Blog 12 English

This week’s current event is about Indonesia to end teaching of English in their primary schools. It also touches on Mexican students clashing over the curriculum and Nigeria urges students to shun Ukraine education. In Indonesia next year they will stop teaching English in primary schools to try to reverse the following standards. The deputy of education wants to overhaul the curriculum, so that the standard will be higher. He also said that students more time to master their first language. “Elementary schools will have English lessons because students haven’t learned to understand the Indonesian language. Now even some kindergarten students take English courses, said the minister of education.” The ministry wants to focus more on teaching religion and Indonesian culture at the expense of science and social studies. They won’t began to learn English until junior high school. They believe that reason why students on doing good within their own culture, is because they spent too much time learning English.

Mexican students clash over the curriculum. Trainee teachers in the Mexican state hijacked buses and trucks in protest against English language and computer science courses last month, sparking clashes with police. Students protested at three training colleges which have mandatory English and computer skills within their curriculum. There were 1500 police deployed to arrest students to occupy colleges. Students and teachers in the following days protested in the streets to demand the release of students in custody.

A Nigerian diplomat has urged students from his country to stay away from university courses taught in English in Ukraine. The diplomat believes the standards in the language are not good enough. Nigerian ambassador said that English medium courses were popular choice because fees were low. The standards of Ukraine language courses were higher and students would be better of learning the local language.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/nov/13/elt-diary-november-indonesia-english

Blog 11 Brazil education

This week’s current event is about Brazil’s national high school exam, which is like the American SAT for a levels in the UK. The end of high school exam has seen major improvements but has come under some scrutiny due to attendance levels, disruptions and leaked questions. In Brazil, 5.8 million people registered for the exam, but 28% failed to attend nationally. The Ministry of education was all universities to used exam as a standard entrance qualification test. Universities have not taken this option up, but federal universities use the ENEM exam scores. Brazil’s biggest promise for education, they have the six largest economy in the world. Brazil the struggling with the room shortage of skilled professionals, the federal government estimates that Brazil’s oil fills will need 250,000 new professionals through 2016. The reason why Brazil believes that the students are not taking the exam’s because they are having second thoughts about attending a university. The space universities are limited, said by the education minister. It has been limited further for many white middle-class students after 50% quota was introduced earlier in 2012 to increase the number University students from poor backgrounds. This is stirred a great debate nationwide because it limits the local people from furthering their education. Education Minister hailed Brazil’s handling of the exam – the second-biggest exam of this type in the world at the China. They have recently reported that 20% of 18 to 25-year-olds in Brazil are officially classified as neither studying, nor working or looking for work, or doing so outside the official system. 65 candidates were expelled from the exam hall over the two days for uploading messages and images of exam onto social networks. Brazil’s government said they are monitoring systems that would improve and that the exam is not yet perfect. This year’s exam was more difficult than previous years, after a number of complaints. The test was simply for University purposes. The ENEM tests candidate’s range of disciplines, including science, math and language. They are expected this year’s results, December 28.

http://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/front-page/enem-exam-highlights-education-in-brazil/#

Blog 10 Africa Education

This week’s current event about international education is about Africa’s growth sparks controversial rise of private secondary schools. The Gems education company that is expanding in Africa to meet demands, but concerns about high fees exacerbates inequality.  Due to the lack of state funding a market has been created for private school and all across Africa. The private school company operates in 10 countries, but is doing a major expansion in Africa supported by strong economic growth. The first secondary school was opened in September in Kenya, Africa. More schools are being planned to be built in Nigeria, Uganda, Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania and South Africa. The Gems school company is meeting the demand for private education in developing countries because of government underinvestment.  “According to an education for all global monitoring report published by Unesco in October, 71 million adolescents of lower secondary school age were out of school in 2010, with three out of four living in the South and West Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.  The last of these regions has doubled the number of students enrolling over the, yet has the world’s lowest total secondary enrollment, at 40% in 2010.”  One of the biggest problems in Africa with the expanding of private schools is inequality. Inequality has climbed greatly with the development agenda. The fees disproportionally FA young people with poor families, which prevents them from enrolling in continuing with secondary education. With the starting fees being that $1700 a term, it will be hard for many families to afford tuition to attend the schools.  “Rwanda introduced a nine year basic education cycle and eliminate fees for lower secondary school, was boosted the number of lower secondary funds by 25% within a year. Kenya has also abolished fees for secondary schools, increase in roller from 1.2 million in 2002 1.4 million in 2008.”  According to Kevin Watkins, a senior fellow at the Centre of Universal Education, did not really believe in the private school system in Africa. He also thinks that Africa can afford decent quality basic education. The biggest problem of the school company is the money constraints.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/oct/30/africa-controversial-private-secondary-schools

E-readers in Kenya blog 9

This week my international education current event is about E-readers kindle being used in Kenya, so children may learn and be encouraged to read. This is supposed to help with the lack of basic textbooks that are provided. Half of schools in sub-Saharan Africa have few or no textbooks. The cost of buying and transporting books means they often have to be shared between students in the classroom, hindering learning and slowing development. In the rule areas of Africa are attempting to overcome takes was shortages by using donated e-readers. E-readers come loaded with hundreds of Kenyan textbooks in English and Kiswahili. When electricity shortages occur, they can be chores using small solar power packs and generators. The teacher said “we have seen a lot of positive changes since we started using Kindles. Children are very excited to learn and often reading through their break. It helps them with their spelling and English language skills. Compared to other schools, I have taught at, the children here seem to be ahead.” The school has 150 e-readers for the 200 students.  The Kilgoris project is a not for profit organization that partnered with world reader, which provided e-books to students and sub-Saharan Africa. World reader works with publisher, including Penguin, Random House, and Amazon, as well as African authors and publishers, to ensure local and international books are available and affordable, if not donated for free. It distributed more than 220,000 digital books to children and teachers across for projects and sub-Saharan Africa. Sporadic Internet connectivity in the area needs on a small number of blows can be downloaded at a time; for downloads to all devices, the rigors are taken to Nairobi, where ISBN is more readily available. This project helps serve more than 600 students.  Each has an active local board and leadership team consisting of parents, elders and teachers. By expanding schools, it works with and added preschool and secondary levels, Kilgoris aims to help 1000 students by 2017.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2012/oct/26/e-readers-kindle-learning-children-kenya

Test for teachers kicks off Malaysia's push for English Blog 8

This current event is about test for teachers kicks off Malaysia’s push for English. Malaysian government plans, 70% of children will pass English language exam by 2025. The Malaysian children will participate in a school reading event that will test the reading skills. Malaysia committed itself to ensure that every child will be proficient in English, English teachers were told they must pass a test of English proficiency within two years are removed to other roles.

There are plans to overhaul the education system were announced by the Prime Minister last month. One of the problems was teachers in rule areas have limited command of the language. 70,000 teachers of English will be required to pass a Cambridge placement test five 2015. Testing will start this year and teachers who fail will be required to attend intensive eight-week courses that combine face-to-face training and 30 hours of online instruction per week. Teachers that fail the English language test will be replaced by newly qualified teachers. This gives a chance for retired teachers to come back into the classroom that are qualified. Progress of students will be monitored as part of the government’s target to get 70% of secondary age children passing the English language school exam by 2025.

California’s legislation to track stalls schools learners is also struggling with the English fluency. 59% of secondary school English language learners have been stuck at the same level of proficiency for two or more years. A quarter of California’s public school populations are English language learners.

Also in Brazil, they are trying to boost their English language speaking. A UK private equity firm Actis injected $68m into the CNA schools chain, which has 500,000 students and plans to double capacity by 2018. I figured all these countries are trying to get ahead because the English language is one the best languages to learn, definitely when students are trying to go overseas to school or to live in the near future.

Students from China were deported from New Zealand due to fraudulent eases given by an immigration official. Students were also deported because of fraudulent evidence, including fake English language qualifications.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/oct/16/malaysia-internationaleducationnews

Women in China

In China women are facing rising university entry barriers in undergraduate and postgraduate programs. Women in China are starting to shave their heads and protests Chinese universities because they must score higher than men for entry exams into universities. In Beijing, Chinese universities, women increasingly must score higher than men to get in and face unofficial but widespread gender quotas that favor men. A group women got together and share their head in public and gave it education ministry a “zero” score for fairness. Education law forbids discrimination on several grounds, including gender. Several universities were question for their entry exams, but declined to respond for request for information. An official from the teaching office at the China University of political science and law said the school did not have gender-based enrollment policies. For criminology, she said “females business Are less than 15% of students because of the nature of their future career. The women were score so well then the practice a higher percentage was being admitted.  According to Chinese news reports due to rising number of women getting into universities, they were starting to outstrip men in some areas, especially languages. In 2004, women made up 43.8% of undergrad students, rising to 49.6 by 2012. In master programs, women made up 44.1% of students in 2004, rising to 50.3 by 2010. Among doctoral candidates in 2010, however, just over 35.4% were women, up by 31.3 in 2004. One of the biggest things in the China University of political science and law, the bar is that 632 points for women but 588 for men. This shows a clear gap between how the universities treat the men and women when it comes to entry exams. Another issue discussed on campuses, women in some art facilities in particular may heavy outnumber men, making up to 70% of students in some classes. Mr. Tang said “that many jobs that once required physical labor have been replaced by laborsaving science and technologies. That had remove women’s physical disadvantage while in terms of wisdom boys may not have particularly obvious advantages”.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/world/asia/08iht-educlede08.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=internationaleducation&

Education of technology

This current event is all about teaching technology as it changes by Rebecca Appel.  Jan Muehfeit , the chairman of Microsoft Europe, will leave the review of higher education in the Europe Union as part of the three-year assessment announced by the European commission in September. The question came up of what kind of skills that can help your people transition into a rapidly changing workforce. One industry that is talked about is the car industry, 60% percent of all car cost are now software cost.  The essentials are flexibility, the ability to do lifelong learning and soft skills, which are not taught in school today.  The main thing is that things are taught in the classroom setting and not out in the workforce setting. In Europe, there is less than 15% of university students studying information technology. According to the studies between now and 2015, Europe can expect a have a deficit of 400,000 IT professionals. According to the European commission two years ago 38% of people in Europe have no basic electronic skills. In primary, secondary schools in Europe they have program called Partners in Learning, which is a combination of software training and training teachers. The universities, the program is called Students to Business, which is helping students complete internships at partner organizations. One thing that the government is doing in Denmark is Flexicurity program.  This helps people that lose their jobs that have been social support and be retrained to find a new job. In Europe, there is no common policy for education, but they have a common policy for agriculture. In Europe the school system is behind, they are not teaching creativity or measuring emotional intelligence. With cloud computing, even small schools Acid a huge amount of resources. Many be universities offer on line courses, sometimes for free. Microsoft office 365, is a cloud application that they are launching for schools. The chairman is some advice for young person entering into the technology workforce, saying be flexible and ready for change.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/01/world/europe/01iht-educside01.html?ref=internationaleducation

New phonics test failed by four out of 10 pupils

In England, they have a new phonics test data proves that that six out of 10 pupils passed the controversial new national phonics, reading test. According to BBC news boys feel worse than the girls on this new phonics test. The test is used for to see where six-year-old ability to read aloud and using the phonics system. Only 58% pass the new national phonics, reading test. The teacher’s unions say is risk doing long-term damage to children’s reading. The reason why they say this will damage children the long term run is because it teaches children a single method instead of their ability to read it itself. The official results of the tests are that 62% percent of girls pass a test, compared to 54% of boys. The teachers say that there are bright students, which use different methods in the reading techniques. Only 44% of disadvantaged students, those eligible for free school meals, met the required standard of phonics decoding. These students need at least 32 out of 40 pass the phonics test. The childcare minister Elizabeth Truss said “the reading checks helps teachers identify those pupils who need extra help in learning to read.” This will help a lot of children get the extra support they need in order to read. The Department for Education highlights evidence from an independent evaluation of serving 43% of schools were able to identify people who reading problems that which they have been unaware. With the teachers are saying is that children have many different learning styles and development different ages and stages for reading. The teachers feel like they are not trusted and supported developing the children for reading. Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National of Association of Head Teachers, said there was considerable concern among members of the teaching profession about the phonics test. I believe is sending a message to the teachers that they are not trusted with the education of the children. The teachers know that children have different learning styles instead of having one style of dictating phonics. “87% achieve the required national standard (level 2) in reading, and 83% in writing – both of 2% points on last year.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19742212

College Degree Abroad

Getting a College Degree Abroad

When it comes to education we have seen a big shift in educational cost over the past ten years in colleges.  The big spike in college prices have really hit students very hard and made it difficult for people to attended school.  College as we know is a very important to everyone so that we as people can move forward in life in order to have great career.  Education is a must in any country; it has become very hard because of how expensive it is to attend a good university.  “According to the Department of Education, the average undergraduate tuition at a four-year institution in the U.S. rose from $12,922 in the 2000-2001 school year (in today's dollars) to $21,189 for 2009-2010. Many top American universities are even more expensive, reaching upward of $50,000 a year in total costs.”  As we look at these numbers, it is very clear that the cost of college has jumped about ten thousand dollars over the last decade.  A lot of people want to go overseas to seek a degree because the costs are very low compared to getting an America education.  The true value of a American education is the diversity says Peggy Blumenthal.  The language barrier would be thought to be the biggest thing to worry about but it is common for international universities to speak English.  The language barrier really comes into play outside the classroom, when they may need to go to the marketplace.  Tuition may be cheaper overseas but there are other costs that may replace the cost by going home or currency rates.  When looking for a college to attend overseas you must do your research just so that you know what you are really getting yourself into.  Cost of attend universities really depends on what you are going to school for.  Most of the universities support their students greatly so they can complete college at a timely manner and that cost effective.  “That's particularly true in Europe, where a master's degree in finance will cost you more than $15,000 at Sweden's Lund University, and a master's degree in software engineering from Hof University in Germany could cost you as little as $3,200.”  This would be great if you could get a master’s degree for that cost in America, I am pretty sure there would be a greater number of people going back to get their master’s degree.  The last thing is to make sure that you can use your degree in the U.S. so that you don’t go overseas for nothing I guess you could say.  It all comes down to how much research you do and how you can translate your degree in another country when you complete your schooling.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2012/09/20/four-tips-for-getting-college-degree-abroad/

UK schools 'most socially segregated'

When it comes to school everyone has tried to make it equal in the sense of education so everyone has the same the same opportunities in life.  In the UK there is a big social divide in the education but it affects the children of mothers who did not achieve five good GCSEs.  The countries are trying to make sure that their people move up the ladder and not down in anyway.  The poor children in the UK have a great chance of getting into universities are very high unlike other countries.  They are trying to make it so that education is socially equal with their people regardless of the family background.  According to the study they completed, “Among the children of immigrant families in the UK, 80% were taught in schools with high concentrations of other immigrant or disadvantaged pupils - the highest proportion in the developed world.”

There is a big divide in the have and have-nots in education saying that if you have an education that you have a good chance of success regardless of economic downturns.  The UK is really pushing to get more young people into universities.  There was a study that said tuition is not a problem as long as there is a good system to take out loans.  There is a lot of things that takes places for people not to want to attend school but the UK is working on making the system easier. 

Minister David made a statement saying “This latest report from the OECD's confirms that UK universities deliver good returns for students, taxpayers and the wider economy. The earnings premium enjoyed by graduates remains higher than the OECD average and the demand for UK graduates in the workplace continues to be strong despite the global recession. And, very importantly, the numbers going to university from disadvantaged backgrounds continues to rise.” This means that the UK is very aware that education is very important so that the social divide won’t be very big.   Regardless of the economic standing of the world education will put you first in line so that you will have a good chance of have a job.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19548597

Blog #2

Elite schools head east as Asia's education market booms

Elite schools are becoming a very profitable in Asia and very popular.  The middle class in Asia have been waiting to get an opportunity to get their kids into elite schools.  There are two big countries that are playing a role in these elite schools in Asia.  The two big names coming up are America and British which are big in the education system in Asia’s education market.  The market in Asia is huge talking about billions of dollars which are playing a part in why American and British school are in the region.  Monday a British school opens its doors to seven hundred and fifty students in places such as Bangkok and Beijing.  Another British school opened up in Malaysia that a boarding school costing fifty thousand dollars a year.  Asia middle class people are willing to pay for their children to go to these elite schools to get a great education.  These international schools are mostly filled by wealthy people that are looking for English language education. 

The international schools are big business in the Asia market because the people are willing to pay big money to get their kids great education.  A lot of these schools cost thousands of dollars and the parents have to pay a hefty fee to make sure their kids get a spot in the school.  The reason why Asia wants these big international schools is so that kids can get a broader education than they would get in a normal local school.  They are able to learn about more certain such as sports, arts and moral values which are not really present in local non-international schools.  This market is booming in Asia with the price of going to an international school huge and also the amount of money having to put down to even get a spot in such a school.   The schools are making billions of dollars easy with fee alone and the yearly cost to go.  These schools are so big parents are putting their kids on a waiting list at birth.  With these international schools there in not enough space for all the children that want to attend these schools. 

The schools have been very popular in Asia and I believe the market will go to different countries. Countries want to get a good education and try to put their children ahead of others.  Education is the biggest thing in the world today because if you don’t have education you don’t really have anything and if you have a great education you have everything you need to live comfortably.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/03/world/asia/asia-education/index.html?iref=allsearch

Blog 1 Singapore globalizes its schools

A lot of countries are integrating there colleges and universities willing to take international students before their own local people.  Local people everywhere are upset that local kids can not get scholarships but a lot of international can.  Singapore is introducing more and more international students as time progresses.  The locals are very worried because they believe that their universities won't accept the local kids as much as the international kids.  The international students are getting a lot of scholarships which is not leaving much for the local kids that would like to go to a local college or university.  Due to the high numbers of international students in Singapore the government limited the universities for college students at 20%.  The county believes that all the international will help integrate the country.  

The mister of state education said Mr. Wong made a statement regarding the universities "The committee is looking at ways to expand the university sector in Singapore to cater to a wider spectrum of students, while maintaining quality and standards.”  He is saying that the country wants to keep a steady amount of internal students and also have the local people to attend along said but keep the same high university standards.  The universities have good high standards when it comes to education that help local and international students, they have a practice-oriented schools.The government is trying to find out how to implement more Singapore students into universities but they also need to figure out will all of the graduates be able to get jobs.  

The country wants to make sure they have a very good education system that works for both groups of students but also have a good economy.  I believe this is good for Singapore so they have good diversity with all the international students.  If the local people are worried about the high number of foreign students the government should make sure it is possible for Singapore people to get into universities.  The only problem they might have if they have more graduates than jobs available if a lot of the foreign students decide to stay in the country. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/27/world/asia/27iht-educside27.html?ref=internationaleducation