In the often tough multi-ethnic neighborhoods on the periphery of French cities, the Catholic youth organizations offer a way out.
Tag: education
From U.S. student debt to staggering housing inflation from London to Shanghai, there are signs of cracks invoking fear among economists of another impending financial crisis.
-OpEd- This is the time of year when American colleges inform applicants whether they’ll be accepted or not. Admission to prestigious universities grows tougher every year. Stanford University“s acceptance rate has fallen from 22.4% in 1970 to 5.7% in 2013. It’s the same for the University of Chicago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, […]
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The Myth Of The Asian Math Genius
SHANGHAI — After the excellent performance of Shanghai children in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), an expert delegation led by British Education Minister Elizabeth Truss paid a visit to Shanghai recently to learn from the city’s experience in teaching – and teaching math, in particular. The local press reported that the visiting delegation […]
A side-effect of the digital revolution may be the death of cursive writing. Though some may argue that pure utilitarianism is a trap, students must be prepared for a different future.
As the world’s largest democracy goes to the polls for national elections, a closer look at India’s struggle to improve its schools through privatization. Even for the poor.
L’AQUILA — In this city in central Italy, there is an entire generation of children who ride in cars and go to restaurants like other Italian kids, but still have never gone to a proper school. These are the kids from L’Aquila, hit by an earthquake five years ago — on April 6, 2009 — […]
MUNICH — Pharmaceutical companies know that doctors more frequently prescribe medicine produced by companies whose sales representatives visit them regularly. That very logic means that these same companies are also busy trying to “recruit” future doctors across Germany, according to a recent survey of German medical school deans and some 1,100 med students. The study, […]
AJMER — In India, 70% of the population lives in rural areas, mostly in poverty. But as a voluntary program has proven, impoverished people can become experts in solar power. Thanks to Barefoot College, an NGO based here in Ajmer, in the western part of India’s Rajasthan state, some 600 women have been fully educated about solar power, a small step towards eradicating poverty. Sunaina Das, 20, is reviewing all the components needed to make a solar lamp. Though she doesn’t know how to read or write, she’s learning to become a solar engineer. “I’ve come here for training,” she […]
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Sharp Rise In HIV Infections In Iran
The number of HIV infections in Iran has increased nine-fold over the past 12 years, and in stark contrast with previous decades, most infections were now through sexual intercourse not use of infected needles, the country’s official IRNA news agency reported on Feb. 26. A lecturer at Tehran’s Medical Science University, Mohammad Hossein Ayati, told […]
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Tough Labor For Syria’s Refugee Students
GAZIANTEP — Syrian university students unable to complete their degrees due to the country’s ongoing conflict and displaced to Turkey are now jobless, or scraping by as day laborers. Fares, a 29-year-old from Kfar Nabal in the Idlib province, was studying for his final university exams when the security situation in the country made traveling to campus impossible. After years in medical school, he had just completed his training at the Ibn Rashed Hospital in Aleppo. He planned to specialize in the cardiovascular system, but was forced to drop those plans when it became impossible to travel to Aleppo for […]
Researchers want to give new meaning to the idea of ‘plugging in’ students to maximize their performance.
China is asking hard questions about what it takes to make a big nation a great nation.
CAIRO — In the sunlit reception area of Jana Dan International School in Cairo’s Maadi neighborhood, golden-framed certificates line a prominent wall. Next to international accreditation and state inspection documents is a notice to staff: “Please refrain from discussing politics at school.” Through the halls and into a large courtyard flanked by the swimming pool […]
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The Disney Princess Polemic
Social pressure is on to create genuine heroine characters not animated models with impossible body images. But Disney continues its pursuit of pure fantasy.
BUTEMBO — On the eve of the 2013-2014 academic year, the city of Butembo saw 22 new universities opening here, more than doubling the number of higher education institutions in a city of only 600,000 people. But they’re only universities by (pompous) name: “Superior Institute of Trade and Business,” “Doctoral School of Petrochemistry,” “Faculty of […]
A poor education ranking in the latest international PISA report failed to humble the country’s top education official, who instead hailed the outcome as a “great triumph.”
PARIS – The results are in, and half a million 15-year-olds from 65 countries have spoken. This collective voice is the results of high-school students from around the world who were measured in a series of math, science and reading tests for the much-anticipated PISA rankings that were announced Tuesday. PISA, which stands for Program […]
BEIJING — The Chinese authorities have recently introduced a “Ten Thousand Talents Support Program,” a nationwide project for selecting outstanding talent in all areas of scientific and technological innovation. Among those, 100 people would be identified as potential Nobel Prize winners. Similar programs, equally generous and costly, have been put in place before. But regrettably, […]
Beyond the Taliban’s attack against Malala, there is also widespread corruption and poor state monitoring that leads to many Pakistani schools being simply abandoned buildings.
SAO PAULO — A Brazilian version of Ronald McDonald, the famous clown mascot, has taken to visiting nursery schools, kindergartens and primary schools. The well-known face of the fast food chain has been performing shows for young children and even babies, at both public and private schools. But not everyone is so amused. A growing […]
PARIS – The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), whose global ranking of schooling levels has become a reliable source of national pride and shame, has now set out to measure how different countries in the developed world stack up in adult skills. (Read this piece by OECD’s Andreas Schleicher, who has spearheaded both […]
CRISSIER — Not far from a highway turnoff near the Swiss city of Lausanne, there is a wooded enclave surrounded by a national forest. On a slice of these lands — around 70 acres of woods, agricultural fields and parks — the pupils of the Bois Genoud private school are enjoying themselves in complete freedom. […]
YUTZ — Use a digital tablet in gym class? You might smile, but in room A101 of the Jean-Mermoz Junior High in northeastern France, the visitor today is Luc Di Pol, whose job title for the regional education authority is digital supervisor for physical education. Here in the mostly rural French department of Moselle, Di […]
I was the manager of Logos Bookstore in Calgary, Canada for more than 30 years, and during the last 15 years we primarily served the education community. That experience allowed me to witness sweeping changes in technology, and the way it is being applied in the classroom. As parents and board members became more familiar […]
Over the past 15 years, global investors have experienced a series of bubbles: the Internet bubble in 2001, the real estate and credit bubbles in 2008, and then gold this year. The expansions and adjustments of these bursting bubbles seem to have already become commonplace. Though many governments with troubled economies have tried to face […]
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A MOOC World Tour
Photo: Laura A. Oda – MCT/ZUMA
PARIS – Everywhere skills transform lives, generate prosperity and promote social inclusion. And if there’s one lesson the global economy has taught us over the last few years, it’s that we cannot simply bail ourselves out of a crisis — stimulus plans and printing money can never be a lasting solution to our economic problems. […]
A school in the low-income banlieues of Paris has been living in the digital age for three years. Results are starting to show.
ST. PETERSBURG — The physics lab is under the school’s cupola, literally in a holy place. This used to be a small home chapel, and now it’s a specialized classroom. The St. Petersburg physics and math school No. 30 moved back to this building, its historic home in the Vasilyevsky Island section of St. Petersburg, […]
PARIS — Conflict, scandal, disrepair: the bad news must be reported, wrongdoing exposed. Still, journalism too often is obsessed solely with what is broken — the breaking news, in every sense of the word. Worldcrunch Impact takes a different starting point, with another question that journalists should ask: How might things get better? How can […]
What are the best ways to make our schools — and students — smarter? We don’t have the answer here. But it’s sure to include a healthy dose of looking beyond your own backyard for good ideas that may be working elsewhere. Good teachers and adequate funding are no doubt central. So too is equipping […]
A school located in a remote stretch of the Amazon teaches indigenous children, many of whom come to learn Spanish, under extraordinarily rustic conditions.
The intricate connection between state power and academic authority is fertile ground for corruption in research and education. Here is one recipe to clean up the campus in China.
Though the country spends less per pupil than many other developed nations, students here consistently test better than nearly all their global counterparts. Here’s why.
BURZACO – Carrot leaves are poking through the soil, the lettuces are green and leafy, and the spring onions are standing tall: these vegetables are being nurured at secondary school No. 56 in Burzaco, 25 kilometers south of Buenos Aires. And as the vegetables have put down roots, classroom violence has been on a sharp […]
A niggling feeling of doubt came over me. Had the school trip been educational? Was it even a school trip, i.e. was the presence of two teachers and a class of students any guarantee of learning? We had worked hard all year, I can tell you that much. We knew everything there was to know […]
Young people sign up for higher education solely for scholarship money, while officials turn a blind eye to those permanently absent from class. Is this a twisted way to buy social peace?
Recently a home of 400 square meters was put on sale for a cool $21.2 million. That’s an astronomical sum, even for a piece of property advertized as being located adjacent to a good school that guarantees any entrance to the school for the children of the buyers. As news spread of this over-the-top pricetag […]
Exactly 100 years ago, the renowned Italian educator first landed in America with a method that pushes independent thinking. Today, the results are everywhere — notably at Google HQ.