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Pakistan: Education camp installed in Badin

Noticias

Badin / 23 de agosto de 2017 / Fuente: https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk

The Laar education emergency camp has been installed in Badin for the provision of quality education to people.

The aim of installing these camps, besides providing quality education, is to lay stress on the government and concerned authorities to maximise their efforts in providing quality education to the students.

On the occasion, Pir Abid Shah, Badin Press Club President Tanveer Ahmed Arain, Shahnawaz Siyal, Muhammad Ali Khatak, Bahadur Talpur, Peer Abid Shah Rashidi, Ramzan Rind, Muhammad Khan Arisar and others were also present.

A large number of youths, hailing from different towns and cities of the district, gathered at the erected camps led by Mukesh Meghwar, Advocate Ram Kolhi, Kawish Latif Jokhio, Mohan Meghwar, Ghulam Rasool Soomro, Karim Soomro and others.

Organisers of the camp intend to draw the attention of the elected representatives, local politicians, education minister and officials towards deteriorating condition of the education in the district, as according to them, most of the schools of rural areas are deprived of the basic facilities.

The management of the camp has also demanded from the government to reopen all the closed schools in the district.

People expressed their grave concerns over deteriorating standard of education in Badin.

While talking to local media, people were of the view that 56 per cent children of the district are not yet registered in the schools and 565 primary and middle schools are closed or non-functional in the district.

Mostly girls, particularly from rural areas, hardly acquire an education beyond primary level and boys also leave schools after secondary education due to the system, they added and emphasised that change in the education system is a must.

Demanding for provision of required facilities at primary, middle, secondary and higher level, they said that negligence in education system is unacceptable and termed this installation of the camp in the city as a small step for raising the standard of education and for showing their willingness to collaborate with the government when it comes to education.

Fuente noticia: https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2017/08/21/education-camp-installed-in-badin/

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Why the Democratic Party Can’t Save Us From Trump’s Authoritarianism

Henry Giroux

By Henry Giroux

There is a certain duplicity in the Democratic Party’s attempts to remake itself as the enemy of the corporate establishment and a leader in a movement to resist Trump and his mode of authoritarianism.

Democrats, such as Ted Lieu, Maxine Waters and Elizabeth Warren, represent one minority faction of the party that rails against Trump’s racism and authoritarianism while less liberal types who actually control the party, such as Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, claim that they have heard the cry of angry workers and are in the forefront of developing an opposition party that will reverse many of the policies that benefited the financial elite. Both views are part of the Democratic Party’s attempt to rebrand itself.

The Democrats’ new populist platform, called «A Better Deal: Better Skills, Better Jobs, Better Wages» has echoes of FDR’s New Deal, but it says little about developing both a radical democratic vision and economic and social policies that would allow the Democratic Party to speak more for the poor, people of color and young people than for the corporate and financial elite that run the military-industrial-entertainment complex. Their anti-Trump rhetoric rings hollow.

For Democratic Party leaders, the rebranding of the party rests on the assumption that resistance to Trump merely entails embracing the needs of those who are the economic losers of neoliberalism and globalization. What they forget is that authoritarianism thrives on more than economic discontent, as the recent white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, made clear. Authoritarianism also thrives on racism, xenophobia, exclusion, expulsion and the deeming of certain subgroups as «disposable» — a script that the «new» Democratic Party has little to say about.

David Broder has recently argued that being anti-Trump is not a sufficient political position because doing so inures people to a myriad of neoliberal policies that have impoverished the working class, destroyed the welfare state, waged foreign wars and a war on public goods, polluted the environment, created massive inequities and expanded the reach of the punishing and mass incarceration state. Even though these neoliberal policies were produced by both Republicans and liberal Democrats, this message appears to have been taken up, at least partly, by the Democrats in a focused attempt to rebrand themselves as the guardians of working class interests.

For too many members of the Democratic Party, Trump is the eccentric clown who unexpectedly stepped into history by finding the right note in rousing an army of «deplorables» willing to invest in his toxic script of hatred, demonization and exclusion. Of course, as Anthony DiMaggio, Thomas Frank, Michelle Alexander, Naomi Klein, Paul Street and others have pointed out, this is a false yet comforting narrative for a liberal elite whose moralism is as suffocating as is their belief in centrist politics. Neoliberal policies, especially under Clinton and Obama, created the conditions for Trump to actually come to power in the first place.

Trump’s presidency represents not merely the triumph of authoritarianism but also the tragedy of a neoliberal capitalism that benefited investment bankers, Wall Street, lawyers, hedge fund managers and other members of the financial elite who promoted free trade, financial deregulation, cutthroat competition and commercialization as the highest measure of individual and market freedom. Trump is not simply the result of a surprising voter turnout by an angry, disgruntled working class (along with large segments of the white suburban middle class), he is also the endpoint of a brutal economic and political system that celebrated the market as the template for governing society while normalizing a narrative of greed, self-interest and corporate power. Trump is the mirror reflection of the development of a form of illiberal democracy and authoritarianism that mixes neoliberal economic policies, anti-immigrant bigotry, the stifling of free speech, hyper-nationalism and a politics of disposability and exclusion.

A History of Betrayal by Both Political Parties

Getting in bed with Wall Street has also been a favorite pastime of the Democratic Party.

The tyranny of the current moment bespeaks a long history of betrayal by a financial and political class that inhabits both major parties. It is no secret that the Republican Party has been laying the groundwork for an American-style authoritarianism since the 1970s by aggressively pushing for massive tax cuts for the rich, privatizing public goods, promoting a culture of fear, crushing trade unions, outsourcing public services and eliminating restrictions designed to protect workers, women and the environment. But they have not been the only party reproducing the dictates of neoliberalism. Getting in bed with Wall Street has also been a favorite pastime of the Democratic Party.

It was the Democratic Party, especially under President Clinton, that prepared the groundwork for the financial crisis of 2007 by loosening corporate and banking regulations while at the same time slashing welfare provisions and creating the conditions for the intensification of the mass incarceration state. The Clinton administration did more than court Wall Street, it played a decisive role in expanding the neoliberal gains that took place three decades before he was elected. Nancy Fraser insightfully sums this up in her contribution to The Great Regression anthology:

Neoliberalism developed in the United States roughly over the last three decades and was ratified with Bill Clinton’s election in 1992…. Turning the US economy over to Goldman Sachs, it deregulated the banking system and negotiated the free-trade agreements that accelerated deindustrialization…. Continued by his successors, including Barack Obama, Clinton’s policies degraded the living conditions of all working people, but especially those employed in industrial production. In short, Clintonism bears a heavy share of responsibility for the weakening of unions, the decline of real wages, the increasing precarity of work, and the rise of the ‘two-earner family’ in place of the defunct family wage.

The Obama administration continued this abandonment of democratic values by bailing out the bankers and selling out millions of people who lost their homes while at the same time aggressively prosecuting whistleblowers. It was the Obama administration that added a kill list to its foreign policy and matched it domestically with educational policies that collapsed education into vocational training and undermined it as a moral and democratizing public good. Obama mixed neoliberalism’s claim to unbridled economic and political power with an educational reform program that undermined the social imagination and the critical capacities that made democracy possible. Promoting charter schools and mind-numbing accountability schemes, Obama and the Democratic Party paved the way for the appointment of the hapless reactionary billionaire Betsy DeVos as Trump’s Secretary of Education. And it was the Obama administration that enlarged the surveillance state while allowing CIA operatives who tortured and maimed people in the name of American exceptionalism and militarism to go free. In short, the flirtation of neoliberalism with the forces of illiberal democracy was transformed into a courtship during the Clinton and Obama administrations and until death do us part under Trump.

The growing disregard for public goods, such as schools and health care, the weakening of union power, the erosion of citizenship to an act of consumption, the emptying out of political participation, and the widening social and economic inequality are not only the product of a form of ideological extremism and market fundamentalism embraced by Republicans. The Democratic Party also has a long legacy of incorporating the malicious policies of neoliberalism in their party platforms in order to curry favor with the rich and powerful. Neoliberalism stands for the death of democracy, and the established political parties have functioned as its accomplice. Both political parties, to different degrees, have imposed massive misery and suffering on the American people and condemned many to what David Graeber has described in his book The Democracy Project as «an apparatus of hopelessness, designed to squelch any sense of an alternative future.» While Trump and the Republican Party leadership display no shame over their strong embrace of neoliberalism, the allegedly reform-minded Democratic Party covers up its complicity with Wall Street and uses their alleged opposition to Trump to erase their criminogenic history with casino capitalism. With Republican majorities, mainstream Democrats share an unwillingness to detach themselves from an ideology that challenges the substance of a viable democracy and the public spheres and formative cultures that make it possible.

Democratic Party Remains Complicit in Neoliberal and Authoritarian Politics

Chris Hedges has laid bare both the complicity of the Democratic Party in neoliberal and authoritarian politics as well as the hypocrisy behind its claim to be the only political alternative to challenge Trump’s illiberalism. He is worth quoting at length:

The liberal elites, who bear significant responsibility for the death of our democracy, now hold themselves up as the saviors of the republic. They have embarked, despite their own corruption and their complicity in neoliberalism and the crimes of empire, on a self-righteous moral crusade to topple Donald Trump. It is quite a show…. Where was this moral outrage when our privacy was taken from us by the security and surveillance state, the criminals on Wall Street were bailed out, we were stripped of our civil liberties and 2.3 million men and women were packed into our prisons, most of them poor people of color? Why did they not thunder with indignation as money replaced the vote and elected officials and corporate lobbyists instituted our system of legalized bribery? Where were the impassioned critiques of the absurd idea of allowing a nation to be governed by the dictates of corporations, banks and hedge fund managers? Why did they cater to the foibles and utterings of fellow elites, all the while blacklisting critics of the corporate state and ignoring the misery of the poor and the working class? Where was their moral righteousness when the United States committed war crimes in the Middle East and our   militarized police carried out murderous rampages?

According to Katie Sanders, writing in PunditFact, under the Obama presidency, the Democrats «lost 11 governorships, 13 U.S. Senate seats, 69 House seats, and 913 state legislative seats and 30 state legislative chambers.» And the losses and humiliations got worse in 2016 elections. It is no secret that the Democratic Party is a political formation of diminished power and hopes. Yet, in the face of Trump’s authoritarianism, it has attempted to reinvent itself as the party of reform by updating its worn out economic policies and ideological scripts. As proof of its reincarnation, it has proposed a platform titled «A Better Deal,» signaling a populist turn in economic policy. A number of its economic reforms would certainly help benefit the poor and underprivileged. These include proposed increases of the minimum wage to $15, tax credits to encourage job training and hiring, regulations to lower drug costs, stronger anti-trust laws and a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. The platform, however, does not support universal health care, and it says nothing about providing free higher education, reducing military spending or reversing the huge growth in inequality.

As Anthony DiMaggio points out, the plan «doesn’t even reach a Bernie Sanders level of liberalism, and it is a far cry from the kind of progressive populist policies introduced in FDR’s New Deal and Johnson’s Great Society/War on Poverty.» Eric Cheyfitz adds to this argument by insisting that the plan does nothing to challenge the rapacious system of unfettered capitalism the Democrats and Republicans have supported since the 1970s. Democrats are completely unrepentant about having supported the deregulation of capital and thus ushered in a new form of US authoritarianism. Moreover, any reform policy worth its name would directly address income inequality and the power of the military-industrial complex, while fighting for single-payer health care and a redistribution of wealth and power. There will have to be a massive refiguring of power and redistribution of wealth to address the health care crisis, poverty, climate change, inadequacies in education and the plague of mass incarceration — problems not addressed in the Better Deal. It is not unreasonable to assume that such vexing challenges cannot be addressed within a two-party system that supports the foundational elements of predatory capitalism.

In spite of the horrendous neoliberal ideology and reactionary policies driving the Democratic Party, various Democrats and progressives cannot bring themselves to denounce either capitalism as the bane of democracy nor its suffocating hold on its reform efforts. They appear thunderstruck when asked to denounce a corrupt two-party system and develop a social movement and political apparatus that supports democratic socialism.

For instance, unrepentant centrist liberals, such as Mark Penn and Andrew Stein, have castigated progressives within the party while unapologetically embracing neoliberalism as a reform strategy. They believe that the Democratic Party has lost its base because it rushed to defend «identity politics» and leftist ideas and that workers felt abandoned by the party’s «shift away from moderate positions on trade and immigration, from backing police and tough anti-crime measures.» Instead, they claim that the Democratic Party needs «to reject socialist ideas and adopt an agenda of renewed growth, greater protection for American workers … return to fiscal responsibility, and give up on … defending sanctuary cities.»

This sounds like a script written by a Trump policy advisor. It gets worse. Others such as Leonard Steinhorn have argued that the real challenge facing the Democratic Party is not to change their policies but their brand and messaging techniques. This argument suggests that the Democrats lost their base because they failed to win the messaging battle rather than the loss being due to moving to the right and aligning themselves with corporate and moneyed interests.

Suffering from an acute loss of historical memory, Jonathan Chait argues that the Democratic Party never embraced the policies of neoliberalism and has in its recent incarnations actually moved to the left, upholding the principles of the New Deal and Great Society. As Leah Hunt-Hendrix observes:

One need not be anti-capitalist to understand that the Democratic [Party] … allowed for policies that deregulated the finance sector (under President Bill Clinton), allowed for the privatization of many public goods (including the weakening of the public education system through the promotion of charter schools) and bailed out Wall Street banks without taking measures to truly address the needs of struggling working Americans.

Chait seems to have overlooked the fact that Trump and Sanders have proved conclusively that the working class no longer belongs to the Democratic Party or that the Democratic Party under Clinton and Obama became the vanguard of neoliberalism. He goes even further, arguing implausibly that neoliberalism is simply an epithet used by the left to discredit liberals and progressive Democrats. Chait appears oblivious to the transformation of the Democratic Party into an adjunct of the rich and corporate elite.

Is Chait unaware of Clinton’s elimination of the Glass-Steagall Act, his gutting of the welfare system and love affair with Wall Street, among his many missteps? How did he miss Obama’s bailout of Goldman-Sachs, the abandonment of education as a public good, his attack on whistleblowers, or the Democrats’ assault on organized labor via NAFTA? Was he unware that, in a White House interview given to Noticias Univision 23, Obama admitted that his «policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies that I had back in the 1980s, I would be considered a moderate Republican?»

In the end, Chait is most concerned about what he calls an attempt on the part of the left to engage in the trick of bracketing «the center-left with the right as ‘neoliberal’ and force progressives to choose between that and socialism.» He goes on to say that «The ‘neoliberal’ accusation is a synecdoche for the American left’s renewed offensive against the center-left and a touchstone in the struggle to define progressivism after Barack Obama [and] is an attempt to win an argument with an epithet.» Because of his fear of democratic socialism, Chait is like many other centrists in the Democratic Party who are oblivious to the damaging effects of the scorched-earth neoliberal polices adopted under the Clinton and Obama administrations.

Other progressive spokespersons, such as John Nichols and Leah Hunt-Hendrix, and groups, such as Our Revolution and the Incorruptibles, want to rebuild the Democratic Party from the base up by running candidates with progressive values «for local offices: in state houses, city councils, planning commissions, select boards and more.» The emphasis here would be for activists to revitalize and take over the Democratic Party by turning it to the left so that it will stand up for the poor and underprivileged.

Tom Gallagher adds to this reform strategy by arguing that Bernie Sanders should join the Democratic Party — forgetting that when he supported Hillary Clinton in the presidential election, he presented himself as a defacto member of the party in all but name.

Many of the strategies proposed to move the Democratic Party away from its history of centrism and the violence of neoliberalism are noble: If they were enacted at the level of policies and power relations, they would certainly make life easier for the poor, vulnerable and excluded. Progressives are right to be motivated and inspired by Sanders’s courage and policies. Sanders’s campaign against a rigged economy that redistributed wealth and income upward on a massive scale to the rich and corporate robber barons, coupled with his critique of the fixed political system that protected neoliberalism, provided a new language that had the potential to be visionary. But there is a difference between calling for reform and offering a new and compelling vision with an emphasis on a radical transformation of the political and economic systems.

At the same time, calls for a new vision and supporting values for radical democratic change do not mean abandoning attempts at reforming the Democratic Party as much as viewing such attempts as part of a broader strategy designed to make immediate progressive gains on a number of fronts. Most importantly, such a strategy moves beyond reform by pushing the party to its ideological and political limits so as to make visible the endpoint of liberal reform. At stake here is the assumption that such a strategy will make clear that the Democratic Party is incapable of being transformed radically and as such should not be expected to be on the forefront of radical democratic change.

Political and ideological centrism is endemic to the Democratic Party: It has never called for restructuring a system that is corrupt to the core. As a result, in the words of Nancy Fraser, the antidote to authoritarianism «is a left project that redirects the rage and the pain of the dispossessed towards a deep societal restructuring and a democratic political ‘revolution’.» The power of a left-progressive presence in the United States will, in part, depend on developing a comprehensive and accessible narrative that is able, as Nancy Fraser observes, to «articulate the legitimate grievances of Trump supporters with a fulsome critique of financialization on the one hand, and with an anti-racist, anti-sexist and anti-hierarchical vision of emancipation on the other.» The left needs a populism with a social conscience, one that allows young people, workers, the middle class, and others to see how their futures might develop in a way that speaks to their needs and a more just and equitable life, one in which the utopian possibilities of a radical democracy appear possible.

Looking Beyond the Democratic Party

A new vision for change cannot be built on the legacy of the Democratic Party. What is needed is a concerted attempt to figure out what democratic socialism will mean and look like in the 21st century. This suggests rethinking the meaning of politics, one that can rekindle the social imagination. Central to such a struggle is the role education must play in creating the formative culture capable of creating critical and engaged citizens. In this case, politics moves beyond ephemeral protests and recalibrates itself to create the public spheres that enable progressives to think about what long term movements, organizations and institutions can be aligned to create new political formations willing to confront neoliberal capitalism and other forms of oppression, not simply as symptoms of a distorted democracy but as part of a more radical project unwilling to compromise on identifying root causes.

Michelle Alexander is right in warning us that it would be a tragedy to waste the growing resistance against Trump «by settling for any Democrat the next time around.» I would similarly argue that we should not settle for a choice between good or bad Democrats. We must instead struggle for a radical restructuring of society, one that gives meaning to a substantive democracy. Resistance cannot be either defensive or ephemeral, reduced to either a narrow criticism of Trump’s policies or to short-lived expressions of protests. As Michael Lerner has pointed out, protests are moments, and however pedagogically and politically valuable, do not constitute a movement. As Zygmunt Bauman and Leonidas Donskis have suggested in their book Liquid Evil, protests function as «an explosion of political subjectivity» and generally tell us what people are against but not what they want. Coupled with a new vision, moral language and democratic values, the left and other progressives need a platform for thinking beyond neoliberal capitalism.

As David Harvey observes, the problems Americans face are too intractable and extensive to resolve without a strong anti-capitalist movement. This will only take place if progressives create a broad-based social movement that aligns struggles at the local, state and national level with democratic movements at the global level. The peripheral demands of single-issue movements cannot be abandoned, but they must translate into wider opportunities for social change. There should be no contradiction between the call for educational reform, women’s rights and ecological change and what Katrina Forrester calls an alternative economic and political vision for America. At the same time, it is a mistake for progressives to look at society only in terms of economic structures and issues. A mass-based movement to challenge neoliberalism and authoritarianism cannot be constructed unless it also commits to struggle against the many forms of oppression extending from sexism and racism to xenophobia and transphobia. Only a movement that unifies these diverse struggles will lead us toward a radical democracy.

Politics becomes radical when it translates private troubles into broader systemic issues and challenges the commanding institutional and educational structures of neoliberalism. To be effective, it must do so in a language that speaks to people’s needs, enabling them to both identify and invest in narratives in which they can recognize themselves and the conditions that produce the suffering they experience. For this reason, the call for institutional change is inextricably connected to the politics of social transformation. Such transformation must propel us toward an international movement to build a society that embraces the beauty of universal emancipation and promise of a radical democracy. At a time in history when the stakes for democracy are so threatened and life on the planet itself so imperiled, collective action is the only way out of the age of illiberal democracy. It is time to go for broke.

Source:

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/41672-why-the-democratic-party-can-t-save-us-from-trump-s-authoritarianism

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EEUU: Paladino Ousted From Buffalo Board of Education

Noticias

EEUU/August 22, 2017/Source: http://cnyvision.com

The past few months have seen some of the most truly spectacular political oustings in the history of our country on the national scale. In all the tumult, another ousting on the local level might have slipped under your radar: the divisive former gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino has been shown the door, with the State Education Commissioner forcibly removing the beleaguered businessman from his position on the Buffalo Board of Education.

The dismissal was the result of a week-long hearing that took place in June after his fellow member petitioned the state to unseat him. According to the Democrat and Chronicle, the board charged that Paladino had “willingly shared” information about teacher union negotiations and a pending lawsuit, both of which were confidential.

Paladino and his attorney, Dennis Vacco, see it differently.

“The determination to remove him, at least, is excessive in the context of all of the circumstances and facts of this case,” Vacco said to the Democrat and Chronicle, insinuating that Paladino was being punished for offensive comments made in a December interview in Artvoice.

In the article, when Paladino was asked about what he’d most like to see go away in 2017, he answered, “Michelle Obama. I’d like her to return to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla.”

Despite the claims of Paladino and his legal team, however, Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia agreed with the board, finding that Paladino had, in fact, violated the Open Meetings Law.

In her finding, Elia said, “The record demonstrates that respondent disclosed confidential information regarding collective negotiations under the Taylor Law which he gained in the course of his participation as a board member in executive session and that his disclosures constituted a willful violation of law warranting his removal from office.”

Paladino was first elected to the school board in 2013, three years after his failed gubernatorial bid, which was rocked with an eclectic collection of scandals, including racist and sexually explicit emails, homophobic remarks, and unsubstantiated accusations of marital infidelity against his opponent. Despite the many controversies, however, Paladino managed to win all eight Western New York counties and 34% of the votes.

Recently, Paladino has been raising the possibility a second gubernatorial run, citing the election of President Trump, another politician with a long record of controversial comments.

“I think he’s proven in his days in office that the kind of change that he is bringing to Washington is something that we need in Albany,” Paladino said to Spectrum News Buffalo.

How this public ousting will effect Paladino’s chances at a second attempt for the New York governorship has yet to be seen.

For the time being, however, teachers unions are rejoicing in Paladino’s removal. With three-fourths of U.S. kids attending preschool programs and 50 million students attending public elementary and secondary school nationwide, these groups argue there is no place for such disruptive behavior on school boards.

A statement from the New York State United Teachers union put out an official statement approving of Elia’s decision, according to the Democrat and Chronicle. The statement read, “There is absolutely no place in public education for someone who flagrantly disregards the rules and spouts disgusting, racially charged ideas that harm students and the teaching environment.”

Source:

http://cnyvision.com/paladino-ousted-from-buffalo-board-of-education/

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Nigerians divided over sex education in schools

Noticias

Nigeria/August 22, 2017/Source: https://stluciatimes.com

Nigerians are divided on the introduction of the comprehensive sex education (CSE) curriculum in schools to give students an understanding of their sexuality.

The West African country is among the most religious countries in the world with 186 million people made up of predominantly Christians and Muslims. With its over 300 tribes, Nigeria is seen as a conservative country.

These characteristics influence the divisions on the teaching of sex education in schools.

Nigeria has been praised by UNESCO for scaling up and sustaining the comprehensive sex education (CSE) programme in basic schools among a few developing countries in the world.

Nigeria’s CSE curriculum is known as family life HIV education and is designed to prevent students from contracting sexually transmitted infections including HIV, reduce teenage pregnancy and lower rates of sexual violence.

The CSE brought forth text books for the government and private primary and secondary school students with lessons on abstinence and other sexuality topics. The children are between the ages of eight and 15.

One of such books is the Junior Secondary School (JSS 1) Social Studies textbook written by S. O. Omotuyole.

This book has been condemned for its content on Page 50 that spells out “ways to give and receive sexual pleasure and develop closeness without sexual intercourse”.

Among the answers for the topic on abstinence in the book are: kissing, hugging and the undesirable “mutual masturbation”.

One parent, Bello Abdullahi, expressed concern on Facebook about the text book and called on other parents to protect their children and educate them according to the “scriptures”.

“We must keep a close watch on what is being taught our children at school and re-educate them in line with scriptures. Please alert other parents and let’s protect our children,” he said.

He received a diverse response from the public as some blamed the country’s educational board for the publication while others believe the time is right for sexual education.

The NGO Association of Concerned Mothers (ASCOM) has petitioned the Ministry of Education to withdraw the textbook for its “unwholesome and dangerous ideology.”

Also, the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS) launched a campaign in July 2017 against the comprehensive sex education in schools to rather “impact moral values in the children”.

Meanwhile, reproductive health body IPAS has supported the introduction of CSE to reduce incidences of rape among children.

The Country Director of IPAS Nigeria Hauwa Shekarau said last week that adolescents needs to be equipped with information to prevent them from the various consequences of unprotected sex.

“Comprehensive sexuality education is not a taboo. Young people should be able to acquire sex education the appropriate way. If you don’t tell them the right things, they will get the information, whether right or wrong, elsewhere,” she said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday published a report carrying views of education stakeholders on the matter in the North West and North East states of the country.

They also expressed diverse views on the teaching of comprehensive sex education (CSE) in schools.

Some supported it while others disapproved of it citing religious reasons.

“Parents should not hide the truth from their children, but teach them what they need to know based on their level of comprehension and take them gradually as they develop. The rationale is to catch them young and prevent them from getting the wrong information from outsiders who may eventually exploit them,” Okene Oloruwagba, a mother told NAN.

“Sex education is an intuitive knowledge and in my opinion government should not introduce sexuality in school curriculum because it will corrupt the minds of teenagers,” Ustaz Abdulrahim Shuaibu, Muslim cleric said.

He was supported by a pastor, Ahmadu Samuel, who said: “Teaching children about sexual relationships apart from promoting immorality is like teaching a child to drive a car without explaining the traffic laws.”

The debate has heightened and the onus lies in the hands of the government to decide on scrapping sex education in schools, reviewing the policy or maintaining it as it is.

Source:

https://stluciatimes.com/2017/08/21/nigerians-divided-sex-education-schools

 

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Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ interview with The Associated Press

Entrevistas

By The Associated Press

A transcript of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ interview with The Associated Press, conducted last Wednesday in her office:

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AP: President Trump has talked a lot about undoing some of the Obama legacy. When it comes to education can you talk to us about the areas where you think you’ve been successful in this regard? What is the federal role, the federal government’s role in education and how do you accomplish those goals?

DeVOS: Well those are a number of questions. Let me start with what we believe the federal government’s role is in education and that is a much less heavy footprint than has been present in recent years. We really believe that states are the best laboratories of democracy on many fronts and we are in the middle of moving to implement the ESSA, the Every Student Succeeds Act, which really dissolves power back to the states and gives them a lot more flexibility around meeting the needs of students in their unique states and with their unique situations. And we think that there has been an overreach in many cases on the part of the federal government in really intruding on states’ issues and states’ areas of responsibility as well as trying to engineer things from the federal level in a way that is not helpful to students overall.

AP: What about the Obama legacy? Have you been successful in looking at things that were done before and were …

DeVOS: From a higher ed perspective there were a number of regulations which we think have been very onerous and have targeted certain kinds of institutions based on their tax status and has been to the detriment ultimately of both those institutions and the students that are served. Those are areas in which we are pausing the regulations around gainful employment, borrower defense repayment, and we’re really examining a lot of other regulations and letters that have been put out in the course of the last eight years to see what ones really are serving students well and are really respectful of everyone involved.

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AP: Just to follow up on that. You talked about institutions based on their tax status, so the for-profit schools, many of them have been found to have defrauded students, that have not provided the education that they were promised and the ability to find jobs. Has the fact that President Trump had a for-profit college, Trump University, that was sued for fraud complicated your efforts in this area at all.

DeVOS: Well, I go back to what I said originally about the fact that we believe the last administration really stepped much more heavily into areas that it should not and at the expense of a broader look at all institutions. Look, we are concerned and we are, we want to make sure that students have the best chance for a bright future. That involves first of all being much more aware of the full range of options and pathways of higher education so that’s a principle that you’re going to hear the president and me and others in the administration talk more broadly about. We have not done a good job at encouraging students to look at all their options when pursuing post-high school education. Career and technical education has been sort of diminished and dismissed over many years. That is an area we believe has bright promise for many students and needs to be elevated and honored in a way that really is, notes the opportunities there. But back to your original question around students and the opportunities they have, let’s be clear, no student should be defrauded and in case of fraud there should be remedy. But we also know this approach has been unevenly applied and if there’s going to be regulation around some institutions we believe it needs to be fairly applied across the board. And so going back and going through a whole proper process to look at this area and these regulations involves really a balanced approach involving feedback and input from all stakeholders, students, institutions alike.

AP: Can you talk to us a little bit about your relationship with President Trump and Vice President Pence? How often do you see them? Do you talk to them? Do they ask for your feedback? Do you get their feedback? And also President Trump’s disapproval ratings are about 57 percent. Does serving an unpopular president complicate your efforts in your job?

DeVOS: Well, we just had the vice president here in this building on Monday. He came joined for lunch with a small group of our team and then a broader group for a little bit of conversation and discussion. As you well know, as governor, Vice President Pence was very, very involved in education issues in Indiana and as a congressman before that and has been a real champion of the work that we’ve been doing, as has the president, frankly. And my interactions with the president have been consistently very encouraging, very positive, empowering of the work we are doing here. In terms of his leadership, I think he is a very strong and effective leader, in first of all selecting strong people to lead in the various agencies and departments and then giving us the opportunity to do what we do best and that is to pursue the policies and the direction that he has set out in a broad way and that each of us have expertise in pursuing in more granular detail.

___

AP: So how often do you meet …

DeVOS: There is not a consistent pattern, but I’m expecting to talk with him very soon. I’m probably not at liberty to say exactly when. But I’m scheduled to meet with him very soon and I look forward to that opportunity.

___

AP: You took office, President Trump took office, as big proponents of school choice, of ways to give America’s schoolchildren different options of where they are going to attend school. What do you see as the best way to accomplish this, especially given some of the budget fights we’ve seen so far on Capitol Hill, and the fact that we have such polarization and partisanship in Congress.

DeVOS: The primary way to accomplish this is for states to pass robust programs, which some of them have, and more are considering, but when we recall the fact that about 92 percent of education spending originates in the states and only 8 percent from the federal level, the federal government the federal role in funding of education is certainly negligible as compared to the states. That said, I think there is an opportunity for the federal government to set a tone and I’m working to continue to do so every opportunity I have to talk about this to encourage states to look at programs within their states to consider the president’s … the president has talked repeatedly about empowering parents with more choices and we are collectively discussing the best way to implement something like that, to encourage that from the federal level without enacting a big new federal program that’s going to require a lot of administration. So those discussions are ongoing and as soon as we have something more specific in that area we’ll be happy to share that with you.

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AP: So let me follow up on that a little bit. About a third of the states have established tax-credit scholarships as a way of promoting choice. We’ve heard a lot about tax reform as the president’s next focus in Congress, to try to get tax reform passed. Can you envision a federal tax credit scholarship program will be part of any tax reform proposal that the administration puts forward?

DeVOS: It’s certainly part of our discussion.

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AP: Just one more question on the tax-credit scholarships and also on state voucher programs that have been established. How do you hold them accountable? How do you measure success? What would you like to see as the secretary of education that states implement to make sure that they’re doing the job that they’re supposed to be doing?

DeVOS: Well, I think the first line of accountability is frankly with the parents. When parents are choosing school they are proactively making that choice. And schools are accountable to the parents. And vice versa, the students doing well and working to achieve in the schools. I think it’s important for parents to have information about how their students are doing, how they’re achieving, how they’re progressing. And that kind of transparency and accountability I think is really the best approach to holding schools accountable broadly. It starts with holding themselves accountable to communication of relevant and important information to students and parents about how they are doing. And we know from, that when parents choose and they are unhappy with whatever the school setting is they will choose something different. And that’s the beauty of having choices.

___

AP: Given your experience in Michigan with charter schools, what are some of the lessons we can learn? What were some of the good things about charter schools there? What are some of the difficulties, challenges that you encountered, and can we solve them?

DeVOS: As you know, Michigan is limited in its offering of choice to having only charter schools so there’s no private school program choice in Michigan largely due to the fact that we have a very restrictive Blaine amendment in Michigan. But the charter school, the growth of charter school offerings in Michigan, is responding to the demand of parents and today there are still tens of thousands of parents wanting and waiting to get their children into charter schools, so the growth of them you can see has not kept up with the demand. Michigan has had a very robust accountability mechanism in that the chartering authorizers are held accountable for the performance of the schools that they charter. And there have been charters schools that have closed because of lack of enough students, so not enough parents choosing to send their child to whatever school or their fiscal performance. The fact that there have been charter schools closed I think is evidence of the fact that there is accountability. At the same time, there have been zero traditional public schools closed in Michigan for performance and I think that’s a problem. I think that’s really a problem particularly in the city of Detroit where there have been schools that have not served students well for many, many years and yet students are still forced to go there year after year after year. You know every year that this is not addressed and dramatic changes are not made, it takes a toll on the students that are forced to go there.

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AP: I’d like to talk higher ed for a minute. In recent days, we had, there was a leak of the internal Justice job posting related to affirmative action. We see Justice is going ahead and pursuing the case against Harvard on claims of discrimination filed by Asian-American students. The Education Department hasn’t weighed in on this, on the topic of affirmative action. Do you favor affirmative action programs in college admissions?

DeVOS: Well, I think this has been a question before the courts and the courts have opined. We have not been involved with the Justice Department’s posting and again I think as they have stated, this was an internal issue and one that they are continuing to move forward on. I think the bottom line here is that we want an environment where all students have an opportunity, an equal opportunity to get a great education whether that’s at the K-12 level or the higher-ed level. And it’s our goal to see all students have the opportunity to succeed, no matter where they come from, no matter their family background, no matter their family income and that’s my goal, that’s my personal goal and I know that’s the goal of our team here at the Department.

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AP: There has been some mistrust of you and the department among the minority communities after comments you made about the historically black colleges and universities, the action of LGBTQ, transgender bathroom issue. How do you counteract that? How do you let these communities know just what you are saying, that you are on their side?

DeVOS: Well, let me just comment on what I think was an out of context comment and a misunderstanding with the HBCUs. When I talked about it being a pioneer in choice it was because I acknowledge that racism was rampant and there were no choices. These HBCUs provided choices for black students that they didn’t have. I think that that comment was — while I could have said it, stated it much better — my intention was to say they were pioneering on behalf of students that didn’t have another choice. This was their only choice. And at the same time I should have decried much more forcefully the ravages of racism in this country. My last three decades have been working on behalf of primarily minority families and students to allow them to make choices for their kids. And to think anything otherwise, my feelings otherwise for providing opportunities for minority students is just absolutely false. I mean, that’s where my heart has been for three decades is to really empower and allow all families the same kind of opportunities I’ve had for my kids.

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AP: Have you reached out to some of the organizations, NAACP and others to tell them what you are just telling us?

DeVOS: I’ve had these conversations with some of the African-American organizations that represent higher education, but probably not as explicitly as I am right now.

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AP: Just to follow up. I know you said the Department of Education hasn’t been involved in that internal memo with the Justice Department. Do you personally believe that race should play a role in admissions? Race, ethnicity?

DeVOS: Well, what I believe is that we have to change the dynamic for kids on the K-12 system that for all too many kids who are minority students is failing them. It is not fair to think that when students transit through a K-12 system that is not preparing them for beyond, that somehow we are going to waive a magic wand and things are going to be perfect for them at the higher-ed level. So I’ve always said: What we should really be talking about is what are we doing to ensure that every single child no matter their family income, no matter their racial background, no matter their zip code has equal opportunities to access a quality education. We have seen decades of top-down mandated approaches that protect a system at the expense of individual students. I am for individual students. I want each of them to have opportunity to go to a school that works for them.

___

AP: When college admissions officers look at students’ applications, they look at their scores, their grades, their credits, their classes, music. Should they also look at their race when deciding whether to admit them or not?

DeVOS: Well, they are looking at that. That is a factor today. I am not going to debate that, I am not going to discuss that. What I want to discuss is the process that gets them from kindergarten through 12th grade and the fact that there are not enough choices and there are not enough options for all students to find the right niche for them. It also feeds into the higher-ed issue is incumbent on K-12.

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AP: What will be the department’s role, if any, in that Harvard lawsuit?

DeVOS: I can’t comment to that. We are not really involved in that. I just don’t have anything additional to add to that right now.

___

AP: After your day long listening session on campus sexual assaults, you said, “We can’t go back to the days when allegations were swept under the rug,” but also added that it’s “an issue we’re not getting right? Do you plan to withdraw the Dear Colleague letter the Obama administration issued to campuses telling them what they need to do pursue investigations of allegations of assault?

DeVOS: What we are continuing to do is listen to and talk with individuals from all perspectives on this issue because as we know as a fact no matter where we’re coming from, whether you’re a survivor, whether you’re an accused individual, whether you’re part of an institution charged with navigating these issues, it is not working right and well for anyone. All the individuals I’ve talked with have said we need to have a process and a system that we know is right and fair for everyone involved. So, we’re continuing to have those conversations and are continuing to learn and to research what some of the options might be going forward. But we know we have to get this right. We have to get this right on behalf of all students. I think it goes without saying, but I’ll say it, sexual assault anywhere at any time is horrible and we need to decry it and at the same time we need to ensure that the processes to address it when it happens are done right.

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AP: Some of our colleagues at the AP did an investigation looking at sexual assaults from K-12 and found that in a four-year period there were about 17,000 cases. So, it’s clearly not just a higher ed issue? What do you think schools need to do to educate their students about that issue and how early should that education begin?

DeVOS: I don’t think it can begin too early. Clearly, it has to begin in the home and from the earliest conversations and I think it begins with adults modeling respect for one another and I think that again the … dealing with an issue of sexual assault. It is one of end of the spectrum. The other end is how do we help foster and create environments where men and women respect one another and treat one another with respect. And that starts with adults modeling it for the children in their own families and classrooms and any environment where you have the opportunity to interact with kids.

___

AP: Should schools have a role in this?

DeVOS: Well, I think schools naturally do. I think again there is opportunity for adults to behave like adults and model the kind of behavior that we would help for children to learn and respect as they grow up.

___

What about classes in the K-12 system, like sexual education, anti-sexual assault classes?

DeVOS: Having conversation around how you treat one another is a good thing, but also know that often actions speak louder than words and so I think the opportunity to model good behavior when children are at a very young age is important. I have six grandchildren and I’m keenly aware of the opportunity I have as a grandmother and my husband as a grandfather to pour into those children. And I would just hope that all parents and grandparents are really intentional about that. They’re the primary educators. Clearly educators in the classroom have an opportunity as well but it’s not a one place, one time conversation. It’s really is a lifetime of conversation and modeling I think.

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AP: One final question, quickly. Some of your critics call you a public school denier. You didn’t have a lot of experience with public schools before you started this job. What have you learned about public schools? What are some of their strengths? What can you learn from them? Maybe some of their successes that need to be replicated.

DeVOS: Well, I am first of all a very strong supporter of public schools, of great public schools. I know there are many schools that do a great job for the students they serve. And at the same time I know that even the best public school might not be a great fit for every single child and we need to recognize and acknowledge that. But we also need to encourage schools, public schools that are doing a great job to not rest on their laurels but to continue to improve because unless you’re constantly oriented around continuous improvement and excellence we know that there’s going to be reversion to something less than that. So it will be my continued encouragement that they are oriented around continuing to do better and better and better each and every year, each and every day, each and every month, each and every year that they’re continuing to serve students. And, hand in glove with that, is the really important role that classroom teachers play and I think we need to honor and support great teachers in a way that I don’t think they’ve been probably recognized as much recently, and we also need to be honest if there are classroom teachers who are not doing the job and I think there’s got to be more conversation around that because we know for a fact that great classroom teachers are irreplaceable when it comes to students’ ability to advance and achieve.

Source:

https://federalnewsradio.com/government-news/2017/08/transcript-of-education-secretary-devos-interview-with-ap/

 

 

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Nigeria Restructures Religious Teaching in Schools

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Nigeria/August 01, 2017/By Yusha’u A. Ibrahim/Source: All Africa

Minister of Education Malam Adamu Adamu has disputed allegation that the ministry is planning to Islamise Nigeria.

Adamu who paid a courtesy visit yesterday to Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje of Kano State, said, «Since the controversy started, I did not say anything about it until today. The ministry is accused and by extension I am accused of picking out Christian Religious Knowledge from the education curriculum and then imposing Islamic Religious knowledge on both Christian and Muslim schools. This is not true at all. In 2012, the then Federal Government under Goodluck Jonathan formulated a policy where IRK and CRK were grouped together. The implementation of the policy started since 2014. That was two years after the formulation of the policy and about two years before I became minister of education.»

He said at the last National Executive Council (NEC) meeting, he suggested to the council that IRK and CRK should be made core subjects which students of the respective faiths must be made to study.

Tracing the history of the IRK, CRK policy further, the minister said, «If some people still believe that the policy was formulated to Islamize Nigeria, with due respect, the President at the time the policy was formulated was Goodluck Jonathan, the Minister was Nyesom Wike the present governor of Rivers State; the formulator and writer of the policy was Professor Godswill Obioma and Mrs Okwonko who was at the time the policy was implemented the director of basic education in the ministry were all Christians. So, I cannot see how people are accusing the ministry or me of imposing this policy to Islamize Nigeria.»

Source:

http://allafrica.com/stories/201707280787.html

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Sexuality education for Kenya’s youth: When the evidence is on the wall, but politics gets in the way

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Kenya/July 11, 2017/By: Diana Warira* /Source: https://www.standardmedia.co.ke

The need to provide sexuality education for Kenya’s youth has been the subject of discussion in Kenya’s development circles for decades. Whether sexuality education has a critical role in improving the sexual and reproductive health outcomes of youth, or not, is no longer the debate. Why? One may ask. Well, research evidence already shows that sexuality education reduces risky sexual behaviour among youth. This means that when youth are well-informed about their sexuality, then the likelihood of engaging in risky sexual behaviour reduces. Those who are abstaining from sex continue abstaining, and those who are already having sex practice safer sex. This means that sexuality education has potential to reduce teenage pregnancy, unsafe abortions, and HIV infections among other negative sexual and reproductive health outcomes in Kenya.

However, despite the strong evidence supporting the need for sexuality education for Kenya’s youth, the momentum the government had gained over recent years towards incorporating sexuality education in the formal education curriculum seems to have waned, drastically. To quote one development practitioner, the ‘matter was shelved.’

We have an enabling policy environment, right?

More puzzling is the fact that the government has a policy outlining the need for sexuality education for Kenya’s youth, adolescents to be precise. The Ministry of Health’s National Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health (ASRH) Policy of 2015 outlines contributing to increased access to ASRH information and age-appropriate comprehensive sexuality education (AACSE) as one of the policy objectives. The Policy goes on to outline that it shall “Strengthen ASRH information and AACSE programmes for out-of-school and in-school adolescents.”

Further, in order to ensure the policy recommendations are implemented, the Policy stresses the use of a multi-sectoral approach cutting across various ministries and state agencies. Top on the list of ministries to be involved in the Policy implementation is the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST). The Policy stipulates that MoEST shall implement sexuality education, AACSE to be precise, in-line with the Education Sector Policy on HIV and AIDS of 2013. Other areas of involvement for MoEST as outlined in the Policy are: facilitating provision of information to parents on the sexual and reproductive health of adolescents within the school set up, and strengthening partnership with the Ministry of Health (MoH) to provide ASRH information and services in schools.

That said, it is clear that the question of whether we have a policy framework, or not, within which to implement sexuality education is no longer valid. Several groups of stakeholders, including a technical working group on adolescent sexual and reproductive health, have convened in order to deliberate how to move the policy recommendations into action. However, all these efforts seem to have hit a snag.

While the mandate of ensuring good sexual and reproductive health outcomes among youth falls on the MoH, implementation at the school level lies with MoEST. A good point to note is that we have a National Curriculum Policy of 2015, which outlines various education reforms driven by the Second Medium Term Plan of Kenya Vision 2030. The Policy seeks to ensure life-long learning and steer learners towards achieving their full potential.

Ensuring that youth have good sexual and reproductive health outcomes is a major determinant as to whether youth achieve their full potential or not. However, the glaring absence of any mention of sexuality education (or the more salient option, family life education) in the National Curriculum Policy as part of the curriculum reforms is evidence to the disconnect in commitments between the various state agencies charged with steering the ASRH Policy and other policy frameworks forward. The 2015 National Curriculum Policy was an excellent opportunity for MoEST to take up some of the recommendations of the 2015 ASRH Policy in order to ensure joint effort towards improving the sexual and reproductive health of Kenya’s youth. Perhaps it is worth mentioning that the ASRH Policy was published a few months ahead of the National Curriculum Policy hence there was room to incorporate these elements in the latter.

A middle ground perhaps?

The lack of collective political will within government therefore, is the greatest hurdle standing in the way of realising sexual and reproductive health among Kenyan youth. It is widely known that a notable proportion of adolescents in Kenya are engaging in sex. The 2014 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS) reported that half of women and men begin having sex by age 18. Moreover, 15 percent of women and 22 percent of men aged 20-49 had sex by age 15. Opponents of sexuality education have pointed out that this type of education, if implemented in schools, will lead to moral decadence, spike curiosity among adolescents to experiment with sex, among other issues. However, shouldn’t the government, parents, teachers and other stakeholders be working collaboratively to ensure these young ones have the right information regarding their sexual and reproductive well being? The ASRH Policy is very clear on the emphasis on ‘age-appropriate’ sexuality education. This means that information shared with a 10 year old is very different from that shared with an 18 year old. The fixation on the ‘comprehensive’ bit of sexuality education has led many to throw out the entire agenda. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak.

While the arguments against sexuality education may be hinged on genuine fears, it is time we separated the evidence from the myths and opinions. It is at this point that the government agencies charged with steering this matter should step up to provide guidance on the best way forward. Sexuality education, comprehensive or not, is a critical remedy to the runaway morals we are witnessing among our youth, and a long-term fix to the declining sexual and reproductive health outcomes. If nothing is done, we shall not only miss the sustainable development targets on improving the health and wellbeing of Kenyan youth, but also the Vision 2030 goals. Therefore, a key question for us to answer is – should we let go of what the evidence says because the reality makes us uncomfortable, or should we all find a middle ground and save our youth while we still have the chance? 


*Diana Warira is a Communications Officer at the African Institute for Development Policy (AFIDEP)

Source:

https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/ureport/story/2001246878/sexuality-education-for-kenya-s-youth-when-the-evidence-is-on-the-wall-but-politics-gets-in-the-way

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