[US] In decades of debate on school reform in Mississippi, though, one issue is ever-present but draws little public discussion: race.
The state’s public schools remain nearly as segregated, in some cases, as they did in the 1960s. In many communities across the state, especially in towns where black children are in the majority, white children almost exclusively attend small private schools founded around the time of court-mandated desegregation in the late 1960s.
Black children, by contrast, usually attend the public schools in these communities. This is also true in Jackson, the state capital. The consequences have been devastating for the state in terms of educational attainment and economic disparities.
The Singapore Ministry of Education has been surveying educators and parents about their concerns with the Singapore education system. The results reveal worries about a perceived over-emphasis on exams and grades that contribute to a high stress education system that overlooks non-academic talents.
Three strategies for fixing education in the developing world.
A group of French parents and teachers have called for a two-week boycott of homework in schools, saying it is useless, tiring and reinforces inequalities between children.
They say homework pushes the responsibility for learning on parents and causes rows between themselves and their children. And they conclude children would be better off reading a book. (via French parents to boycott homework | World news | guardian.co.uk)
In conflict zones, when it’s not safe to leave your house to get information, mobile phones can bridge the gap and keep everyone connected,” says Souktel co-founder Jacob Korenblum. “This basic technology allows aid workers, educators and local families to stay in contact at all times.”
Here’s how it works: At each school, principals and teachers are given password-protected access to a web interface, where they can send SMS alerts to all parents’ mobile phones. In an emergency, they could write, “Attack near school today, please keep your children at home.” Once the violence has ended, another message could go out saying, “Shelling has stopped; please come to school this morning.
It is hard for pupils in poor rural Ugandan schools to pursue their dreams, but it is harder still for those in community schools such as Amorikot. At the start of the Katine project, Amorikot was about the poorest school you could find – a collection of leaky, gaping, grass huts for classrooms, and offices manned largely by unqualified teachers. But, as part of the project, Amref built modern classrooms and latrines. Yet because it is a community – as opposed to a government-aided – school, Amorikot has struggled without trained teachers or state grants, and with dwindling fee payments from parents. (via Education in Katine | Richard M Kavuma | Global development | guardian.co.uk)
Teachers in Zurich are to receive a language handbook with vocabulary and basic information about the 14 main immigrant languages to help ease communication.
With one in three students coming from foreign-language homes, the manual is designed to help in situations such as parent-teacher meetings as well as in German language classes.
[ … ] She indicated that the majority of the parents were of the view that the education of girls was irrelevant, since a woman would eventually end up in a man’s house as a wife, no matter the successes she achieves in education.
