China - Rural kids to get free education by 2010

Rural kids to get free education by 2010

"Rural elementary and secondary schools will get the bulk of educational funds allowing children to enjoy new computer and multimedia classrooms and free education as early as 2010, according to the Ministry of Education (MOE).

'Rural education is still the weakest link, and our newly-allocated
educational funds will be used mainly in rural areas,' said Zhang Xinsheng, vice-minister of MOE.

The Chinese Government will increase funds for rural education to fulfil the goal of free compulsory education in rural areas by 2010."

India rubbishes Unesco's global report on education

India rubbishes Unesco's global report on education- The Economic Times

"UNESCO's Education for All Global Monitoring Report may hold countries like India responsible for failure to meet the goal of
universal primary education and gender parity, but the government isn't buying the story. Instead, the government finds the report to be based on outdated information."

UN - Illiteracy 'hinders world's poor'

BBC NEWS | UK | Education | Illiteracy 'hinders world's poor'
UNESCO has published its latest Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report 2005.

"Unesco says governments and aid agencies must allocate more cash for youth and adult literacy programmes, as well as expanding quality primary and lower-secondary education.

While there is increasing backing for universal primary education, literacy is not high on the agenda of countries that give aid to other countries, the report says.

"Few bilateral donors and development banks make explicit reference to literacy in their aid policies."

The report says literacy is crucial if individuals are to participate in political, social and economic life."

Tattle Tale: Education

Tattle Tale: Education is a blog similar to this one but focusing on reports. Some examples from the first few reports listed:

• Using ICT for education in the Middle East


• Achieving a pro poor growth higher education reform process in the South


• Meeting the educational needs of nomadic peoples in East Africa: challenges and opportunities

Aus - Brand SA - the gold star for education

The Advertiser: Brand SA - the gold star for education [10nov05]
International students--mostly from Asia--are moving to South Australia to take advantage of good schools and a low cost of living. This mirrors in a sense the burgeoning transfer of students from Asia to Australia for university education.

Australia spends a lot of money offering scholarships and creating joint degree programs with students from Asia (esp. Southeast Asia) with Australian universities. This is part of the changing paradigm of cross-border educational access in the developing world.

Almost 2,000 international students undertook courses at South Australian high schools this year - rising from 1800 last year and 1600 in 2003.
* * *
Glenunga International High School student Ji-Yeon Hong moved to Adelaide from Korea three months ago.

She said her parents wanted her to receive not an Australian education, but "an Adelaide education".

"Adelaide's education system is much better than Korea's and my family chose this city in particular," she said. "I'm very happy here."

Kenya gets R259m free education boost

IOL: Kenya gets R259m free education boost

"Donors are injecting $24,2-million (about R159,7-million) into Kenya's free public primary school system, which was introduced after President Mwai Kibaki took power in 2003, the World Bank said in a statement Wednesday.

The funds will be directly disbursed to 18 000 primary schools throughout the country to purchase teaching and learning materials, the statement added."

Aus - Schools get Indigenous education honour.

Schools get Indigenous education honour. 09/11/2005. ABC News Online

Two schools in Australia are named Centres of Excellence in Indigenous Education and awarded $20,000 (Aus dollars, I'm assuming) grants for improving attendance rates, literacy outcomes, and graduation rates.

S. Africa - Mpumalanga education dept defrauded of R26 million

Mpumalanga education dept defrauded of R26 million
Perhaps it goes without saying that all government organizations are vulnerable to fraud. But the big stories usually don't involve educational organizations.

Here we have a blatant internal conspiracy to fraud which directly hurts children, as well as democracy. (R26 M is approx. US $3.9 M.)

"The contractors were appointed to build toilets and provide water tanks to schools used as polling stations during the last national elections. The companies failed to deliver any of the services but submitted a false claim of R26 million to the government. ... He says they include contractors, surveyors and government officials. "

US - Let's Renovate Our School Finance Systems

Let's Renovate Our School Finance Systems
Though the editorial concerns reforming finance in the US, it's an interesting proposal that could commute to other systems as well.

"For most of this century education funding has been channeled to school districts. But since the 1980s, education reform has created a variety of new policy initiatives that require states to consider how to finance school sites (e.g., school-based management, school-level accountability, and charter schools). As states address this new task, they realize that their current district-based finance structures require significant modification, if not a complete overhaul, to produce a system that fairly and adequately responds to fiscal and curricular goals of the future.

UW-Madison Education Professors William Clune and Allan Odden say new finance systems should align with other initiatives of standards- and school-based education reforms. Based at WCER%u2019s Center for Policy Research in Education (CPRE), Odden says, 'With the right kind of change, finance systems and structures could help the education system improve the productivity of the educational dollar. Many more students could be taught to high standards.'"

Education system in Indonesia

The Jakarta Post - Education system in Indonesia

"Unlike schools in the West, where critical thinking and individualism are encouraged while teaching dogma is banned -- most Indonesians don't even know that religious instruction is not allowed in public schools in the West -- Indonesian schools continue to foster the opposite.

Teaching children blind obedience and beliefs based on insufficient (or contradictory) evidence, such as religious dogma, is contrary to teaching them to be intellectually curious and to rely on the scientific method in their thinking, which is the best thing we've got in the last 200 years. Without the scientific method, we would perhaps still be counting how many angels can sit on top of a pin (a major intellectual pursuit in Europe during the Middle Ages)."

China - Govt to earmark 10 bln yuan to support vocational education

Govt to earmark 10 bln yuan to support vocational education
China will provide 1O B yuan (approx. US $1.24 B) to support vocational education, focusing on poorer and rural populations.

Wen said that China has a huge population, especially in rural areas, and employment is a problem that should be solved. Therefore, vocational education should be given priority equal to basic education and education of higher learning.

He said China's vocational education should be focused on the training of working skills for the unemployed and improving workers' technical levels

Philipines - Improve teaching to solve education crisis

Sun.Star Davao - Improve teaching to solve education crisis

The DepEd secretary said this would mean investing in teacher welfare and teacher development starting with improvement of curricular programs in teacher education institutions, investment in in-service teacher training, and performance rating anchored on competency-based standards.

US - States should invest in preschool

States should invest in preschool

Perhaps this is obvious to most educators, but it's nice to hear media and policy makers pick up on these nuances of educational systems.

Millions of middle-class and wealthy American parents assume preschool to be an important part of their 3- and 4-year-old children's lives, but that's far from the reality of this nation's working poor. At a time when the diversity of languages, educational backgrounds, and economic status among families is rapidly widening in almost every state in the nation, a massive expansion of affordable preschool is ever more essential yet still far from being realized in too many states.

One of every 4 children under age 6 in the United States today is a child of immigrants, an extraordinary increase from just a decade ago. More than half of these children are from poor families, according to a recent report from the Urban Institute. These are exactly the families and children who can benefit most from strong early-education programs.

Bulgarian Education Lacks Practicality - Survey

Bulgarian Education Lacks Practicality - Survey

[The survey] interviewed 85 businessmen and found out that highschool curriculums were inadequate to practical requirements.

Graduates usually have good knowledge of theory but lack practical skills, the report has said.

Not a particularly detailed article, but it's an interesting data point to note if, like me, you don't know anything about Bulgaria.