![[SOUTH KOREA] … But South Korea, among the world’s most wired nations, has also seen its plan to digitize elementary, middle and high school classrooms by 2015 collide with a trend it didn’t anticipate: Education leaders here worry that digital devices are too pervasive and that this young generation of tablet-carrying, smartphone-obsessed students might benefit from less exposure to gadgets, not more.
Those concerns have caused South Korea to pin back the ambition of the project, which is in a trial stage at about 50 schools. Now, the full rollout won’t be a revolution: Classes will use digital textbooks alongside paper textbooks, not instead of them. First- and second-graders, government officials say, probably won’t use the gadgets at all. (via In South Korean classrooms, digital textbook revolution meets some resistance - The Washington Post)](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1k8eijSh31qb8rnio1_500.jpg)
[SOUTH KOREA] … But South Korea, among the world’s most wired nations, has also seen its plan to digitize elementary, middle and high school classrooms by 2015 collide with a trend it didn’t anticipate: Education leaders here worry that digital devices are too pervasive and that this young generation of tablet-carrying, smartphone-obsessed students might benefit from less exposure to gadgets, not more.
Those concerns have caused South Korea to pin back the ambition of the project, which is in a trial stage at about 50 schools. Now, the full rollout won’t be a revolution: Classes will use digital textbooks alongside paper textbooks, not instead of them. First- and second-graders, government officials say, probably won’t use the gadgets at all. (via In South Korean classrooms, digital textbook revolution meets some resistance - The Washington Post)
Textbooks of Tomorrow infographic (via Textbooks of Tomorrow)
KABUL — In a country where the recent past has unfolded like a war epic, officials think they have found a way to teach Afghan history without widening the fractures between long-quarreling ethnic and political groups: leave out the past four decades.
A series of government-issued textbooks funded by the United States and several foreign aid organizations do just that, pausing history in 1973. There is no mention of the Soviet war, the mujaheddin, the Taliban or the U.S. military presence. In their efforts to promote a single national identity, Afghan leaders have deemed their own history too controversial. (via In Afghanistan, a new approach to teaching history: Leave out the wars - The Washington Post)
Indian culture reflected poorly in school syllabi, finds survey - Hindustan Times
The survey found that texts such as Ramayana, Mahabharata and tales from Panchatantra, Jataka and Hitopadesha were omitted from textbooks but Aesop’s Fables had been included.
“It is shocking that the south and north-eastern parts of India are almost neglected in the textbooks which are overwhelmingly tilted toward central and north India,” said the survey report, which rated books on different parameters such as tradition and culture, history, heritage, Indian thought and spirituality.
![[LIBYA] At least 1.2 million Libyan pupils are set to return to school tomorrow, almost a year after they evacuated their classrooms during the country’s popular uprising against the regime of Muammar al-Qadhafi, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported today.
The agency said about 27 million textbooks are being printed by Libya’s education ministry and 10 million have already been distributed in anticipation of the return to school.
But a shortage of both books and desks remain, and transport to and from school is also lacking for many children. (via More than a million children set to return to school in Libya – UNICEF)](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxggtkQ6pI1qb8rnio1_500.jpg)
[LIBYA] At least 1.2 million Libyan pupils are set to return to school tomorrow, almost a year after they evacuated their classrooms during the country’s popular uprising against the regime of Muammar al-Qadhafi, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported today.
The agency said about 27 million textbooks are being printed by Libya’s education ministry and 10 million have already been distributed in anticipation of the return to school.
But a shortage of both books and desks remain, and transport to and from school is also lacking for many children. (via More than a million children set to return to school in Libya – UNICEF)
![[ZIMBABWE] After completing the fourth grade at the top of her class, 13-year-old Ellen Mbedzi was forced to drop out of Mafeha Primary School in Bulilima, a district in south-western Zimbabwe. Her unemployed father did not see the value of spending the family’s limited resources on a girl. (via In Zimbabwe, school grants provide equal learning opportunities to girls | Back on Track)](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lwl7t7pe3I1qb8rnio1_400.jpg)
[ZIMBABWE] After completing the fourth grade at the top of her class, 13-year-old Ellen Mbedzi was forced to drop out of Mafeha Primary School in Bulilima, a district in south-western Zimbabwe. Her unemployed father did not see the value of spending the family’s limited resources on a girl. (via In Zimbabwe, school grants provide equal learning opportunities to girls | Back on Track)
[RAMALLAH, West Bank] Do Palestinian school textbooks “teach terrorism,” as Newt Gingrich claimed in a recent debate among U.S. Republican presidential hopefuls?
His example — that Palestinians “have text books that say, ‘If there are 13 Jews and nine Jews are killed, how many Jews are left?’” — is not in any of the texts, researchers say.
As for Gingrich’s broader claim, the textbooks don’t directly encourage anti-Israeli violence, but they also don’t really teach peace, studies say.
[LIBYA] Over his more than four decades of dictatorship, Qaddafi used the schools to promote his ideology to citizens.
Now, the National Transitional Council has the huge task of purging all subjects, from primary to university level, of the dictator’s influence.
SHANGHAI - The city’s first sex education textbook for primary school students will be used in 18 schools in Shanghai in the coming semester.
The textbook, Boys and Girls, which the authors prefer to describe as gender education rather than sex education, was written by the Primary School Affiliated to the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, and will be piloted in 18 primary schools in Yangpu district.
CAIRO - Fatema Salah said her students had never sung the Egyptian national anthem quite the way they did Sunday, the first day back to school for most Cairo pupils. Before, they shuffled through the morning ritual, heads down and sleepy. This time, standing in the school’s shady courtyard for the first time since the revolution, they belted it out.
