Here, there and everywhere

This is where I’ve taken this blog so far: it is a crude rendering, but a good visual nonetheless. Where else should I research?

The Bangladesh Interviews Part Two

Another friend of mine, Sarah Kelley, grew up in Bangladesh as well, though she had a very different experience from Sadman. Kelley, a pre-med biology junior, moved to Gainesville from Bangladesh with her older brother Shane in August.

Kelley grew up a 40-acre campus of a Christian hospital in Bangladesh’s rural southeastern region. Her family served as missionaries at the base.

There was a Bengali medium school on the base, but Kelley attended a small English medium school for missionary children. A group from kindergarten through grade 3 may have consisted of around 15 to 20 students, the numbers dwindling with age.

Sometimes Kelley’s mother taught the group of students, sometimes other mothers taught. By high school, Kelley was taking classes mostly online through an independent study program.

Kelley had many friends who attended the Bengali medium school on the base. She often got a feel for the methods of the school when she passed by. From her observation, much of the teachings were based on oral instruction. The teachers would say something and have the students repeat it back to them.

The schools in her area are working on changing that, Kelley said. They have seen that the learning-by-rote method is not very efficient, and they are working toward more exercises in critical thinking.

The school goes up to grade 10, after which students are tested for two years of “college” (the American equivalent of 11^th and 12^th grades) and then can apply to attend a university.

Some of Kelley’s female friends would attend the school through 10^th grade then get a job or marry. Other students were encouraged by their families to continue in their education.

“Bengali students are very studious,” Kelley said. “There’s a lot of family honor associated with grades and school.”

She described it as thought to be a “gateway” to a better life for many Bengali families.

In an article by the Khaleej Times, an English newspaper based in Dubai, the writer points out how empowered women in Bangladesh have been and are becoming. The article lists women’s development projects such as microlending as a positive endeavor to life widows and single mothers out of poverty.

The Khaleej Times says men still outnumber women in Bangladeshi universities, but the number of women enrolling is steadily increasing.

It is a hopeful prospect in a nation that ranks 146^th out of 187 countries on an index that measures human development. (The list is compiled by the United Nations Development Programme, according to the Khaleej Times).

And according to UNICEF, 77 percent of females ages 15-24 can read (2005-2010). The number is 74 percent for males the same age. From 2007 to 2010 primary school enrollment rates are very high (in the 80s and 90s percentages) but secondary school enrollment rates are considerably less (hovering between 40 and 43 percent for males and females respectively).

But enough statistics. There are improvements that can be made, like in any education system, but I think Bangladesh is heading in the right direction, especially in terms of empowering women in an atmosphere surrounded by gender hardships.

A big thank-you to Sarah Kelley for letting me interview her!

The Bangladesh Interviews Part One

Kazi Sadman, a materials science and engineering sophomore, lived most of his life in Bangladesh, until moving here to the United States in high school.

Sadman attended a private school in Dhaka from playgroup through ninth grade. He spent his younger education years in what is known as playgroup, nursery, Kindergarten 1, then Kindergarten 2. The rest of his schooling was labeled by grade up to 12, much like U.S. schools.

There are two kinds of schools where he is from, English medium schools and Bengali medium schools. The English medium schools are private, whereas the Bengali medium schools are public.

Sadman attended an English medium school, which meant having seven or eight periods a day, only one taught in Bengali. School days ran from Sunday to Thursday. There were two five-month semesters in a year, with a one-month summer break and one-month winter break.

Sadman’s school was very academically challenging. There were letter grades assigned, report cards sent out twice a semester, and parent-teacher conferences twice a semester. There were finals every year that were worth 75 percent of their grade.

“There were no curves, never!” Sadman said.

If students passed their A level tests in the 12th grade, they could go on to apply for a university.

The heavy-weight finals and A level tests added a lot of pressure to students academically, Sadman said, something he was spared of in his final years of high school when he moved to the United States.

Students at Sadman’s school were not only held to a high standard of academics. There were many rules put in place to keep students’ behavior in line. Boys were to wear a uniform of brown pants paired with a white shirt. The teachers and administrators of the school were very respected, and they were given the ultimate authority. It was not uncommon for a student to get slapped or spanked by an administrator as a punishment for behavior.

But they also had fun with school too, Sadman said. A close-knit community, students grow up knowing basically everyone in their grade level, as they progress from playgroup through grade twelve at the same school. Sadman said when he left there were about 90 students in his grade, students whom he had grown up going to school with.

Sadman remembers some extracurricular programs his school offered. The debate club was big. Table tennis and basketball were popular as well. The school put on several functions, one called “race day” which is similar to an American field day. Other functions celebrating holidays like the Bengali New Year (Pohela Boishakh) gave students an excuse to dress up and enjoy food and music together.

I want to thank Kazi Sadman for sharing his school experiences with me!

To know more about the education system in Bangladesh, visit their ministry of education website. It is packed with statistics and official-looking documents, although the documents themselves are written in Bengali.

Other links:

http://countrystudies.us/bangladesh/44.htm

http://www.bangladesh.gov.bd/index.php?option=com_content&task=category&id=33&Itemid=27

http://www.educationboard.gov.bd/

http://www.mopme.gov.bd/

Pass the Turkey?

Heated protests in Turkey last week have added more contention to a debate that spans the nation’s history. Intentionally founded on secularism yet still a nation with a very religious population, there is bound to be a good amount of rubbing shoulders between these two ideals that apparently don’t coincide.

And last week, the tensions between these ideals surfaced with the protests in Turkey’s capital, Ankara. Demonstrators gathered to challenge the Parliament’s nearly-completed overturning of a 1997 law that stipulated that only children ages 15 and above could attend religious “imam hatip” schools, according to Al Jazeera.

The “imam hatip” schools, said Reuters UK, specialize in religious education combined with a modern curriculum. If the bill is overturned, students as young as 11 would be able to attend these schools.

Parliament accepted a proposal last Thursday from Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party to offer optional courses on the Quran or the life of the Prophet Mohammad in public middle and secondary schools, says Al Jazeera.

But the debate is more than just a feud over the place of conservative Islam in the Turkish education system, a blogger for the Daily Activist argues. It is more like an issue of the “steady erosion of secularism” in Turkey, the blogger writes.

Turkey has long been known for its secular tradition, an Eastern nation founded on such principles. Excerpts of the Turkish Constitution, found on Turkey’s Ministry of National Education’s website, emphasize this concerted effort to remain secular in educational and political realms in a largely Islamic nation. Article 1.3 states that the general purpose of education in Turkey is to raise citizens who:

“…are aware of their duties and responsibilities towards the Turkish Republic, a democratic, secular and social state of law based on human rights and the basic principles defined at the beginning of the Constitution and for whom these duties have become a habit…”

and

“…have a balanced and healthy personality and character, who are developed in terms of body, mind, moral, spirit and emotions, free and with scientific thinking abilities and a wide worldview, who respect human rights, who value personality and enterprise, who are responsible towards society, who are constructive, creative and productive.”

According to the Associated Press, Prime Minister Erdogan championed the move towards overturning the 1997 bill as a step towards greater democracy. Erdogan, who graduated from an Islamic school, has spoken of government support for raising a “pious generation.”

Al Jazeera states that the 1997 law led to the decline in attendance at “imam hatip” schools, when the age standard was placed at 15. According to statistics by UNICEF, enrollment in Turkish primary schools decreased since 1997. However, enrollment rates increased in secondary schools post-1997.

The bill, which has passed through a majority AK party Parliament, just needs to be approved by President Abdullah Gul before it comes into effect, according to the AP.

AK Party leaders hail this as a reform that will decrease illiteracy and raise school standards. Turkish secularists worry that this will set the nation back in the wrong direction. It could be an interesting wave into a new era for Turkey.

South of the Border

In light of a recent explosion of social media and its groundbreaking effects, it comes as no surprise that a new documentary has precipitated considerable outrage and at the very least, awareness. And no, I’m not talking about the KONY 2012 film campaign, not this time.

The documentary, known as “¡De Panzazo!”, brought in $870,000 in February on its opening weekend, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The film, reminiscent of the U.S. ‘Waiting for “Superman” ’ has sparked more discussions since.

De Panzazo is slang for “barely passing”, according to an article by USA Today. Scripps News says it is Spanish for “belly flop.”

Either way, that seems to be a correct reflection of how the filmmakers view the education system of Mexico. According to a Foundry blog, an offshoot of The Heritage Foundation, the documentary exposes the Mexican education system as one characterized by “ little accountability, careless spending, little competition, and a powerful teachers union that is more concerned with protecting teachers than student educational achievement.”

And, says the USA Today article, Mexicans are largely unaware of these apparent shortcomings in the system—the surprisingly high statistics on teacher absenteeism and the failing government oversight of the education system.

And these problems are further exacerbated in the rural, most poor areas of the country.

According to USA Today, the documentary revealed that the average Mexican is educated for eight years, as opposed to an average of thirteen years in the U.S. and Canada.

It is not merely a problem of poverty, although the article cites incidents of holding classes outdoors because of the lack of rooms. Actually, a rise in private education has been evident in the last 30 years in Mexico. Yet USA Today recognizes this not as a solution, but adding to the problem: students in these private schools are achieving generally similar scores on standardized tests as public schools, because they are taught to memorize and spit out information rather than problem-solve.

USA Today says the documentary places the blame for these issues largely on the shoulders of the National Education Workers’ Union (SNTE), a powerful union that controls the education system in Mexico.

Yet the mother of a Mexican teen prodigy told the Los Angeles Times that the concern should be placed on personal responsibility, and a focus shifted from depending on authorities or other higher-ups and finding support in the household.

That is, after all, how 17-year-old Andrew Almazan earned his psychology degree and is now working toward a degree in medicine. He is the director of child psychology at the Center for Attention to Talent.

Though it is encouraging to see a bright student achieving such success, I am left to wonder how easily this can be accomplished for other Mexican students. The Los Angeles Times article says Andrew was raised in a middle-class section of Mexico City, so class may also be a large contributing factor to his success.

Article 3 of Mexico’s 1917 Constitution mandates compulsory elementary education and free education. The Constitution has laid out the opportunities, but they seem stifled by the union in charge. I encourage you to learn more through the documentary, “¡De Panzazo!”. I could only find the trailer in Spanish, but here it is:

Kenya and Somalia

Source: Al Jazeera

From a distance at least, it is difficult to make any conclusions about
the state of Kenya’s education system. This international report by Radio France Internationale says that Kenya is right on track to achieve the United Nations’ second Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education by 2015.

Citing phenomenal growth in Kenya’s primary school system (93 percent enrollment rates) the article extols the progress being made in the areas of information communication and technology as fuel for the country’s growth in both primary and secondary education.

An article published in late February by Voice of America explained some roadblocks to Kenya’s primary school success. The article states that the Kenya Education Support Sector Program was started in 2005, with $5.8 billion earmarked for improving the quality of education and making more educational opportunities available.

Here is the appraisal document for the program.

Yet according to Voice of America, rumors of fraud within the ministry of education and the education system of Kenya as a whole started to surface in 2009. By the next year, the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission listed dozens of education officials suspected of theft, with some already appearing in court.

Al Jazeera reported in June that around $50 million was missing from the ministry of education.

Somalia, a neighbor to Kenya, may be considered to be in a worse state of education than Kenya. A Washington Post article says: “Only about a third of children of primary-school age are enrolled in school, according to UNICEF.”

As Somalia continues to face round after round of militia violence, there is a generation of children being raising in such violent conditions. The main conflict started in 1991—to give some perspective, I was born in 1992. The generation being raised in this violence is full of 20-somethings like myself.

And apparently as a result of this, Somali children like to play war. According to the article, children are less interested in education and more interested in fighting.

Washington Post: “We need to make sure that this generation receives quality basic education, access to social services and protection from violence and abuse,” Sikander Khan, the top official for the U.N. children’s agency in Somalia said. “This will stop them being sucked into the continuing violence and they will then be able to make a positive and lasting contribution to the future of Somalia.”

Though the situation appears to be very hopeless, school enrollment rates are increasing in Somalia. The article states that Somalia had 285,000 children in school in 2003-2004, and now there are 760,000 in the 2011-2012 school year.

An article by Oxfam highlights the need and demand for a higher-quality education system and access for children in Somalia. It is a chief concern for parents amid the conflicts and violence dominating the country.

My hope is that Somalia can get at least a foothold in peace. That they can build up their education system and encourage participation by providing better opportunities and incentives.

The Philippines, Tim Tebow and more

Tim Tebow in the Philippines

In the U.S and especially at my university, there is an awful lot of buzz going on about Tim Tebow. Most of the talk around here is praise for the young NFL quarterback, although he’s withstood some harsh criticism and mocking as well.

Because we have become so fascinated with Tebow’s life and upbringing, most of us know that Tebow grew up in a missionary family serving in the Philippines. Perhaps that is even the first thing some of us think of when we hear about the Philippines.

I wanted to know more about the country, particularly the living conditions and educational opportunities there.  The Tebow family has helped and continues to help maintain an orphanage there. The rest of their work falls under evangelistic categories.

But what about the rest of the country? Since it has undoubtedly gotten at least some amount of press coverage, has this helped?

I looked up some statistics. In the State of the World’s Children 2012 report by UNICEF, I found that the Philippines ranked number 80 in under-5 mortality rates in 2010. To put that in perspective, the U.S placed at 145^th.

This is an OK indication of the country’s economic status, but not the only data to be looked at. It seems that most of the poverty experienced in the Philippines is focused in the cities. Manila, the capital, is densely populated and devastatingly mired in slum poverty.

So educating children in large cities like Metro Manila should be a high priority. On January 20, the President of the Philippines signed into law the Republic Act No. 10157, or the Kindergarten Education Law, according to the Philstar.

The Kindergarten Education Law provides for free and compulsory kindergarten education starting in the 2012-2013 school year. Children must pass kindergarten under this act. The article states that through the new law, the Department of Education hopes to improve student performance and curb early dropout rates.

Otherwise, UNICEF’s statistics on primary school are hopeful: the primary school net enrollment rate in the Philippines was at 92 percent from 2007-2009.

Another promising stat: literacy rates among young adults (ages 15 to 24) remained at a high 97 percent for males and 98 percent for females between the years of 2005 and 2010.

Secondary school enrollment rates don’t look as good. They hovered between 55 and 66 percent from 2007-2010. And there is still a lot of room for improvement, many would argue, especially in the realm of higher education. According to an article by Bernama, a Malaysian news agency, World Bank leaders are calling for an improved higher education system in order to boost the Philippine economy. Employers are finding a significant gap in creativity, leadership and problem-solving skills in several Philippine industries, presumable because of this lack of higher education.

The article states that this can be helped by improving the university system in the Philippines, as well as with better allocation of funds to the schools. This is an issue I have researched before, in countries I’ve covered on this blog such as South Africa. There seems to be a widespread call for an improved higher education system.

For more info on the Kindergarten Education Law: http://www.chinapost.com.tw/business/asia/philippines/2012/03/02/333314/Philippine-govt.htm

Because I just love India…

I was looking through some statistics on the World Bank website. There is a table that outlines the schooling status of slum children in India. These slums are part of urban anthillls like Delhi, and are the areas most devastated by poverty.

The statistics, which I believe to be from 2009, prove startling. Slum children that never attended school by age 14 are calculated to be at 13.2 percent. School drop-out rates skyrocket from 4.3 percent at age 11 to 22.6 percent by age 12. That means there are five and a half times more dropouts once children hit age 12 as opposed to 11.

That seems to be the age that many of the slum children are compelled to work to add to their family income. This BBC news article explains some of the poor living conditions in Dehli slums. The article states that a third of the world’s malnourished children live in India. With rising food costs, parents struggle to feed, let alone educate, their children. Education becomes a lesser priority, and those children grow up to become adults who cannot find jobs to support their families. The cycle continues.

And, from what has hopefully been learned in my previous India post, the Indian government mandates that free schooling be at least available to all children without discrimination. It’s a great idea on paper, but when children are tasked with helping their parents feed their family, schooling is not the greatest focus, and justifiably so.

But a good thing has been happening in the last few years. There are now charity orgranizations that wheel buses into slums and pick up slum children for a time of teaching that won’t necessarily interrupt the children’s ability to hold their jobs. According to the Reuters article, many of the children let in by these buses have odd jobs that occupy them instead of school, to help their families.

Reuters: “These children have no time to go to school, unless the school comes to them,” said T.L. Reddy, founder of the CLAP Foundation, a non-governmental organization that runs the mobile school.

The buses park it in a dusty slum. Sometimes the buses are so full that the floors are covered with children sitting cross-legged, eager to learn. The bus interior is adorned with alphabet letters and numbers, according to Reuters.

Reuters: “The teaching is good in this bus and nobody beats us,” said 10-year-old Devi, who enrolled in the first grade of primary school three years ago but soon dropped out.

In hopes of educating and streamlining drop-out children into governmental schooling, the bus program had already made it possible for 40 students to so, as of the article publishing date in November.

Al Jazeera provides an informative newscast on the charity bus program:

It is refreshing to see some good being done for slum children, even if it is a little. If an ounce of hope is the surge we need to drive us forward with providing more aid and more assistance, then I am especially grateful for the program.

As an endnote, I thought I’d include the link for a book that touches on this topic. It’s the first book on my spring break reading list!

http://www.amazon.com/Behind-Beautiful-Forevers-Mumbai-undercity/dp/1400067553/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332014866&sr=8-1

Here in the States

After 10 years of President George W. Bush’s implementation of the No Child Left Behind act, states are applying for waivers to bypass it. According to CBS News, 10 states have already qualified for such waivers: Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Colorado. New Mexico is the latest state to qualify for the waiver, says the Huffington Post. 

CBS says that 28 more states—plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico—have noted that they are seeking waivers as well. Why the mad scramble? Because a deadline for meeting certain education requirements approaches that may seem out of reach for many schools under No Child Left Behind.

The entire No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 can be found here. 

The No Child Left Behind act stipulates that all students should be proficient in reading and math by the 2013-2014 school year. Progress in these areas is measured through standardized testing.

Fox News Latino argues that this standard has often been too rigid for English language learners or the economically disadvantaged. 

 Several states, like New Mexico, had not been keeping up to the No Child Left Behind standard, according to the Huffington Post. The new policy under the Obama administration calls for plans showing they will prepare students for careers and college, rewarding the schools that perform the best and focusing on helping the schools that perform the worst. 

Instead of the pass/fail system of grading progress under No Child Left Behind, schools with waivers can be graded on a letter grade scale of A to F.

But the act also requires school districts to set aside 20 percent of their federal Title 1 funds each year to provide for tutoring and school choice options for economically disadvantaged students, says the Tampa Bay Times. 

 To be specific, these are the students in schools with a large low-income population that qualify for free or reduced-priced lunches.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, 74,299 students in Florida received tutoring services last school year. Now that Florida has wriggled itself free of the No Child Left Behind Act, it can choose to differently spend those funds that would otherwise be going to tutoring low-income students.

But I honestly can’t think of a better use of that 20 percent of Title 1 school dollars. If the aim is to lessen the inequality gap and to better educate all students of all income levels, the free tutoring services offer a good method of progressing to that.

Statistics and interactive U.S maps can be found on the No Child Left Behind website. 

One chart that especially got my attention was the chart that measured state success in continuous growth toward the 100 percent proficiency standard of No Child Left Behind. It can be found here.

According to the chart, six states and the District of Columbia have not appeared to be on track toward the goal. Eight states appear to be partially on track. But the rest of the states are on track, according to these statistics.

Time will tell us if this new waiver system is an advantageous idea. Either way, I acknowledge the great care and consideration that must be put into making decisions about education policy.

 

Upheaval in sunny old Spain

Not too long ago, we were hearing a lot in the news about European countries riddled with debt and even requesting bailouts (Greece). So, in a way, it is not so surprising that in these nations corners were cut in order to maintain a shaky sense of stability– if that is even possible–or a better term, survival. It is perhaps even less surprising that the corners cut in these situations were for education.

Rewind a few months, back to October 2011. Fly over a sea or take a train across any number of countries, depending on where you’re from, and you’ll end up in Spain. This charming European nation, known to many as a vacation hotspot rather than a place of unrest, has hidden its devastation well.

But according to a Press TV article, Spain has the highest unemployment rate out of all of the nations in the European Union. Spain’s jobless rate was hovering at 22.7 percent in October (then inched up a little further to 22.9 by December).

To offer up a bit of perspective, the United States’ unemployment rate was at 8.9 percent at that time. I was taught in economics class that the natural unemployment rate can be expected to fall around five percent. And yet Spain’s unemployment rate was more than four times that expected amount? That creates the perfect atmosphere for protests to unfold.

According to the Buenos Aires Herald, Spanish teachers took to the streets in protest.

Apparently there was a government decision to increase weekly school hours—therefore decreasing the amount of teachers needed—and to cut back on class preparation time. The article found these reforms to pose the greatest threat to secondary schools. Union sources in the article report that nearly 80 percent of Madrid’s 21,000 secondary school teachers flocked the streets in protest in late October. The Madrid government is reported to have said that the number was half of that estimate.

This wave of protests continued on to October 23, when “tens of thousands” of people rallied in the Madrid city center against the education cuts, according to the Times of India.

Sources quoted in the article seemed to mainly be worried about the privatization of the education sector. One of the rattling fears of a protestor was that once schools are privatized, only the rich can get in.

But this is not a fight started by teacher, or parents, or lawmakers. It was brought to public attention mainly by Spanish students. On October 6, at least 2,000 students started what seems to be a domino effect in respect to the other protests that precipitated. They skipped class, donned matching green T-shirts with slogans, and marched in Madrid.

“We have less teachers this year, they closed the library because there is no one to work at it,” Alicia Fernandez, a 16-year-old high school student told Al-Jazeera.

The proposed changes in education could save the Spanish government 80 million euros on extra teaching staff, according to the Al-Jazeera article.

But as I’ve questioned before, and will question again, is it worth it? What will be the consequences of such a change?

(AFP)