Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Covid-19 school closures have exposed children around the world to human rights abuses such as forced genital mutilation, early marriage and sexual violence, child protection experts say.
Globally, the World Bank estimates that 1.6 billion children were locked out of education by Covid-19. As schools in England and around the world prepare to reopen this week, NGOs warn that millions of the world’s most vulnerable children may never return to the classroom, and say that after decades fighting for girls’ education the pandemic could cause gender equality in education to be set back decades.
The Cabinet Office minister has said he is confident children and teachers will be safe if they return to the classroom, but admitted the risk remained of contracting Covid-19. Appearing on BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show, Michael Gove said: ‘The only way ever to ensure that you never catch coronavirus is to stay at home completely. There’s always, always, always in any loosening of these restrictions a risk of people catching the coronavirus’
Twitter CEO’s $10m pledge will immediately help ‘put a device in the hand of every single kid’ in Oakland’s public schools
Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter and Square, has announced that he will donate $10m toward computers and internet access for public schools in Oakland, a city where half of students lack reliable access to either.
Dorsey dropped the news after the Oakland mayor, Libby Schaaf, tweeted a video of one those 25,000 students without access to the technology. “Every student deserves the ability to learn from home,” wrote Schaaf.
They have a middle-class reputation, but one outdoor school near Nottingham is reconnecting disadvantaged 10-year-olds with nature and a sense of freedom
When Kate Milman was 21, she paused her English degree at the University of East Anglia to join protests against the Newbury bypass. It was 1996, and the road was being carved out through idyllic wooded countryside in Berkshire. She took up residence in a treehouse, in the path of the bulldozers, and lived there for months. It was a revelation. She lived intimately with the catkins, the calling birds, the slow-slow-fast change in the seasons. Despite being in a precarious position as a protester, she felt completely safe and her brain was calmed.
“You know when you go camping and go back to your house, and everything feels wrong? The lighting is harsh and everything seems complicated indoors. It just got under my skin, this feeling – that [living in the woods] is like being at home.”
While the federal education minister banked on parents’ frustration with home schooling, those same parents are also worried
It’s been a wild old Sunday, with the federal education minister Dan Tehan going from raging bull to mewling kitten in the space of four hours, so let’s work through things step by step.
Scott Morrison has been intensely frustrated with school closures for weeks. The prime minister wants schools to reopen as the bedrock of getting the economy moving again, and the bulk of the medical advice before the government suggests that schools are low risk.
More countries across Europe are preparing to reopen schools in the coming weeks despite conflicting advice from scientifist, some of whom caution against underestimating children’s potential to spread the coronavirus.
Some schools and nurseries in Denmark and Norway have already reopened, and grandparents in Switzerland are allowed to hug grandchildren under 10, following a ruling by the health ministry’s head of infectious diseases that it is safe to do so.
As the prime minister, Boris Johnson, heads back to Downing Street, he faces calls from Labour to be clearer about how Britain might start lifting the coronavirus lockdown, now entering its fifth week. On Sunday, the foreign secretary and first secretary of state, Dominic Raab, warned the outbreak remained at a “delicate and dangerous” stage and said it was irresponsible to speculate about steps to modify the rules underpinning government’s “stay home, protect the NHS, save lives” strategy.
More than 20,000 people have died from Covid-19 in NHS hospitals and thousands more in care homes. But there are growing concerns about the economic impact of lockdown. Gerard Lyons, Johnson’s economics adviser when he was London mayor, warned on Sunday the UK could be the hardest-hit western economy if it does not unlock soon. The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, also called on ministers to start talking to teachers, businesses, trade unions and town hall leaders and open “honest conversations with the public about what new arrangements might look like”. Unions insist worker safety must not be compromised by any changes and questions remain about public appetite for risking a new peak of contagion, but plans to modify restrictions are starting to emerge.
Fewer than three out of 15 families in NSW far west have broadband, making digital classrooms unviable
Teachers in far western NSW say they have been hand-delivering lessons to Aboriginal students at home because families don’t have reliable access the internet and many don’t have computers for their children to work on.
To allow children to keep learning, Wilcannia central school teachers have been making lesson packs for their students and delivering them in person every few days, on a 9km round trip in the school minibus.
Christian Schools Australia (CSA) has demanded the federal government withdraw a threat to independent schools and instead commit to guarantee funding even if enrolments drop off as a result of Covid-19.
On Thursday the education minister, Dan Tehan, wrote to all independent school associations ordering them to provide in-person education to children from term two or risk losing their federal funding.
Schools should consider opening in some form over the six-week summer holidays to help children catch up with the curriculum – and to provide childcare for families who need to get back to work, the children’s commissioner has said.
Anne Longfield said that when schools are allowed to reopen, they could be vital during the long summer holidays. “Whether they are open to all or not, schools do have a really important role, especially for vulnerable children over the coming months.”
She added: “It would be really valuable, if the scientific advice says they can, to have schools consider opening in some form over the summer holidays to help children learn and catch up but also to offer them a safe place to play and socialise with friends. It would also provide vital childcare for families who need to get their incomes back up as they, hopefully, return to work.”
Longfield said schools could bring in play, sports and youth workers to help supervise pupils.
Les Cancres (The Dunces) features pupils coached by celebrities who also struggled at school
French schoolchildren learn an early lesson that failure in the classroom is likely to mean failure in life.
Pupils are encouraged to compete for the best marks and grades that will allow them to study at prestigious grandes écoles and subsequently become part of France’s professional or political elite.
Kay Rufai’s portraits of smiling black boys from south London came out of an initiative that investigated the lack of mental health provisions for black teenagers. The photographs will be on display at Brixton Village
“It’s been a long holiday,” laughs Hong Kong insurance worker and mother, Sarah Wong.
Wong and her two daughters, Chloe and Greeta, are at a co-working space in Jordan, Kowloon. Chloe has set her desk up like home, with an iPad, her own lamp, and an aromatherapy diffuser. The girls, aged 12 and eight, are listening to online lessons from their school which has been closed because of the coronavirus.
Callum Manning, 13, whose reviews were mocked by pupils, backed by Matt Haig and others
A 13-year-old boy who was taunted for his online book reviews has received messages of support from bestselling authors.
Callum Manning, from South Shields, Tyne and Wear, created an Instagram account last week to write posts about some of the books he had read. But he was left “devastated” after other pupils at his new school began to mock the reviews in a group chat he had joined.
Exclusive: experts have queried methods of Narconon, which has given talks in UK schools
Amazon has agreed to channel funds to a controversial drug rehabilitation charity linked to the Church of Scientology, the Guardian has learned.
The web giant will make donations to Narconon – which runs programmes for drug addicts based on the teachings of the Scientology founder, L Ron Hubbard – when supporters buy products through the site, with shoppers able to pledge 0.5% of purchases to selected charities under Amazon’s “Smile” feature.
By providing free school meals to some of the poorest children on Earth, a UK charity is also ensuring they get an education
It’s breakfast time in Domagbamatma (population: 63) in the depths of the Liberian rainforest, but there’s no food in evidence in the home of Massa Kamara. The eight-year-old has been up since dawn, collecting firewood, fetching water.
Now she’s ready for school in a crisp white shirt and navy-blue skirt in her family’s muddy, two-room shack.
The Canadian prime minister achieved a historic victory in 2015 but as he nears the end of his first term a series of scandals are making his political future less certain. With elections next month, journalist Leyland Cecco discusses how likely it is Trudeau will repeat his initial success. And:Kaitlyn Regehr onwhy new sex education lessons in schools are already outdated
As Justin Trudeau looks to renew his parliamentary majority in a forthcoming federal election, a series of scandals have made his political future uncertain. Most recently, the publication of a series of images showing Trudeau in blackface forced the Canadian prime minister to admit he could not recall how many times he had worn it.
Toronto-based journalist Leyland Cecco talks to Rachel Humphreys about Trudeau’s first term in office and whether he can rescue his campaign to win a second – opinion polls shows him in a tight race against his Conservative rival.
In her speech to the conference Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, said Tory policies were to blame for rising crime. She said:
There is no question that the cuts in police numbers have contributed to the rise in crime. But other contributors are the cuts to education, the increase in school exclusions, all the zero-hours contracts, all the homelessness and inequality. All the cuts in mental health services have also played their part.
And these are all Tory policies. When they say they will lead the fight against crime – do not believe a word of it. They are the ones who have created the conditions for rising serious and violent crime. Senior police officers are increasingly going on record and saying that cuts to public services have created an environment where crime flourishes. Cuts have consequences. You cannot keep people safe on the cheap.
We will welcome refugees, including child refugees.
We will proudly uphold the torture ban and treat the victims of torture with humanity, not detentions and deportations.
Speaking at a fringe meeting about how Labour can win back support in its heartlands, Jon Trickett – shadow Cabinet Office minister and MP for Hemsworth – said he was fed up with the argument that the people who voted for Brexit were from “backwards” communities in the north of England. He said:
Here’s the point I want to make. Those held-back communities – the heartland communities – can be found in Hastings, they can be found in Hackney and they can be found in Hartlepool.
A very senior member of the Labour party, she said to me: ‘Well, no wonder they’re all coming down south, the young people, because you can’t be gay up north.’ That was said by somebody whose name you will have mentioned several times in the past few weeks.
Those people who are suggesting that the people who voted for Brexit did not know what they were voting for infantilises 17 million people.
Louise Casey says Birmingham demonstrations have been put in ‘all-too-difficult box’
The former integration tsar, Dame Louise Casey, has accused ministers of “radio silence” over protests against the teaching of LGBT equality at a Birmingham school.
Casey said the government had failed to act on what she described as homophobic demonstrations because it was in the “all-too-difficult box”.
Ola Salem discusses the divorce case of Princess Haya, who fled to London. Why do royal women keep trying to escape the emirate? Plus John Marsden on the growing trend of toxic parenting
Over the summer, Princess Haya, the estranged wife of the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, asked an English court for a forced marriage protection order relating to their children and a non-molestation order after the breakdown of their marriage.
The Guardian reporter Haroon Siddique describes the court scene to Rachel Humphreys, while the journalist Ola Salem discusses previous attempts by two other princesses to flee the Dubai royal family, and looks at why this case is so significant for women in the emirate.