Displaying items by tag: Education

Uganda: Over 9,000 drop out after registering for PLE (Primary Leaving Examination)
Pupils who pass their PLE exam can progress to secondary school. Primary school tuition is free but pupils, especially in rural areas, face serious challenges to finishing their education. They lack books and pens, often having to study all day on an empty stomach since no meals are provided at school, and schools often have poor teaching methods.  Information obtained from Uganda National Examinations Board website indicate that out of 333,482 pupils who registered for PLE from 2010 to 2016, a total of 9,320 did not sit. A government official said, ‘Grazing livestock is one of the major reasons for the school dropout.’ The other reasons keeping children out of school, he said, are poverty, underage marriage, trading, tea picking, stone quarrying and mining. However he said they have engaged parish chiefs, sub-county chiefs and chairpersons of school management committees to arrest parents of children who  are removed from school See also https://www.theguardian.com/katine/2010/feb/08/education-system-explainer

Former education secretary Nicky Morgan will lead an inquiry into the rising costs of the student loans system in England and its possible replacement by a graduate tax. The investigation is needed because of the steeply rising levels of debt carried by graduates after leaving university. It will run alongside similar hearings on personal finance by the House of Lords economic affairs committee. A recent report from the Gambling Commission found that some students have £10,000 gambling debts. A 24-year-old who got into gambling at university said, ‘It went from spending a few days after coming home from lectures and going onto my laptop to suddenly saying no to going out with friends, maybe saying no to going to uni. I think you can be very vulnerable. I'd never budgeted before, and money was a whole new concept to me.’ See also:

Rachel's daughter was raped by a boy at her school. He was arrested, bailed, and put back into lessons, alongside his victim, the following day. ‘A rape victim is already in a terrible place, but to be expected to be back in the same space as the rapist is terrible,’ Rachel said. The Government is writing interim guidelines for schools to prevent such things happening, but campaigners say it is taking too long. Rachel said that the school seemed to have no policy in place, and dealt with the situation ‘extremely badly’. She had to instigate a meeting and, despite her efforts, they did not prioritise her daughter's needs but were keen to protect her assailant’s rights to education. Over 5,500 sex crimes in UK schools were reported in the last three years, including nearly 4,000 physical assaults and 600+ rapes. See

A Sutton Trust report urges the Government to reverse its ‘ill-advised’ decision not to extend the childcare offer for 3- and 4-year-olds to non-working parents, which risks increasing the gap in school readiness between disadvantaged children and their peers. Working parents are currently entitled to double the standard fifteen hours of free weekly childcare that is available universally. In a survey, 80% of head teachers said that many children arrived at primary school not ready for classroom activities, and 86% said the situation is worse now than five years ago. The trust said that early years childcare increased the benefits for children whose parents have lower incomes or lower levels of education, or whose first language is not English. Although it is understandable that the Government wants to improve access to childcare for working parents, this must not be at the expense of good early education for disadvantaged children.

Recent research suggests that more than a quarter of England's secondary schools do not offer religious education, despite the law saying they must do so. The National Association for RE Teachers, which obtained the unpublished official data under the Freedom of Information Act, says that missing the subject leaves pupils unprepared for modern life. But the main union for secondary head teachers said many schools covered religious issues in other lessons through conferences, citizenship lessons or assemblies. By law, RE must be taught by all state-funded schools in England, with detailed syllabuses agreed locally. The data showed that 26% of secondary schools were not offering RE lessons; 34% of academies were not offering RE to 11 to 13-year-olds; and almost half were not offering it to 14 to 16-year-olds. As more schools become academies, the problem could escalate.

Nicola Sturgeon often says that she wishes to be judged as first minister on her government's record in education. She cares passionately about trying to close the attainment gap which sees pupils from better off homes performing better in school than children from more deprived backgrounds. But nearly three years after she became first minister, standards in Scottish schools have been judged by international measures to be slipping in reading, writing and maths. Her political opponents say she should be embarrassed by her record. On 5 September she said that education is the ‘defining mission’ of her government.

America’s founding statement that ‘all are created equal’ is forgotten as racism grows there. It grows wherever cultures clash. In the UK teachers spend considerable amounts of learning time dealing with bullying, hate crime, and non-attendance arising from prejudice. One teacher said, ‘I’ve spent countless hours dealing with verbal and physical conflict rooted in fear of difference. In some cases this was triggered by children repeating the views of parents harbouring prejudices of their own.’ She added that there had been an upswing in racism incidents since the 2015 election, when UKIP anti-foreigner rhetoric cascaded from parent to child to playground. Prejudiced views left unchallenged within the education system could ultimately lead to involvement in hate groups and hate crimes by young people who deserve better.

A Christian youth charity has warned that ‘knife crime will continue to go up and down if we don't tackle the causes of why it happens in the first place’. Despite a new London-wide strategy intended to reduce knife crime, more needs to be done to prevent young people from carrying knives. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner said they are looking again at stop and search and sentencing, but that is looking at symptoms and trying to get knives off the street. It is not looking at why young people are carrying knives in the first place. A lot of it is down to fear and believing that 'since everyone else is carrying a knife, I should carry one just in case'. The Centre for Social Justice said that crime-linked poverty, family break-down, educational failure, and the idea of worklessness are all reasons why people are growing up in situations where carrying a knife seems like a good option.

Palestinian women are scoring a sweet victory against gender discrimination in the West Bank by breaking with tradition and working alongside men at the largest pastry factory in Nablus. They are ignoring prejudices and competing with men for jobs that traditionally belonged to men. However the women only earn half of the amount of the men, even though they have proved to be more competent than the men. Now the factory, supported by women’s rights organisations, plan to provide pastry courses for other women who want to work.

Christian education leaders have new hope after Prime Minister Theresa May promised that she would be an advocate for the establishment of new faith schools. During the last Prime Minister's Question Time before the summer recess, Conservative MP Sir Edward Leigh asked if her Government will be honouring its manifesto pledge to remove the faith-based cap for free schools. He said, ‘Catholic dioceses up and down the country are anxious to open free schools, and some have even purchased sites.’ Theresa May responded, ‘The reason we put that in our manifesto, and the reason it was in the schools Green Paper that we published before the election, is that we do believe it is important to enable more faith schools to be set up and more faith schools to expand.’