Page 12 of 12
1 10 11 12

Jamaica: Diaspora Urged to Utilise Education Trust for School Donations

Jamaica/July 25, 17/By:

Minister of Education, Youth and Information, Senator the Hon. Ruel Reid, is advising members of the Diaspora to utilise the services of the National Educational Trust (NET) when making donations to the education sector.

“Prime Minister, the Most Hon. Andrew Holness, in his vision, established this institution to partner directly with the Diaspora and other multilateral donors so you can ensure that there is no red tape in getting your gifts and donations to Jamaica and to the destination schools,” he noted.

He was responding to a concern raised by a delegate at the opening day of the Jamaica 55 Diaspora conference at the Jamaica Conference Centre, downtown Kingston, on Monday (July 24).

The NET is the agency of the Government of Jamaica that mobilises financial and quality resource investments for schools in Jamaica to achieve greater levels of access to education and learning.

Speaking in an interview with JIS News, Managing Director of the NET, Marcia Phillips Dawkins, said persons should send the list of items to the Trust before shipping, so they can be advised of the procedures.

“There are specifications for electronic devices like computers, tablets… so we encourage persons to let us know what they are taking and (so we can) tell them if they are appropriate,” she informed.

Mrs. Phillips Dawkins said that the donor should also identify the school that the items will go to “and they also have to consign the shipment to NET, so that when it comes to Customs, it can be identified.”

“When the items arrive here, Customs advise us and we provide the letter for them to take to the Customs department and the things are cleared hassle free,” she said.

She added that when shipping donations through NET, the donor will only pay 50 per cent of the administrative cost and the environment levy.

“All the other fees are waived,” Mrs. Phillips Dawkins pointed out.

For more information, persons can call NET at 967- 9007 or send an email to info@net.org.jm

NET is one of the exhibitors at the Diaspora Marketplace, which is part of the Diaspora Conference.

The marketplace, which will operate for the duration of the conference, will provide for active business interactions.

Source:

http://jis.gov.jm/diaspora-urged-utilise-education-trust-school-donations/

Comparte este contenido:

No Education Crisis Wasted: Billionaires Seek to Make Education in Africa Profitable

Africa/July 18, 2017/By Maria Hengeveld/http://www.alternet.org

Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are betting big on an effort to turn African education into a for-profit venture. But investigations show that children and their teachers are getting a raw deal.

The dream is wonderful: provide a good education to millions of children growing up in poverty. That’s why Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, the World Bank and the Dutch Ministry for Foreign Affairs are pouring millions into a company that aims to turn that dream into reality. Investigations show, however, that both the children and their teachers get a raw deal.

Shannon May is clearly emotional when she walks onto the stage in early February 2017. The founder and strategist behind the world’s largest chain of kindergarten and primary schools is about to speak to a room full of women. She will talk about education, motherhood and the reasons why she founded her company, Bridge International Academies, with her husband Jay Kimmelman in 2008.

May and Kimmelman are in Nairobi, the city they live in and where Bridge has its headquarters. About 70 percent of the more than 100,000 pupils attending Bridge schools live in Kenya and around 6,000 staff work and live there. It was also the company’s base for expanding into Uganda, Liberia, Nigeria and India.

In her speech, May tells the story of the founding of Bridge: “I was speaking with mothers and with fathers, about their struggles… two things came up across hundreds of conversions I had… the first was health… the other thing was education.”

This made May think about her own childhood: if she hadn’t had good teachers, she would never have been admitted to Harvard and she would probably never have worked at Morgan Stanley. She would certainly never have come up with the idea of ​​setting up Bridge, the “edu-business model” that aims to provide affordable, high-quality education to millions of children from families who have to live on less than US$2 a day. When the couple founded Bridge in 2008, their dream was to emancipate these children.

The exact number of children involved is unclear.  Sometimes her husband talks about 700 million children, at other times it’s around 700 million families.  According to the World Bank, 767 million people worldwide currently live below the poverty line of 1.90 dollars a day. Whatever the exact figures are, they are high and education opportunities fall short of what is needed. There are not enough good state schools and private schools are often too expensive. May and her husband have spotted a gap in the market: education needs to be better than what state schools offer, and provided at only 30 percent of what the state currently spends per student.

May, close to tears, continues her speech in Nairobi: “Bridge is different because it exists for only one reason, it’s so that every child, not just the rich kids, not just the kids in the cities, not just the kids who have mothers and fathers who can look after them and teach them at home but every kid no matter what else is going on in their lives can go to a great school.” She is even more positive in an interview: “We fight for social justice, to create opportunities.”

And for profit. According to her husband, the “global education crisis”  is worth about US$51 billion a year. In 2013, Kimmelman explained in a presentation how, for less than US$5 in tuition fees per pupil per month, Bridge could grow “into a billion-dollar company” and “radically change the world.” Earlier he and May promised that they could do this for US$4 per month per pupil.

Big dreams and even bigger promises. However, my research and research done by others shows:

  • that their quality claims have not been supported by any independent research;
  • that the education provided turns out to be more expensive than promised;
  • that underpaid teachers have to recruit additional pupils;
  • that they have dismissed criticism from non-governmental organizations and trade unions;
  • that critics are silenced;
  • that a PR offensive has been launched in order to continue selling the education services provided.

Furthermore, €1.4 million of Dutch taxpayers’ money has been poured into the company. Dutch support was provided because Lilianne Ploumen of the country’s Labor Party, currently caretaker Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, believes that Bridge uses an “innovative and cost-effective education model, which is able to keep tuition costs per child down.”

How do you improve education, make it cheaper and also make it profitable? May and Kimmelman have come up with an “innovative pedagogical approach.” The possibility of setting up a few thousand standardized schools within a few years is to be the first innovation. The profit made from each school may be low, but once half a million pupils are recruited — the number of enrollments that Bridge needs to break even — business really takes off. The plan is to reach two million pupils by 2018 and 10 million by 2025.

This rapid growth would be made possible by using Bridge’s second innovative method, namely its very own approach to the role of teachers and their salary scale. May believes that “qualities such as kindness” are more important than diplomas and this allows for significant savings. In Kenya, where the starting salary for qualified teachers is around US$116 dollars a month, Bridge teachers usually earn less than US$100 a month. However, as Kimmelman explains in a presentation, teachers can earn bonuses by recruiting new students themselves. Marketing is a core task for both teachers and school principals.

A third innovative aspect, explains May, is the smart use of technology. It works like this: a team of “master teachers” designs digital “master lessons” that are so detailed that all a teacher needs to do is read them from a special Bridge tablet (know as the Nook).

Leaning how to use the Nook is therefore a key component of the crash course that Bridge teachers must complete. Over three to four weeks, they learn how to download new lesson material, how to present it, and how to record daily scores and progress made with the lessons.

This last skill is crucial, says May. It allows Bridge to see “hundreds of thousands of assessment scores” every day and to find out “what works and what doesn’t.” The “extremely robust data” can then be used to “continuously improve the teaching material.”

Setting up schools from scratch, paying teachers and developing and maintaining technology all cost money.

“One of our challenges when we were first pitching Bridge to investors was getting them to… see people living in poverty not just as beneficiaries but as customers,” May explains in a 2015 World Economic Forum video. It must have been a convincing argument because May and Kimmelman have attracted more than US$100 million in support since Bridge was set up in 2008. Supporters range from venture capitalists, like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, to development agencies such as the World Bank.

My request for information under the Dutch Freedom of Information Act revealed that the Dutch government, too, invested nearly €1.4 million in Bridge between 2015 and 2016 via contributions to the Novastar East Africa Fund. Minister Ploumen says that this “indirect support complements the weak public education systems in these countries.”

Support is not only provided through funding. In 2015, the World Economic Forum named May “One of Fifteen Women Who Changed the World.” That very same year, the President of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim lauded the Bridge business model as one for the future. And a few months ago, Bridge won the Global Shared Value Award, a prestigious prize awarded to companies that have a social mission.

It has made May and Kimmelman extremely self-confident. We have “definitively proven that it is possible to provide high-quality education […] and in doing so solve an increasingly urgent crisis for families, communities and countries,” May wrote in February of this year. Kimmelman even believes that international research shows that Bridge “students already perform better than others in six months.”

If that would be true, why have they still not reached those millions of pupils? Anton (a former academy manager with Bridge, who did not want his real name published) is familiar with the darker side of Bridge’s “innovative pedagogical approach.” Anton was fired after a year in the post when a quality assurance manager and a regional manager made an unannounced visit to his school and discovered three pupils attending in contravention of school fees policy.

The children were registered with Bridge, but were no longer allowed to attend classes because their parents had fallen behind with the payment of tuition fees. Anton knew that he was supposed to turn pupils away if their parents had not paid. He had already had his salary docked once and was at risk of losing his job if he continued to allow those pupils to attend.

Apparently, the children had returned because their parents were not at home and they didn’t feel safe outside. So, their class teacher had allowed them back into the classroom without getting Anton’s permission. But the visiting quality assurance and regional managers did not agree that this was a good enough reason and Anton was told to clear his desk.

On reflection, Anton says he is relieved that he is no longer working for Bridge. He was under too much pressure to attract new pupils and the “rigid payment system” put him in uncomfortable waters with parents. Every month, about half of the parents couldn’t pay their fees on time, and would get upset with Anton when their children were, again, sent home from school. These tensions made it even more difficult to attract new customers and to persuade existing customers to bring in new ones.

“We promised them heaven” says another former academy manager. John (name changed) says it was the only option, “otherwise, you lost your job.” He worked at Bridge for two and a half years before he handed in his resignation. The low salary and the heavy work load (60 hours a week, according to John) were contributing factors. His pangs of conscience were the deciding factor: he felt that he was “constantly deceiving parents.”

It wasn’t because Bridge had directly instructed him to “only mention the basic price to new customers and avoid mentioning additional costs, such as exam fees and uniforms.” But since his salary was partly calculated on his success rates, he often told half truths.

If parents weren’t happy with the strict payment arrangements and threatened to transfer their children to a school with more flexible system, John would think up an argument in an attempt to keep them, telling them for example “that there would soon be a sponsor for them who would pay the tuition fees on their behalf.”

How representative are these reports from these two former academy managers? Juul (name changed) can tell us more. Juul, a researcher, was part of a team that in early 2016 completed nearly four hundred interviews with Bridge parents (128), pupils (65), teachers (21) and academy managers. The research was carried out on behalf of Education International, an international trade union for teachers, which is not a competitor of Bridge.

The academy managers and teachers who were interviewed expressed the same frustrations as Anton and John. They described the marketing work as annoying, demoralizing and underpaid. The Nook script was considered to be restrictive and almost half of those interviewed said that they did not use the Nook as intended or sent “meaningless data” to the headquarters.

“You hear such sad stories,” said Juul. “Some parents took out loans to pay the tuition fees and were evicted from their homes because they were unable to make payments on time.”

Bridge, however, doesn’t agree with the research. In a statement, the company called the report nonsense. It claims:

  • Bridge internal data shows that 64 percent of Bridge teachers enjoy teaching in Bridge classes;
  • 100 percent of them would like to grow with the company; and
  • 96 percent of teachers appreciate the community engagements responsibilities assigned to them.

According to May, the study is therefore proof of the witch hunt that Education International started against her company. The organization had already published a similarly critical report on Bridge in Uganda. May continues to believe in her dream: “Changing the status quo is inherently a challenge to entrenched interests and existing models.”

But those “entrenched interests” aren’t finished with Bridge yet. Angelo Gavrielatos led the Education International research project. He shows me a short film in which Kenyans from various national educational institutions and former Bridge staff criticize the company’s infrastructure, facilities and teaching materials. For example, a former staff manager says that “people are being misled” with promises about an “excellent lesson package.”

A package, it should be noted, that has never been approved by the Kenyan authorities. A leaked letter from the Ministry of Education reveals that a Kenyan inspection had deemed Bridge’s teaching material “largely irrelevant to Kenyan teaching objectives” and that the teaching methods don’t allow teachers enough room to tend to pupils with special needs.

Education International is not the only organization to criticize Bridge. At the start of 2015, 116 non-governmental organizations sent a letter to World Bank President Jim Yong Kim. They stated that there was no evidence at all that Bridge had succeeded in delivering better results than competing state schools and criticized Kim for blindly accepting Bridge’s unverifiable “internal data.”

What’s more, Bridge is by no means as affordable as the company claims. In Kenya, the cost per student is between US$9 and US$13 a month once exam fees, uniforms, books and administration costs are included. The situation is similar in Uganda, the organizations write.

According to Bridge, the organizations’ calculations are entirely wrong. However, when asked, the company does not deny that, in practice, tuition fees are higher than the promised fees of US$4-6. May, meanwhile, continues to insist that Bridge’s prices are reasonable. Because, she writes, by sending their children to Bridge, parents have “determined for themselves that Bridge is affordable” and that they feel that the tuition fees charged by Bridge “are an appropriate rate.”

However, voices within the United Nations have also started to speak out against the Bridge model. When it was announced at the start of March 2016 that Liberia was considering outsourcing its entire primary school system to Bridge, the Special Rapporteur on the right to education stated that “public schools, their teachers, and the concept of education as a public good, are under attack.”

Questions are also being raised by the Ugandan government. Following an inspection, the Ministry of Education found that Bridge schools “showed poor hygiene and sanitation which puts the life and safety of the schoolchildren in danger” and decided that the company had to close 63 schools. May puts this setback down to troublemakers who have “sold lies to the Ugandan government.” Lies that “unfortunately the government has taken seriously.”

It’s Kenya where May’s dream really begins to turn into a nightmare. In August 2016, the Ministry of Education sent the company an ultimatum. Bridge was given 90 days to adapt the curriculum to Kenyan guidelines and ensure that at least half of the teachers had a diploma. If they didn’t meet those requirements, Bridge was at risk of having to close down all of its schools.

But Bridge won’t be beaten. It is trying to silence Kenyan critics, as shown in two leaked letters. One was addressed to the head of the national teachers’ union, the other addressed to the director of a national school association. The first was sent by Bridge’s law firm, the second by Bridge’s in-house lawyer. In both letters, the recipients are threatened with a defamation lawsuit if they continue to speak out against Bridge and portray it as a company that “is only interested in profit.”

Steps have also been taken in Liberia to counter negative reports. Anderson Miamen from the Liberian Coalition for Transparency and Accountability in Education described the situation to me in an e-mail. When he wanted to interview Bridge teachers at the start of this year as part of an assessment study, he discovered that they had apparently been “warned against speaking to visitors or researchers. Especially not about their welfare or that of the children.”

Bridge has also launched a PR offensive. The company opened a London communications office earlier this year and has advertised several vacancies for PR professionals who should have good contacts with the media in order to “promote and protect” Bridge’s reputation.

Since then “Bridge’s success” has been widely praised on Twitter. For example, “A survey shows that 87 percent of the Bridge parents believe that Bridge teachers are well trained and that their teaching method is the best.” There is no link to the survey, only photos of smiling pupils in Bridge uniforms. The new PR manager, Ben Rudd, did not want to send me the survey either. He did, however, send promotional material that refers to the same internal data and mysterious studies. He also offered to arrange a “high-level quote.”

And the data that May earlier described as “robust?” They are up for sale. At least, that’s what a leaked Bridge presentation, meant for investors, from 2016 suggests. In this presentation, Bridge outlined new profit-making opportunities, including the sale of customer information to lenders and insurance companies, and increased profit margins on school lunches and student uniforms.

What has happened to May and Kimmelman’s dream? Opposition from governments, non-governmental organizations and trade unions seems to have slowed down Bridge’s growth considerably. It also looks like the company is not going to reach its planned target of two million pupils by 2018. The company wrote me that it currently has just over 100,000 pupils.

Not all of Bridge’s innovations are bad, of course. Absenteeism among teachers appears to be lower at Bridge schools than at state schools. Juul says that other schools could also take Bridge’s electronic payment methods as an example as a way to tackle corruption.

As for the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its investment of €1.4 million, spokesperson Herman van Gelderen informed me by e-mail that compliance with quality standards and affordability are part of “our involvement and dialogue with Bridge. The findings in the article serve as a basis for discussing these issues with Bridge.” The same applies to the teachers’ workload and remuneration.

Van Gelderen points out that the quality of the education provided is better than at state schools. To back up his argument he refers to a national test  in 2015 and 2016 on which Bridge students apparently scored slightly higher than the national average. But even if Bridge performs better than state schools, it still doesn’t tell us anything about the quality of the education provided by Bridge. Because — and May also admits this herself in an article — the poorest and, therefore, often weaker students, who bring the average exam scores down, mainly go to state schools. Moreover, Bridge is a private school and can therefore also influence scores by not accepting weaker pupils or by unnecessarily making them repeat a year. In Education International’s report, teachers admit that this kind of selection occurs.

High-quality education cannot simply be provided using a universal script, and meaningful learning outcomes cannot be summed up in self-assessed evaluations. Especially not if they are part of a business model that does not tolerate transparency or independent evaluations, and where profit incentives, branding bluff and promotional spiel are rewarded more than honest, critical reflection.

* This is a translation of an article originally published in the Dutch news magazine De Correspondent.

Maria Hengeveld writes about feminism, inequality, multinational corporations and economic justice, sometimes in Dutch.

Source:

http://www.alternet.org/no-education-crisis-wasted

Comparte este contenido:

On Teaching

By William Charles Ayers (Bill Ayers)

Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, Boston, Massachusetts.

Thank you all for welcoming me here today. I deeply respect you and the work of this organization. This room is full of people who have committed their lives to education — whether as teachers, ESPs, administrators, or other leadership roles — and it’s an honor to be able to talk with you.

In his book “Teaching Toward Freedom,” William Ayers wrote, “To be human is to live alone on the nerve islands of our bodies. To connect with another is to imagine with sympathy. The bridge of humanity is constructed of imagination, a certain kind of imagination, mediated by words.” I read that book very early in my career, and that idea — human connection as a feat of empathetic imagination — has stuck with me. We may not be able to step inside of each other’s heads, as humans, but I think sometimes that our work as teachers is to try.

I remember when President Obama was elected for the first time. The next morning, I went into my classroom, ready to talk with my students about his historic election and hear their reactions to it — after they did the Do Now, of course. I stood at the front of my room with my clipboard, taking attendance the same way I did every day, but I only had one student in the room. There he sat, in his assigned seat right in the middle of the room, facing me, as I checked off a little box next to his name. We looked at each other, looked at the clock, looked at each other. After a few minutes, he asked, “Where is everybody?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “but they’re late.”

We heard a commotion outside and saw some of his classmates running past the window. Then my principal at the time burst through the door. “What are you doing?” he asked. “Come outside!”

We followed him to the busy intersection outside and saw the rest of the school — students and staff — standing there on the corner. Some people held up that day’s paper with a huge picture of President Obama on the front. Others had grabbed mini-whiteboards from classrooms and written, “Honk for Obama” on them. The scene was messy, loud, and joyous.

Standing there still holding my clipboard, a symbol of the rules and routines that made school feel orderly and productive to me, I realized that my stubborn insistence on sticking to the plan and following the rules had been silly. My neat little plan wasn’t what such a historic situation demanded. It wouldn’t have given my students nearly enough time or space to express their joy. I had needed a reminder to, as William Ayers wrote, imagine with sympathy. I needed to remember that my students and I were connected by our shared humanity.

When I decided to become a teacher, I imagined it would be a job that would nourish my deep need to be in control. I had done my reading, of course. I knew that I needed to work against the “banking” model, trying to fill my students’ heads up with all of my knowledge and ideas. But I still envisioned my role as one where I would activate what happened in the classroom. I didn’t imagine myself as an authoritarian, but I thought, I’ll write lessons, so I’ll know exactly what is going to happen. I’ll be in charge.

Of course, we all know what a naïve expectation this was. Teaching, like parenting, can show us just how powerless we really are. The most carefully-crafted plan can be thrown off by a snow day or fire drill, a fight in the hallway, a curious student’s questions that lead us off on an interesting, but tenuously relevant, tangent. Sometimes we realize students know more or less than we anticipated when planning, or a protocol that looked so good on paper falls to pieces when we try to put it on its feet. Or there are the days, like that November day when Obama was elected, when what’s happening outside of the school bangs on the door and demands to come in.

When I got hired to teach ninth grade humanities at the school where I’ve worked for the past decade, I inherited a beautiful course called “Justice and Injustice.” I’ve made it my own over the years, but the bones were there: a course interweaving history content with literacy skills, focused on case studies of moments when people faced injustice and fought for justice. At that time, the final case study of the year focused on South African Apartheid.

I’m a history teacher, so I’m going to take a detour here to tell you a story about Apartheid, but I promise it’ll come back around in the end.

Apartheid officially started in 1948 when the National Party was elected to power in South Africa. By 1948, White South Africans, who were descendants of Dutch and the British colonists, had stripped Black South Africans of the right to vote, forced them to find jobs in dangerous gold mines just to afford the taxes levied on them, and dehumanized them by making them carry passbooks wherever they went to prove that they were allowed to be in areas designated “Whites-only.”

Apartheid-era South Africa was brutal. The government used subjective, racist tests to categorize South Africans by race. Those arbitrary racial categories determined where South Africans could live, who they could marry, and which schools their children could attend. South Africans who resisted these laws risked jail time, fines, or state-sanctioned violence at the hands of the police and military. Around the world, other countries’ governments — including the United States’ — hesitated to sanction South Africa because they benefited from its natural resources.

In the 1960s, the two major anti-apartheid organizations had been banned by the government, and many prominent leaders, including Nelson Mandela, had been sent to prison with life sentences. Many South Africans of color who had grown up under this racist system felt trapped, and some were losing hope.

In 1976, the South African government passed a new law called the Afrikaans Medium Decree, requiring that students be taught in Afrikaans, which was the language spoken by White South Africans descended from the Dutch. Many Black South Africans referred to Afrikaans as “the language of the oppressor.”

Not surprisingly, students were outraged at this new law. Black students already attended segregated schools with overcrowded classrooms, insufficient materials, and a racist curriculum. Now they were expected to learn in a language neither they nor their teachers spoke. They drew inspiration from Steve Biko, a Black Consciousness leader who wrote, “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed,” and decided to take action. Students in the township of Soweto, outside of Johannesburg, circulated a petition to protest the new law and planned a march and rally at a local stadium.

At 8:15 a.m. on June 16, 1976, thousands of students walked out of five schools in Soweto after singing “Nkosi s’ikele Afrika” — “God Bless Africa.” Students of all ages — including elementary school children — marched peacefully through the streets toward the stadium holding hands and carrying signs reading, “Down with Afrikaans.”

At an intersection, the students encountered the police and the Defense Force, who ordered them to turn back. When the students refused, the police officers set dogs on them. Then they opened fire.

Within 36 hours of the march beginning, 29 people had died, and 250 were injured. The government lost control in Soweto as protests and riots spread. News outlets around the world covered the story, publishing a now-iconic photo of the first person killed by police: 13-year-old Hector Pieterson.

Although Apartheid did not officially end until 1994, the students’ protest had a dramatic impact on the way the world viewed the South African government’s policies. As news of the Soweto Uprising spread throughout the world, it became nearly impossible to ignore the brutality of the Apartheid regime. In the months and years that followed, more and more countries exerted political and economic pressure on South Africa to end Apartheid.

Each year, my students and I study the Soweto Uprising, exploring the ways in which South African students exercised their agency within an oppressive system that sought to silence them and deny their humanity.

Invariably, when we dig into this history, students draw comparisons between the South African students’ activism and their own power and promise as young people. They begin to wonder about what could push them to stand up in the face of injustice and what forms of political power they have. They debate about whether they would be willing to risk their lives so that future generations could live in a more just world. They ask themselves whether adults will ever listen to their voices.

A few years ago, in the wake of Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Missouri, my principal received an anonymous email from one of our seniors. It informed him, respectfully but firmly, that students at our school would participate in a walk-out the following day in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

At this point, staff at the school had a decision to make: would we try to stop the students’ protest? Would we use our authority and power to try to control them? Or would we support them as they put into practice the principles of activism and social justice that we had taught them about since their 9th grade year?

The principal sent a response to the entire school. He explained that, as a community, we supported our students’ rights to protest. He also explained that students who participated would be subject to disciplinary action (like having their parents contacted), since historically, those who chose to protest did so in spite of the consequences. He encouraged students to stay together, to be safe, and to do what felt right to them.

On the day of the walkout, most of the student body left school en masse and gathered on the lawn as one of the seniors went over expectations before they left to travel downtown for a rally. Staff members gathered on the lawn with them, reminded them to be safe, and went back inside with those who chose to stay. That afternoon, the kids at school debated the merits of protest, talked about their connections to Black Lives Matter, and… did class. But no matter where they had chosen to spend their afternoon, our students — and students all over Boston — learned valuable lessons that day.

They learned that adults in their lives would support them in raising their voices at the same time that we worried for their safety. They learned that we would be consistent in our expectations… while also flexible enough to understand when expectations needed to shift. They learned that they didn’t need adults to tell them how, when, or where to organize. They learned that they were members of a community of young people with a shared vision of a more equitable society, and they learned that they had power within that society. They learned that events like the Soweto Uprising aren’t ancient history… and they don’t have to end in tragedy.

A lot of people have asked me what I mean when I say that education can be a tool for social justice, and this is usually the story I tell to show them. As educators, it is our job to prove to our students that adults will listen to their voices. It is up to us to inspire confidence in them that they do have the power to effect change. It is our responsibility to ensure that they are equipped with the tools to insist on a more just and equitable world.

But living up to this vision of our role as educators is not always easy. Sometimes, our kids will point out ways in which systems that we have set up or in which we are complicit contribute to inequity. They will push us to engage in uncomfortable conversations. Their curiosity will force us to question our own assumptions and beliefs. During the Soweto Uprising, the protesting students’ families were rightfully frightened. They had grown up under Apartheid. They knew the danger in protesting. They had seen friends, family members, and political leaders imprisoned or killed for speaking out. They wanted their children to lay low and stay safe. As an adult, one of the protestors recalled, “’76 really represented, in many ways, divorce between black children and their parents.”

We all do this work because of a sincere and collective belief in a better future for our students, and we know that they will be the ones to build it. We have to listen to them and support them in developing their voices and finding their power. And each time we witness our students coming into their own as change-makers, we will be reminded of the value of education: as a site of hope and a community where dreams can become reality.

Looking back at myself as that new teacher clutching her clipboard and wondering what to do when The Plan didn’t go as planned, I can see how much I have grown. I owe a huge debt to the people who have helped me grow along the way: my principal, who encouraged me to “Come outside!” The students of Soweto, whose memories showed me that working for social justice is a long-term project that requires patience, courage, and stubbornness. My own students, who helped me see that, unless I deliberately and explicitly connect lessons from history to our own lives and context, I do them a disservice. And all of you, with whom I share the privilege and the great responsibility of this awe-inspiring profession: to help construct, side-by-side with one another and with our students, “the bridge of humanity,” to imagine with sympathy — or, I’d rather say, with empathy — and strive for justice.

So I have a proposal. As educators, let’s replace our clipboards with time machines. Let’s create school communities in which our students can move from the past to the present to the future all in one day. Let’s work to ensure that education represents liberation. Let’s keep our ears and hearts open to our students’ brilliance, even when it makes us uncomfortable. Let’s envision education as a time machine that helps our students travel to worlds we have only imagined — ones that are built on ideals of justice and equity and collaboration.

Source:

On Teaching

Comparte este contenido:

Uganda: Magufuli Stance a Setback On Girl-Child Education

Uganda/July 11, 2017//Source: http://allafrica.com

I am one of the African women deeply disappointed by the utterances made by Tanzania president John Pombe Magufuli that teenage mothers impregnated while still in school should not be allowed back to their studies.

Magufuli reasons that these girls may affect their colleagues if allowed to associate with them again.In a short time, Magufuli has gained popularity in East Africa and Africa in general as a result of the many positive things he has done and implemented, including the policy on free education.

When the famous president now comes up and thinks otherwise, it is a shock, a serious human rights violation and a setback to what many governments and organizations promoting girl child education and women empowerment have worked for in a long time.

One of the things that have caused early pregnancies among girl children is poverty. Many teenage girls coming from poor backgrounds get easily lured by men who come in their lives promising heaven and earth. As much as the president may be looking out for the interests of the rest of the girls not yet affected, I think stopping teenage girls from achieving their dreams after going through the unwanted pregnancy is double punishment.

Just last year, my neighbour’s daughter (in Ntungamo) who had been under the care of her paternal aunt in Ibanda district went through the same experience at 14 years old. She was ready to sit for her primary seven exams.

However, her dreams were cut short when a 35-year-old man got her pregnant. She could not go back to her aunt’s home or come back to her parents’ home for fear of the repercussions, including torture and discrimination. She, therefore, decided to stay with the man.

I remember cutting my Christmas break short after deciding that her uncle and I travel to Ibanda, investigate and report the matter to police!

While in Ibanda, this is what we discovered: That the aunt with whom the girl had been staying had not reported the matter to police for fear for her life and family as the man is said to be dangerous.

The community was aware of what the man had been doing to people’s children but was silent. From the local police station in Ibanda, we proceeded to another local police station on Entebbe road where the culprit works, according to the local sources. We reported the matter but, up to now, the case has not been taken to court.

In order to fight poverty in our continent, education remains paramount – more so the education of the girl child. Let us imagine the future of my neighbour’s daughter is at stake!

Pregnant at 14 years, she is now staying with the 35-year-old illiterate man, whose health status is not known and cannot even guarantee that he will stay and take care of her and the baby before he moves on another young girl. Does this young girl even know the values of marriage?

Does she understand what it means to be a mother? All she will be is a helpless woman with broken dreams and aspirations. Her parents cannot help much either, because they are also illiterate and only work for daily bread.

This girl was the hope of the family; probably after completing her education, she would have contributed to her siblings’ school fees. Unfortunately this is going to be the vicious cycle of poverty Uganda and Africa are facing.

We need to come up with lasting solutions that will not affect young girls’ education. Mr Magufuli and his government plus many other governments need to devise policies and strategies to address poverty and other social challenges which affect girl-child education in Africa.

It starts with family: parents ought to engage in serious talks with their children on matters of sex and its consequences. Make children your friends so that in times of confusion, they can feel free to share with you but also count on you for protection.

The law should provide severe punishments for defilers. Any person who collaborates with the culprits should face heavy punishment once found guilty.

Local leaders need to be pragmatic in ensuring the safety and wellbeing of the people in their communities, but should also share responsibility for any crimes committed against young girls. Civil society organisations working on girl empowerment issues should put in more effort in raising awareness.

In conclusion, teenage girls’ rights need to be protected and, therefore, we need combined efforts from all leaders. Alienating them is not a solution at all!

The author works with Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (Acode).

Source:

http://allafrica.com/stories/201707100250.html

 

Comparte este contenido:

EEUU: California school leaders fear GOP cuts to Medicaid could harm special education

EEUU/July 04, 2017/Source: http://www.scpr.org

California education officials are sounding the alarm over Congressional Republicans’ proposed health care overhaul bills, saying changes to Medicaid could leave the state or school districts scrambling to pay for critical special education services they don’t have the option of cutting.

The health care bill the U.S. House passed in May would place a cap on Medicaid payments to states, a move that could trim states’ Medicaid funding by 25 to 35 percent.

Funding from Medicaid, referred to in California as Medi-Cal, helps school districts cover the costs of serving special education students who are entitled to receive critical healthcare services in school — such as a child who needs a ventilator or a feeding tube.

If a child’s «individual education plan» — the negotiated document spelling out supports a student with disabilities needs in order to receive a «free and appropriate» public education — calls for these services, California Department of Education spokesman Robert Oakes said districts are required to provide them at school, with or without Medi-Cal.

«If Medi-Cal funding drops because there’s a cap,» Oaskes said, «the school districts are going to have to pay for it. We don’t know where that kind of funding is going to come from.»

The current U.S. Senate health care bill also contains cuts to Medicaid. But Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) delayed a vote on the legislation before the July 4 recess — in part because members of his own caucus raised concerns about the Medicaid provisions.

Schools across the U.S. receive roughly $4 billion in Medicaid reimbursements, according to a national organization representing school superintendents, and nearly two-thirds of U.S. school districts use this funding to pay for not only health care workers to work with these students, but for speech-language pathologists, school psychologists and school social workers as well.

Medicaid funding also pays for vision and hearing screenings, health aides and other services at school sites for students from Medi-Cal eligible families, Oakes said.

District-by-district figures of how many students receive Medicaid-funded services were not readily available. But Oakes said populations of Medi-Cal-eligible students are highest in rural schools and in urban districts with large low-income populations; in the Los Angeles Unified School District, he said, 55 percent of students are eligible for Medi-Cal.

The Association of California School Administrators and California School Boards Association recently sent a joint letter to the state’s Congressional delegation describing what would be at stake if cuts to Medicaid were realized.

«Absent this essential federal support for our most vulnerable populations,» the letter said, «schools will not only struggle to provide high quality services to students with disabilities, but will also have great difficulty in meeting the federal mandates associated with Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.»

Source:

http://www.scpr.org/news/2017/07/03/73398/california-school-leaders-fear-gop-cuts-to-medicai/

Comparte este contenido:

Canada: Allison Hanes. Rethinking education in Quebec should be our summer project

Canada/ 27 june, 2017/By: Allison Hanes/Souce: http://montrealgazette.com

School is out for the summer, to the joy of students and teachers across Quebec.

But just before classes wrapped up last week, the Liberal government outlined a sweeping vision for revitalizing the education system. The timing is a bit strange, for something so important. But it gives Quebecers a lot to think about as we head off on vacation.

The new policy framework pledges to deal with everything from Quebec’s stubbornly high drop-out rate and the funding formula for helping students with learning difficulties, to renovating crumbling schools and bringing more technology into the classroom. It is chock full of heart-warming sentiments about setting the conditions for success, learning being a lifelong process, inclusiveness and education being at the heart of “our lives, our families, our communities, our society.”

What it is short on, however, is details of how all these major challenges will be tackled. As the document states, this is a departure point for steps that will be taken over the coming years. The other missing element, of course, is financing. Quebec loosened the purse strings in its last budget, with $3.4 billion more for education and a $1.9-billion youth strategy. But if the government is really serious about making education a priority, it will have to put its money where its mouth is.

The goal is to have 85 per cent of students graduating from high school in Quebec by 2030, up from about 74 per cent now. Quebec’s stubbornly high dropout rate is no small matter. According to the 2017 Quebec budget, there are 160,000 young people ages 15 to 29 who were neither attending school nor working last year. They account for 11 per cent of the youth population. It’s a huge loss of potential, with Quebec’s economy firing on all cylinders and our labour pool shrinking because of an aging population.

It’s also a huge drain on resources. The long-term implications of this terrible problem are staggering: a 2012 study from the Ministry of Labour and Social Solidarity estimated poverty, and all its associated difficulties, costs Quebec $15 billion a year, including $5 billion for social supports. (Yes, that’s billion with a B.)

Perhaps it took looking at education as an economic problem to spur this Liberal government to act. They spent the first two years of their mandate squeezing education, from early childhood to post-secondary, to put Quebec on sound financial footing. But Finance Minister Carlos Leitão just announced a $2.5-billion surplus — 10-times greater than the notoriously cautious economist initially projected.

Johnny-come-lately though it may be, the government’s plan to make education a signature issue heading into the 2018 election should give Quebecers licence to dream big. And the latest budgetary windfall should remove any excuses for not going “all in” when it comes to transforming our education into one of the best in the world, the stated goal.

Fortunately, there is no shortage of ideas worthy of consideration, many of them from beyond the pedagogical experts in academia and policymakers at the education ministry.

The Quebec government has recently woken up to the idea that success in school starts long before kids show up there at five years old. It is rolling out pre-kindergarten classes in disadvantaged areas, announcing 100 more will be set up by September. It also wants to make the transition from daycare to school smoother for young children. This is great.

But it could go further. The Association des centres de la petite enfance, the umbrella group representing Quebec’s publicly subsidized daycare network, held its own roving consultations over the last year and recently recommended making high-quality, universally accessible daycare free for all children from birth. This would require an expansion of CPEs, which the Liberals have sorely neglected, and the abolition of their income-based daycare fees they instituted when they took office in 2014.

In an unusual twist, the government has engaged three celebrities, Ricardo Larrivée, the chef, Pierre Lavoie, the sporting guru, and Pierre Thibault, an architect, to come up with a vision for reinventing Quebec schools. Some unions have grumbled that the well-known trio piloting the Lab-école project, as it’s called, are not experts in education. But their outsider status will hopefully mean their input contains fresh thinking and innovative concepts.

Others have also weighed in with radical proposals. Montreal business executive Mitch Garber recently pitched the idea of paying graduates of Quebec’s public high schools $1,000 upon obtaining their diploma as an incentive to stay in class. Education Minister Sébastien Proulx immediately shot down the suggestion. But some Scandinavian countries pay students to stay in school, and we might need to think outside the box to make progress on this intractable problem.

So our homework this summer is to think about the kind of education system we want in Quebec and how we can achieve it. Some of what’s needed is obvious, like more help for students with behavioural and learning difficulties to take the burden off stressed classroom teachers. Other ideas are simple enough: more physical activity would help young brains as well as bodies. Others will require careful consideration, like bringing more technology into the classroom without sacrificing the critical thinking skills today’s youth will need to thrive in age of automation.

There is no more important challenge for Quebecers than reinvigorating our education system. So while sitting on the dock or chilling at the park: think about it.

ahanes@postmedia.com

Source:

http://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/allison-hanes-rethinking-education-in-quebec-should-be-our-summer-project

Comparte este contenido:

Interview: Uganda. Plan to Keep Education Cost Affordable – Insurance Expert

Uganda/june 13, 2017/

INTERVIEW

It is that time of the year again and some parents are considering insurance products that would assure their children’s education. Ali Twaha met ICEA Life Assurance Company Ltd’s chief executive officer, JACKSON MULI to discuss products open to learners in Uganda.

What does ICEA Life entail?

ICEA Life Assurance, as the name suggests, covers risks relating to lives and helps people to save for the uncertain future for the benefit of their loved ones and in coming years of retirement.

What do you say to those seeking products targeted at learners?

Many people are looking for support to the education of their children, as the cost of education is going up every year. Currently, it can cost about Shs 5m per term to educate two secondary school students in a decent school. Which makes it Shs 15m per year.

If your child is in now in P1, how much will it cost you to educate him/her for seven years from now? What will be the source of this fees requirement? Unless you plan now, the cost in future may be prohibitive and your child may be denied the type of education you have always dreamt about. So, we have considered this challenge.

And what solution is this?

That’s why ICEA Life came up with Child Educator plan to guarantee children school fees. The Child Educator plan is taken by the parent to benefit the child in the future when fees will be required. The policy will pay for the fees whether or not the parent survives to the date, as long as the policy remains in force.

We also developed a solution for schools called the Bamaleko plan where the parents pays premiums to cover for children’s education for a guaranteed number of years usually to completion date.

Explain some more about these policies.

The Child Educator policy comes in two phases. For starters. The accumulation phase where a parent pays regular (monthly/annual) premiums (cost of cover) to the insurance company. Then comes the withdrawal phase where the insurance company pays school fees for the child(ren).

This is the point at which you want the child to start benefiting from the plan will determine the term of the accumulation phase of the policy. For example, for one with a child in P1 who wants insurance to pay fees for secondary education, the term for the accumulation phase is seven years. If the fees requirements are for S1 up to S4, then the withdrawal phase is four years to the end [S4].

What if a parent wants assurance that their child(ren) will get education regardless of their circumstances (alive, dead or ill)?

In the unfortunate death of a parent before the accumulation phase is completed, ICEA Life Assurance Company will take up the responsibility of paying subsequent premiums.

In other words, the insurance contract will remain in force without requiring the estate of the deceased to pay premiums. In addition, ICEA will pay 30% of the insurance benefits immediately to cater for the fees requirements from the time of death to the time when the withdrawal phase commences and full fees amounts (100%) become payable per term or per year to the chosen school.

What about schools?

We have Bamaleko product which covers parents but through the schools. ICEA pays school fees for the child up to the end of a particular school level say primary or secondary in the unfortunate death of a parent.

This product is very beneficial to all parties as it guarantees children’s education regardless of parents’ circumstances (alive, dead) and the school is guaranteed of fees income.

 Source:
http://allafrica.com/stories/201706120643.html
Comparte este contenido:
Page 12 of 12
1 10 11 12