Tens of thousands of students, academics and teachers have marched throughout the vast South American country in protest against ultraconservative president Jair Bolsonaro’s cuts to education, including moves to dramatically reduce funding for federal universities
Continue reading...Category Archives: Education
‘Senseless’: attacks on schools soar in Afghanistan – report
Unicef research shows more than 1,000 schools were closed by the end of last year due to ongoing conflict
Attacks on schools in Afghanistan tripled between 2017 and 2018, surging from 68 to 192, according to the UN children’s agency, Unicef, the first increase since 2015.
According to figures collected by the agency, the ongoing conflict had left more than 1,000 schools closed by the end of last year, with half a million children unable to get an education.
Continue reading...‘It was a no-brainer’: but does a degree from abroad really make a difference?
As applications to study in Europe plummet before Brexit, we ask British students who’ve done it where they are now
Adam Hussain was about to go to university in 2013 when tuition fees in the UK nearly trebled to £9,000. With additional loans for living costs, he realised he would incur debts of £40,000. So when he saw a television report about an exodus of UK students to the Netherlands, Hussain decided to attend an open day at Maastricht University, where annual fees were €2,000 (then about £1,700). That year more than 1,000 British freshers started university in the Netherlands.
“I already wanted to live abroad; when the higher fees came in it was a no-brainer,” says Hussain, 24, who attended an east London comprehensive.
Continue reading...English test students may have been wrongly accused, says watchdog
Home Office ‘did not have the expertise’ to check data used to accuse students of cheating
A government watchdog has criticised the Home Office for failing to protect students wrongly accused of cheating in an English language test that they were required to sit as part of a visa application process.
About 2,500 students have been forcibly removed from the UK after being accused of cheating in the exam and a further 7,200 left the country after being warned that they faced detention and removal if they stayed. Many have protested their innocence; 12,500 appeals have been heard in UK courts, and so far 3,600 people have won their appeals.
Continue reading...The Venezuela uprising: the story so far – podcast
Nicolás Maduro appeared on the brink of being forced from power in an uprising plotted by the opposition leader, Juan Guaidó. But key figures stayed loyal, allowing the president to begin reprisals. Tom Phillips in Caracas has watched it play out. Plus: Owen Jones on public schools and who gets to go to Britain’s elite universities
Juan Guaidó described his attempted uprising last month as the “final phase” of his plan to oust Nicolás Maduro. But after a day of chaos and confusion in which Guaidó’s mentor, Leopoldo López, was sprung from house arrest, the Venezuelan president was still in power and many of the plotters had gone into hiding.
The Guardian’s Latin America correspondent, Tom Phillips, is in Caracas and describes to Anushka Asthana the sense of defiance among supporters of Maduro, and Guaidó’s mood of optimism in an exclusive Guardian interview.
Continue reading...Greta Thunberg backs climate general strike to force leaders to act
Swedish activist says world faces ‘existential crisis’ and must achieve goals of Paris deal
Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish environmental activist, has given her support for a general strike for the climate, saying the student movement she inspired needs more support from older generations to ensure politicians keep their promises under the Paris agreement.
Speaking at a public event in London as Extinction Rebellion protests continued in the capital, the initiator of the school strike for climate movement was typically frank about the scale of the problem the world faces and the impact her campaign has made. “People are slowly becoming more aware, but emissions continue to rise. We can’t focus on small things. Basically, nothing has changed,” she said.
Continue reading...Year 6 pupils spend Easter at school cramming for Sats
Teaching officials angry that children are having to attend revision classes over holidays
Children at hundreds of primary schools in England are being asked to attend Sats revision classes over the Easter holidays, a teaching union official has revealed, warning that it was part of a disturbing trend.
Darren Northcott, the NASUWT national officer for education, said revision classes for primary school pupils were unheard of five years ago but that he now knew of hundreds of cases of pupils in their final year of primary – Year 6 – being asked in for “cramming” by their schools ahead of the tests next month.
Continue reading...Barcelona school removes 200 sexist children’s books
Other schools look to follow after Tàber school takes out one-third of its collection, deeming the books ‘highly stereotypical and sexist’
Several schools across Barcelona are considering purging their libraries of stereotypical and sexist children’s books, after one removed around 200 titles, including Little Red Riding Hood and the story of the legend of Saint George, from its library.
The Tàber school’s infant library of around 600 children’s books was reviewed by the Associació Espai i Lleure as part of a project that aims to highlight hidden sexist content. The group reviewed the characters in each book, whether or not they speak and what roles they perform, finding that 30% of the books were highly sexist, had strong stereotypes and were, in its opinion, of no pedagogical value.
Continue reading...Youth climate change protests across Britain – live
Tens of thousands of young people in Britain and abroad are demonstrating for climate action in the latest wave of strikes
We will be closing the live blog shortly, so thanks to all those who contributed.
Organiser Cyrus Jarvis, 16, a year 11 student from London Academy school in Barnet, North London, reflected on the march, saying:
The police tried to frighten us with arrests but we just moved on. We are really sorry for anyone who did have issues because of us, but unfortunately this is what we have to do to get our point across to the government. If we don’t cause disruption they don’t listen to us and they haven’t listened to us in the past.”
Continue reading...‘Let gay Muslims be gay’: Owen Jones goes to the centre of the LGBT lesson row – video
Earlier this year protests began over LGBT-inclusive lessons in Parkfield primary school Birmingham. The lessons were suspended and the protests have since spread to other schools. Owen Jones travels to the city to speak to the protesters, teachers and activists at the heart of the row to ask what happens next.
Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin in court to face admissions scam charges
Pair among others charged in scheme in which, authorities say, parents paid consultant to fake children’s college test scores
Actors Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman are expected in court on Wednesday to face charges that they participated in a wide-ranging college admissions cheating scam that rocked the US.
The actors, along with Loughlin’s fashion designer husband Mossimo Giannulli and dozens of others, were charged last month in a scheme in which authorities say parents paid an admissions consultant to bribe college coaches and rig test scores to get their children into elite universities.
Continue reading...College bribery scandal: professors respond to our anonymous column
We published one professor’s account of student entitlement, and the response from readers was enormous. Here, we share replies from other educators
“If you think corruption in elite US college admissions is bad, what happens once those students are in the classroom is even worse,” wrote an anonymous professor in the Guardian this week.
Related: What happens after rich kids bribe their way into college? I teach them | Anonymous
Continue reading...Greek tragedy prompts ‘blackface’ racism row at Sorbonne
Protesters picket French university, which says actors were wearing masks according to ancient theatre practices
A row over alleged racism and attacks on freedom of expression has erupted in France after students prevented a Greek tragedy featuring actors using black masks from being performed at the Sorbonne, claiming it was “Afrophobic, colonialist and racist”.
Demonstrators who picketed the prestigious Paris university to stop actors entering the theatre said the play, The Suppliants by Aeschylus, was being performed with blackface and was offensive.
Continue reading...What happens after rich kids bribe their way into college? I teach them | Anonymous
A professor at an elite US school says an influx of unskilled and entitled students is monopolizing faculty time: ‘They will eat you alive’
- If you have an experience or story tip on this topic to share with the Guardian, contact college.admissions.tips@theguardian.com
If you think corruption in elite US college admissions is bad, what happens once those students are in the classroom is even worse.
I know, because I teach at an elite American university – one of the oldest and best-known, which rejects about 90% of applicants each year for the small number of places it can offer to undergraduates.
Continue reading...‘Mindblowing’ haul of fossils over 500m years old unearthed in China
Thousands of fossils date back to huge burst in diversity of life on Earth known as Cambrian explosion
A “mindblowing” haul of fossils that captures the riot of evolution that kickstarted the diversity of life on Earth more than half a billion years ago has been discovered by researchers in China.
Paleontologists found thousands of fossils in rocks on the bank of the Danshui river in Hubei province in southern China, where primitive forms of jellyfish, sponges, algae, anemones, worms and arthropods with thin whip-like feelers were entombed in an ancient underwater mudslide.
Continue reading...Cambridge University rescinds Jordan Peterson invitation
Offer of visiting fellowship to controversial professor resulted in backlash from faculty and students
Cambridge University has rescinded its offer of a visiting fellowship to Jordan Peterson, the self-styled “professor against political correctness”, after a backlash from faculty and students.
Peterson, a psychology professor from Toronto who has courted controversy for his views on transgender rights, gender and race, announced on Monday via his YouTube channel that he was joining Cambridge for two months.
Continue reading...Erasmus scheme in chaos as UK students left in limbo
The 17,000 students about to do a year abroad face huge uncertainty over funding and accommodation
For Alice Watkins, a Manchester University student, a year in Paris, then Madrid, as part of her degree was a dream. Now, with the turmoil of Brexit, she is preparing to arrive in France this summer with nowhere to live and no idea whether the money will still be there to support her.
“It’s horrible not knowing,” Watkins says. “We’ve been told to take at least £1,200 of our own cash to cover us for the first six weeks, and that we can’t realistically sort any accommodation before we arrive. Turning up abroad with nowhere to live is a big stress.”
Continue reading...China’s primary school students to learn how to avoid stock market pitfalls
Ministry of education will work with country’s securities regulator to ‘increase financial literacy’ among China’s youth
Chinese primary school textbooks may soon include definitions for terms like “price-to-earnings ratio” or “buy and hold” as the country embarks on a campaign to improve investor awareness.
China’s ministry of education and the country’s securities regulator said they would be working together to “increase financial literacy” among China’s youth, according to state news agency Xinhua. Officials said the campaign to improve understanding of the country’s securities and futures markets would begin with textbooks for primary and middle schools.
Continue reading...US college admissions scandal: how did the scheme work and who was charged?
Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin were among 50 charged in scheme to get children into universities via bribery and cheating
There are 50 people charged in the case, including actors Felicity Huffman, known for her role on the TV show Desperate Housewives and the feature film Transamerica, and Lori Loughlin, a cast member on the TV series Full House. Defendants in the case include parents and college athletics coaches.
Continue reading...Felicity Huffman among dozens charged over admissions fraud at top US schools
Scheme helped wealthy Americans buy their children’s way into elite universities including Yale, Georgetown and Stanford
US federal prosecutors have charged the Hollywood actors Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, along with almost 50 other people, over a $25m scheme to help wealthy Americans buy their children’s way into elite universities including Yale, Georgetown, Stanford and the University of Southern California.
Huffman appeared in court in Los Angeles on Tuesday afternoon, where a magistrate judge said she could be released on a $250,000 bond. The judge ordered the Desperate Housewives star to restrict her travel to the continental United States. Huffman’s husband, the actor William H Macy, attended his wife’s initial court appearance. He has not been charged and authorities have not said why.
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