. The narrator, a sociologist, describes the negative outcomes of a system in which the elitist hereditary principle has been replaced by a society based on the formula, IQ + Effort = Merit. This system ossifies into yet another self-serving oligarchy. What Young believed is this “merit” – genes dictating the ability to pass exams, – fails to take into account the value to society of virtues such as kindness, courage, imagination, sympathy and generosity.

Education in the UK has always been a middle-class mincing machine in which too many poorer children are written off too soon because they don’t display certain habits of mind. “Effort” is very much harder in a damp, overcrowded, unheated home. Andreas Schleicher, OECD director of education and skills, said last week that, in the UK, poorer children did better in schools with a good disciplinary regime, by which he meant an environment for learning in which pupils respected and trusted teachers, and teachers had high expectations of pupils.

Arguably, what fosters that mutual respect is an understanding of the influences on children in all their diversity. For instance, a 10-year American study showed that parents of children from a low socio-economic group valued obedience, neatness and honesty, while middle class parents emphasised curiosity, self-control and consideration. We know that early years and schools can do much to compensate for this when a child does not come from a home bursting with social skills, activities, tutoring, self-discipline and ambition – so why do we still do so little?

Young, in his own patriarchal way, was trying to redefine what is meant by social mobility and “success”. How do we create a fair society in which every individual is able to develop what economist Amartya Sen called “capabilities” – the right to feel of value, to engage in society, to have the resources to live a thriving life, not merely survive? The aim, for all our sakes, ought to be that six out of six poorer pupils have the knowledge that life offers promise.

 

Fuente del artículo: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/oct/27/education-inequality-uk-schools-failure-of-meritocracy

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‘It concerns us all day, everyday’: Lack of STEM teachers hitting hard at schools

Melanie Earley

By: Melanie Earley.

Many students across the country are missing out on specialised subjects due to a shortage of teachers.

Finding teachers to teach STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) has become increasingly hard for many secondary schools resulting in teachers trained in other subjects stepping in or subjects being cut from the curriculum.

Fawziyyah Khan is a science teacher at Auckland’s Zayed College for Girls, in Mangere, who specialises in biology, but due to the shortage, she now teaches maths and physics.

Having teachers dealing with subjects outside of their speciality has a lot of implications for both students and teachers,» she said.

Khan said she felt she didn’t initially have the skills to effectively teach her students maths so she ended up spending countless hours researching and studying.

«I took up a scholarship from Auckland Airport to help me upskill in maths, in the meantime I was planning my classes, doing my own research and having to report on National Standards.

«The only thing that kept me going was the commitment to my students to help them improve, even though I would rather teach biology which is my passion.»

The first year of maths teaching was purely «survival» for Khan.

Vacancies for roles as maths and science teachers are not being filled.
SUPPLIED
Vacancies for roles as maths and science teachers are not being filled.

«I really felt for those students because I felt like we had failed them through not being able to provide them with a maths specialist.»

Schools are «struggling», Auckland Secondary Schools Principals’ Association (ASSPA) spokesman and principal of Glendowie College Richard Dykes said, and it was getting harder to replace teachers.

At Glendowie College Dykes said they had been lucky so far but there had been trouble when one of their two physics teachers left.

Auckland Secondary Schools Principals' Association (ASSPA) spokesman and principal of Glendowie College Richard Dykes said many schools are just one resignation away from being unable to fill positions.
SUPPLIED
Auckland Secondary Schools Principals’ Association (ASSPA) spokesman and principal of Glendowie College Richard Dykes said many schools are just one resignation away from being unable to fill positions.

«We couldn’t fill the position – we ended up having to get a teacher in from overseas.»

Te Reo Māori was another subject that was hard to fill positions in, Dykes said.

«We came very close to having to cancel the subject altogether we couldn’t find any teachers – we advertised and got no applications.»

Teachers and principals have been striking around the country in recent months for better working conditions and pay.
DOMINICO ZAPATA/STUFF
Teachers and principals have been striking around the country in recent months for better working conditions and pay.

New Zealand Post Primary Teachers’ Association spokeswoman Liz Robinson said the shortage of teachers in STEM was something that concerned the Association «all day, everyday».

A secondary school staffing survey by the association identified 7000 students who were affected by the teaching of subjects by non-specialists in the responding schools.

One principal involved in the survey said hard materials courses were hard to staff.

Over 200 extra secondary teachers are needed for 2019.
STUFF
Over 200 extra secondary teachers are needed for 2019.

«I would have to say there is a lack of depth in the number of applicants. We were lucky that for most positions we had one quality applicant who accepted the position.»

Another principal said it was «almost impossible» to find technology staff at a rural area school.

«Most of the teachers in this curriculum area are close to retirement and no one is being trained to take their place.

Whetu Cormick, president of the New Zealand Principals' Federation, said schools were struggling to fill vacancies.
SUPPLIED
Whetu Cormick, president of the New Zealand Principals’ Federation, said schools were struggling to fill vacancies.

«Recruitment is now my most pressing source of stress and anxiety.»

Stress has been mounting for principals around the country in regards to the on-going teacher shortage, and many are worried vacancies for 2019 won’t be covered.

«There’s more and more stress for principals as they try to secure teachers for vacancies in their schools,» New Zealand Principals’ Federation (NZPF) President, Whetu Cormick, said.

Ministry of Education's Deputy Secretary Early Learning and Student Achievement, Ellen MacGregor-Reid, said a number of new initiatives would deal with the shortage.
SUPPLIED
Ministry of Education’s Deputy Secretary Early Learning and Student Achievement, Ellen MacGregor-Reid, said a number of new initiatives would deal with the shortage.

Cormick said a number of factors needed addressing in the industry to entice teachers to work in New Zealand, including reducing work loads, substantial pay increases, and increased support, especially for severe behavioural issues.

«The ministry has not had a workforce strategy in the past to monitor and plan so that we could be assured of a sustainable workforce for the future.

«We had no data on which to predict the shortages we are now facing,» he said.

The Ministry of Education said new initiatives were in place to recruit teachers for 2019.

Up to an extra 650 primary teachers and 200 or so secondary teachers would be needed for 2019 – adding to the country’s pool of around 70,000 teachers.

The Government has made available an extra $10.5 million funding in the past week, on top of the $29.5 million already allocated since late last year to increase teacher supply.

The Ministry’s Deputy Secretary of Early Learning and Student Achievement, Ellen MacGregor-Reid, says «we’re expanding our marketing and recruitment drive, and introducing new initiatives – such as a $10,000 grant for schools to help with mentoring and training costs for new graduate teachers».

Over 6000 overseas-based teachers are also being targeted in a new campaign to attract them to New Zealand.

Source of the article: https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/107901288/It-concerns-us-all-day-everyday-Lack-of-STEM-teachers-hitting-hard-at-schools

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