Hi, I thought the discussion tonight regarding creating educational opportunity and improvement was very valuable. Thanks for all your GREAT contributions. Please post reflections here. Thanks, Dr. Andy
From the EFA Global Monitoring Report, it provided some policy conclusions and recommendations at the end, and they are--- a. Early Childhood Care and Education - as Fatima mentioned that a neutral party should join this project, such as WHO, which is an expert for Care. b. Education Quality - this can tide with CPD, PM and PLC. c. Overcoming Inequality – lessons for national governance reforms, such as gender equality. d. Aid Donors - delivering on commitments, we need more countries to be involved in the project. e. Non-government Actors - a critical role, educators should be encouraged to join non-government organization, and be more proactive in terms of monitoring the progress of the project. Among these five, I would think that overcoming inequality is the toughest one to achieve. The five GESolutions show some ways of achieving this goal, however, these solutions are not easy to apply either. For example, the number 3 talked about using publicly funded grant schemes to provide cheap access to education for the poor, particularly for girls. The reality is that even if the government provides compulsory education, which is almost free, but there are still quite a lot of tribal children can’t afford it (which is happening in Taiwan). The solution 4 is to promote adult education through adult universities and in the workplace, but what if they don’t even have jobs? For these five solutions, I think number 5 is most doable one. As teachers, at least we can integrate this concept into the curriculum. What could I do, if I have my own kindergarten? 1. To help my teachers understand the importance of Early Childhood Education, in stead of thinking that it’s just babysitting. 2. I would definitely put up a CPD program for all, teaching or non-teaching staff. 3. By understanding how people learn (the learning process), we could demonstrate great values to our little ones, so this plants a tiny and graceful seed in their heart, in order to move them from sub-conscious to conscious mind an then to the super-conscious – intuition: conscience. This is what I meant the doable solution to overcome inequality. 4. Be more proactive to reach out to people, share my resources with schools that are lack of them, or join non-government organization to contribute more in different parts of the world. Like I said, we maybe small, but we have the great power to change those little minds. Shira
Sadly to go through all the articles for the critical problem that global education facing at 21st century, deep inside of the inequality is the fact of the different countries with different national income, different people at different hierarchy of the society and the different views in investing on the education from the different government.
And all of these problems mainly point directly to the economy situation in different places around world.
As the article indicated, education is usually taken as the main way in which individuals can learn more skills and qualify themselves to increase their potential of employability and of high income in the future. Despite the other potential influential factors behind the increasing income inequality worldwide, improving education quality is expected to make a substantial contribution to mitigating both interpersonal and at the end of the road, international income inequality.
But ironically, when the international income inequality persistence, how could the poor countries people or the people in disadvantages could and would to scarify the food for books.
However, the miracle happened at Barefoot college proves that we should always keep hoping and then the changes could be possibly made.
I found some recommendation in overcoming the inequality in Education is not practical in the real world, however, the awareness is the first thing to be raised.
Here is the list I ranked according to the importance and practicalness from my own understanding:
First, as more than one article mentioned, we shall bring the efforts together from governments to individual to make a learning community to provide a supporting environment in whole society.
Secondly, distribute the national income wisely on education according to the different area with different situation. As I explained in the classroom, some area of the country is lacking of natural resources, there's no wonder that less foreign investment and more labor intensive jobs there, so as to the local education development. And with most of the young people going to the metropolitan city to dig the fortune, the knowledge they earned and money they gained normally will not be reinvested in their home town. Only government policy made and moral obligation enhanced could change the situation like this.
Thirdly, teachers as important role as in the education, should earn their respect not only by their quality lecturing, but also finically motivated base on their performance.
Forth, continuing education for adults is as essential as providing the education to the young generation. Because only with well educated family background, the children would receive more encouragement to go to school and realize the importance of the education.
Fifth, assessing the quality of education in terms of cognitive ability of students, in terms of the content providing to the students for future job and in terms of the increase of productivity of the human resources from education could bring to the global economy.
And the last but not least, international aid in education from developed countries to the developing countries. As most of the developing countries heavily lost their elite students to the well facilitated and funded developed countries educational institution, I think the developing countries definitely needs more help from the international aid to maintain their countries hope on next generation by equipping themselves with better quality in both software and hardware.
It is because the globalization brings us all together, in the chain of living, no one should be neglected or ignored. To face more challenges from natural world and economy system, education is no longer a matter of a single government or regional responsibility. Education is a future in our current hand to build a better world together. - Kris
Education For All (EFA) Education is a fundamental human right and vital to achieving economic growth, increasing income, and sustaining a healthy society. Education is important in helping to improve lives, break the cycle of poverty and ensure that all people, particularly women have control over their destiny. Despite global progress, 75 million primary school-aged children are still out of school, over half of whom are girls (Source: EFA Global Monitoring Report 2008). There are many reasons children do not go to school or stay until they are done. They may have to walk a long distance to get to school, have no food to eat at home, there is no teacher or they have to take care of a younger brother or sister. UNESCO and NGOs all over the world have committed to ensuring that all girls and boys are able to realize their full potential. We all know that children will flourish if they are able to go school, stay there until they finish and learn the basic skills of literacy, mathematics, life skills and critical thinking in a supportive setting. We should help them to do this by supporting education initiatives. We should work in communities across the globe for the long term, getting to know their needs so we can better help them. This long term assistance also signifies we are ready to respond when a humanitarian crisis appears. According to our discussion Thursday night, four priority areas where we should focus our attention and education resources are: • Improving access to education • Improving quality of education • Improving governance and management of education • Improving learning community Our support as educators are to provide the education programs for children, teachers, their families or caregivers and communities with the infrastructure, training, tools, services and support they need for a better education. Fatima
I do agree with most of the points made by Kris about the current issues we are dealing with in the field of education. The barriers to reach the aims of EFA are numerous in developing countries and they definitely have a long way ahead to EFA achievement. The unstable social, political and economical situation of many of these countries hinders the progress in education. Even though the poverty is usually the main reason for people in third world countries to refuse from sending their children to school but it’s not always the case; culture, traditions and religion are also determining in access or segregation to education. For example in many agricultural societies children are required to help their families from early ages in farming and prevailing idea is parents is that their children will be able to earn a living by continuing the family business and consider the education to be unnecessary and useless. Innovative programs need to be initiated to overcome such issues: Additional fund to the families is one of good incentives that was discussed in the article, other programs could include: holding evening classes for working kids or mobile classes for nomads. Also, another significant point also cited in article is to overcome the children’s illiteracy, adult illiteracy should be eradicated in the first place. What should be taken in to consideration is that in setting strategies in providing education for all, there is not one module fits all and before any planning , the problem has to be precisely figured out that why kids are out of school. Donation and financial aids are not ultimate solutions for all cases. H Comprehensive studies are required to find out the roots of the issue. Once the reasons behind the problems discovered, appropriate strategies can be innovated that match the situation the best. Another point I’d love to state is that the dominance of command and control environment in many schools is a big deterrent for kids to go to school . In a country like Iran schools especially public ones are extremely terrifying places to be in: Kids are harshly suppressed, abused verbally, and punished physically. It was just a week ago that I heared in the news a that kid sadly lost his life after was hit and beat by teacher at school. In such a environment many kids are reluctant to go to school and if their families are careless about their children’s education, these kids are likely to quite studying forever. The change of educational policies in these countries is urgent: the time to discipline for children with a rod is over and there is a need for teachers to be trained in more modern ways of teaching methods. Despite the fact it’s not easy to change the attitude that are deep embedded in a society , it is our duty to take active role in giving awareness to the masses .
This is from Bonnie---Education is a basic human right. Yet across the world there are vast disparities in education based on wealth, gender, location., language and other makers for disadvantage. There disparities threaten to undermine efforts to achieve the six Education for All goals agreed by over 160 governments in 2000. Failures to place strategies for great equity at the centre of the EFA agenda will deny millions of children, youth and adults the education and learning opportunities they need to realize their potential, escape poverty and participate fully in society. Education plays an enormous role in the formation of creative personalities and of adapted members of human society. By education and learning we have brought our genetic inheritance to blossom. Human history and human culture are the products of millennia of learning and teaching. We can not overestimante the importance of education for the past and the future of mankind. As a teacher, I will apply in the following ways: 1. Keep a long breath. Success won’t be easy and swift even after determining education goals and applying appropriate education policies. It take quite a long time to effectively improve the education quality and the students’ skills and performance. In Chinese saying: If you want to give students a bowl of water, you should have a button of water. I want to learn more things to make me a qualified teacher. 2. Based on the research, I want to develop my research on educational situation in Yunnan Province to help my dissertation proposal. 3. Yesterday Shira took me to attend the conference held by the international schools in Bangkok. It’s a large group of international schools and foreign teachers! I think that the international schools and foreign teachers offer the kids opportunities to touch different languages to help them touch with multiculturalism which endows them abilities to keep up with the global pace and build the film educational basic for the future development. I study English for many years. I study English for studying, not for using. I can pass the Level 8 English Test easily in China, but I can not understand what Dr Andy’s questions in ABAC. So how to improve English Studying situation causes my thinking. 4. We have a famous tale for many generations. Many many years ago, an old man called YuGong, wanted to move the mountain in front of his house because the mountain baffled his family members to the outside world. The people around him began to laugh at him for an impossible task. But YuGong and his family members began to keep digging the mountain. Until he death, he only digged a small piece of the mountain. Before he died, YuGong urged his family members to keep on. After many generations, his family members moved the mountain in front of their house to have the road to the outside world. Let’s do something. Bonnie
Bonnie makes a good point. There ae many people who can pass a test in a subject that they do not udnerstand. Not just language, but other subjects as well. But real understanding is USE, not just passing a test. This is why in the Canadian Army, on leadership courses, people are often only failed for practical applications and never, or very rarely, for theory, since in the army leadership mistakes get people killed! Class testing is often at the lower levels of understanding. Using Bloom's taxonomy, perhaps only at the level of factual recall. But the ability to analyze and synthesize is where real learning begins. In practical terms, the only way to improve this is real, everyday use, and a LOT of practice. Also, spend time focusing on what you know and build on that, improve on that. Spend less time worrying about what you do not know. For Bonnie, an example of this would be her going over the ideas of the Barefoot College, and her discussions and questions in class, which, at least to me, indicate that she KNOWS A LOT MORE than she thinks she does. Dr. Andy
Jerome Said…….. To achieve a functioning society, members need to appropriately advanced education that engages and challenges all of its members to be productive now and for futuristic purposes. Equity to this education is a primary responsibility of the leaders of these societies. Educational leaders have an important role at affecting change through: 1) Developing Cognitive thinkers (academic achievement for the 21st century) 2) Providing job training for various technical careers and opportunities 3) Developing Critical Thinkers and Creative Thinkers to advance and innovate their societies, communities nations and cultures 4) Developing the Humanistic Formation Character Development for ethical responsibility and leadership!
Giving knowledge to people I think we can't avoid to concern about the receivers also. Thus the EFA project have showed the result of the project. Although this project is unfinished now, it seems, however, impossible to have high expectation for success. There are many problems that we have known from the EFA report. Since we have the diverse in ethnics, establishing education for them should varies and should met the learner's needs too. Some area, they don't want to know about other languages, they don't want to learn World history subject, or even Math, Science, etc., they prefer how do they still alive, or how they can survive in the World, how can they have more effective in their products. Moreover, it may not about their poverty. Some communities do not care about rich or poor, and also they may do not understand what is it, disadvantage in education? We as a leader may have the right to protect them and give them "education" that fit for them. It means that it may not be as we had defined the word "education." The 21 century of education tried to have the equality in education, but it may forget about the beauty of diversity. I am not a contrary man. I just think that the direction of education nowadays is quite over to follow the way of Humanism. However, education for all is still very important and it is our duty as a leader to bring it to people around the World, but more than that the educator, the leader, or the whatever, must consider about their living life too. From this lesson I can apply to my life 1. Good curriculum for urban people may not good for some local people. Then curriculum design should think of the being or the environment of the learners too. 2. It's my duty to bring education to people in many areas to have them education. 3. Education is not just only knowledge, don't omit to teach children the humanity. 4. Teacher is very important. Cannot refuse that students normally they learn and copy some behavior from their teacher, then it's very important to think more about developing teacher to be a good leader in order that the students can learn and copy the good things from their teacher.
As we aware that when a majority of the word’s countries committed at the turn of the new century to achieve Education for all (EFA) by 2015, they did so with the confidence that the EFA goals would stand the test of time.
After, we had discussed in class with different idea and perspective. To make EFA achieve the goal. The following are my reflection to share.
1. The recommendations given can be made possible and realistic if the four keys to better aid governance are seriously followed.
a. The shift from individual projects to system-wide programmers. By sharing or giving some projects not only your field public sector but also private sector around the world. b. National ownership. Strengthened national ownership is based on a two- way partnership between national governments and donors. There must an official agreement between national government and private agencies, example ministry of education and World Bank. c. Aligning aid with national priorities and using government systems. Service the needs and give priorities the vital l and important issues, like health employment over population and literacy problem. d. For aid to be managed effectively, countries need to know how much will be received and when. They must a proper auditing of the money provided by government and private sector.
2. As a school leader, we must support the EFA program of UNESCO being the molders of the youths. By realizing the vision and mission objective of the school through the educational development for the teachers and staff by sending them for a seminars, workshops and other trainings that can upgrade their educational qualification, improving possibility of the school and providing the student with the right instructional material for learning, so that they can completed globally.
3. To help uplift the literacy problem of individual people is not our responsibility but we can educate the people through community outreach program, like teaching the parents of the student during weekend or collaboration with the community to organize the training program for adult.
4. School leaders must be vigilant to whatever challenges that can affect changes. His/her vision and mission must fit to the current trend of education and technology. By introducing the latest technique and program - communication supper high way.
5. The goal of EFA is to uplift and alleviate the status of the people and minimize the literacy problems of the world. By the following ways; 1. Providing scholarships to poor but reserving students 2. Providing health education programs 3. Providing literacy programs 4. Population explosion awareness programs and 5. Providing livelihood programs
We are as a part of the world educator; we cannot leave all education problems behind. Let us help and collaborate our wish to make EFA achieve the goal.
Okay Second try and much shorter! Here i go again!
I stand firmly and agree that it is our obligation as professionals in the field of Education to encourage and strive for equal access of education for all participants.
However I fell itis unrealistic for the following reasons:
1). there is a failure to recognize that all governments-not just some use the field of education not only as apolicy tool to promote their own agendas and believes but also as a popularity tol by merely giving verbage to the idea of equal access to education while actually doing very little if anything to promote this Access!
Secondly, THe idea of equal access to education to impart a better style of living, increase wealth and increase a society's health and viability fails to recognize the scarcity of resources. Resources throughout the world are fixed and fiercely gaurded and fought for in the present international global economy. Those people and countries that have the power will not willing give away their power and competitive advantage to another. These power mongors for lack of better name will not willing allow or encourage an adoption of international standards that would deprive nor probably even effect the status and existence of their current level of power.
Finally The increased level of sophistication of knowledge throught the use of technology is superficial! Wile general knowledge and indeed the level of knowledge is increasing, the pwers that control will raise the level of knowledge needed to succeed and receive high compensation will be raised proportionately to a higher level! Therefore the background education will be at a higher level and any higher economic incentives will also be raised according to the law of limited resources so that there will be little or no actual gain to a society or its populace in the long run!.
Therefore Thee role of the educational leader can only be to continue the success of the last 100 years of developing and giving access not only to those who can afford it but to those individuals who show genius, true talent, or intense motivation to be educated in any or all skills. This is what I consider to be the true success of educational access in last century granting and searching for access to those with talent and ability to access education.
The role of the educator must be like a diamond company-finding those rare resources-students or gems and developing them, cutting them,shaping them into even more beautiful and useful and talented works of art and commodities useful to the modern world!
In respond to Sara comments, I strongly suggest her to have evidence to support her points especially in generalizing some personal experience in the scale of a country. I can bring many examples of teacher’s abuse toward students in many developed and developing countries but I never dare to generalize to the whole country. As far as I concern education system in Iran has been achieved transformation to improve quality of education, governance and management of education as well as developing learning community, and I can support my saying with statistical data. I believe Iran like many other developing countries needs more effort advancements in achieving economic growth, increasing income, and sustaining a healthy society through educational system. On the other hand I consider educational leaders to have a sense of hopefulness with an energetic openness to positive possibilities as well as to have a sense of efficacy which enable them to make a difference. I hope to see ourselves as constructive educational leaders. I am grateful to Sara for giving me this opportunity to talk about Iran. Fatima
I am do agree with the strategies for equitable decentralization for example 1.Establishing clear guidelines 2.developing equitable financing formulas and 3.Establishing clear policy objectives since it could help for better change in the equality of education. All of these ways cover in each the big point for driving the inequality. As a leader of an educational institution we can apply these ideas in the following ways:
1.As a school leader, I would decentralize the current state of school management by using a shared leadership approach. 2.As a teacher, I know I can affect the inequality of teaching by differentiating my lessons to ensure all students are successful. 3.My future plans as an educational leader include conducting needs assessments to ensure equity is achieved as a result of my leadership skills, education, and experience, and that the quality of my leadership is conducted through high ethical standards. Aey
Sorry about the difficulties, Jeff, possibly for all of us, especially if we are doing a long post, it might be best to compile our thoughts in word first, saving frequently, than cutting and pasting the post in case there are difficulties with either the internet or the computer we are using. This way, we won't do a whole lot of work then lose it, as with Jeff's unfortuante experience. Thanks, Dr. Andy
From the EFA Global Monitoring Report, it provided some policy conclusions and recommendations at the end, and they are---
ReplyDeletea. Early Childhood Care and Education - as Fatima mentioned that a neutral party should join this project, such as WHO, which is an expert for Care.
b. Education Quality - this can tide with CPD, PM and PLC.
c. Overcoming Inequality – lessons for national governance reforms, such as gender equality.
d. Aid Donors - delivering on commitments, we need more countries to be involved in the project.
e. Non-government Actors - a critical role, educators should be encouraged to join non-government organization, and be more proactive in terms of monitoring the progress of the project.
Among these five, I would think that overcoming inequality is the toughest one to achieve. The five GESolutions show some ways of achieving this goal, however, these solutions are not easy to apply either. For example, the number 3 talked about using publicly funded grant schemes to provide cheap access to education for the poor, particularly for girls. The reality is that even if the government provides compulsory education, which is almost free, but there are still quite a lot of tribal children can’t afford it (which is happening in Taiwan). The solution 4 is to promote adult education through adult universities and in the workplace, but what if they don’t even have jobs? For these five solutions, I think number 5 is most doable one. As teachers, at least we can integrate this concept into the curriculum.
What could I do, if I have my own kindergarten?
1. To help my teachers understand the importance of Early Childhood Education, in stead of thinking that it’s just babysitting.
2. I would definitely put up a CPD program for all, teaching or non-teaching staff.
3. By understanding how people learn (the learning process), we could demonstrate great values to our little ones, so this plants a tiny and graceful seed in their heart, in order to move them from sub-conscious to conscious mind an then to the super-conscious – intuition: conscience. This is what I meant the doable solution to overcome inequality.
4. Be more proactive to reach out to people, share my resources with schools that are lack of them, or join non-government organization to contribute more in different parts of the world.
Like I said, we maybe small, but we have the great power to change those little minds. Shira
Sadly to go through all the articles for the critical problem that global education facing at 21st century, deep inside of the inequality is the fact of the different countries with different national income, different people at different hierarchy of the society and the different views in investing on the education from the different government.
ReplyDeleteAnd all of these problems mainly point directly to the economy situation in different places around world.
As the article indicated, education is usually taken as the main way in which individuals can learn more skills and qualify themselves to increase their potential of employability and of high income in the future. Despite the other potential influential factors behind the increasing income inequality worldwide, improving education quality is expected to make a substantial contribution to mitigating both interpersonal and at the end of the road, international income inequality.
But ironically, when the international income inequality persistence, how could the poor countries people or the people in disadvantages could and would to scarify the food for books.
However, the miracle happened at Barefoot college proves that we should always keep hoping and then the changes could be possibly made.
I found some recommendation in overcoming the inequality in Education is not practical in the real world, however, the awareness is the first thing to be raised.
Here is the list I ranked according to the importance and practicalness from my own understanding:
First, as more than one article mentioned, we shall bring the efforts together from governments to individual to make a learning community to provide a supporting environment in whole society.
Secondly, distribute the national income wisely on education according to the different area with different situation. As I explained in the classroom, some area of the country is lacking of natural resources, there's no wonder that less foreign investment and more labor intensive jobs there, so as to the local education development. And with most of the young people going to the metropolitan city to dig the fortune, the knowledge they earned and money they gained normally will not be reinvested in their home town. Only government policy made and moral obligation enhanced could change the situation like this.
Thirdly, teachers as important role as in the education, should earn their respect not only by their quality lecturing, but also finically motivated base on their performance.
Forth, continuing education for adults is as essential as providing the education to the young generation. Because only with well educated family background, the children would receive more encouragement to go to school and realize the importance of the education.
Fifth, assessing the quality of education in terms of cognitive ability of students, in terms of the content providing to the students for future job and in terms of the increase of productivity of the human resources from education could bring to the global economy.
And the last but not least, international aid in education from developed countries to the developing countries. As most of the developing countries heavily lost their elite students to the well facilitated and funded developed countries educational institution, I think the developing countries definitely needs more help from the international aid to maintain their countries hope on next generation by equipping themselves with better quality in both software and hardware.
It is because the globalization brings us all together, in the chain of living, no one should be neglected or ignored. To face more challenges from natural world and economy system, education is no longer a matter of a single government or regional responsibility. Education is a future in our current hand to build a better world together.
- Kris
Education For All (EFA)
ReplyDeleteEducation is a fundamental human right and vital to achieving economic growth, increasing income, and sustaining a healthy society. Education is important in helping to improve lives, break the cycle of poverty and ensure that all people, particularly women have control over their destiny.
Despite global progress, 75 million primary school-aged children are still out of school, over half of whom are girls (Source: EFA Global Monitoring Report 2008).
There are many reasons children do not go to school or stay until they are done. They may have to walk a long distance to get to school, have no food to eat at home, there is no teacher or they have to take care of a younger brother or sister.
UNESCO and NGOs all over the world have committed to ensuring that all girls and boys are able to realize their full potential. We all know that children will flourish if they are able to go school, stay there until they finish and learn the basic skills of literacy, mathematics, life skills and critical thinking in a supportive setting. We should help them to do this by supporting education initiatives. We should work in communities across the globe for the long term, getting to know their needs so we can better help them. This long term assistance also signifies we are ready to respond when a humanitarian crisis appears.
According to our discussion Thursday night, four priority areas where we should focus our attention and education resources are:
• Improving access to education
• Improving quality of education
• Improving governance and management of education
• Improving learning community
Our support as educators are to provide the education programs for children, teachers, their families or caregivers and communities with the infrastructure, training, tools, services and support they need for a better education.
Fatima
I do agree with most of the points made by Kris about the current issues we are dealing with in the field of education. The barriers to reach the aims of EFA are numerous in developing countries and they definitely have a long way ahead to EFA achievement. The unstable social, political and economical situation of many of these countries hinders the progress in education. Even though the poverty is usually the main reason for people in third world countries to refuse from sending their children to school but it’s not always the case; culture, traditions and religion are also determining in access or segregation to education. For example in many agricultural societies children are required to help their families from early ages in farming and prevailing idea is parents is that their children will be able to earn a living by continuing the family business and consider the education to be unnecessary and useless. Innovative programs need to be initiated to overcome such issues: Additional fund to the families is one of good incentives that was discussed in the article, other programs could include: holding evening classes for working kids or mobile classes for nomads. Also, another significant point also cited in article is to overcome the children’s illiteracy, adult illiteracy should be eradicated in the first place. What should be taken in to consideration is that in setting strategies in providing education for all, there is not one module fits all and before any planning , the problem has to be precisely figured out that why kids are out of school. Donation and financial aids are not ultimate solutions for all cases. H Comprehensive studies are required to find out the roots of the issue. Once the reasons behind the problems discovered, appropriate strategies can be innovated that match the situation the best.
ReplyDeleteAnother point I’d love to state is that the dominance of command and control environment in many schools is a big deterrent for kids to go to school . In a country like Iran schools especially public ones are extremely terrifying places to be in: Kids are harshly suppressed, abused verbally, and punished physically. It was just a week ago that I heared in the news a that kid sadly lost his life after was hit and beat by teacher at school. In such a environment many kids are reluctant to go to school and if their families are careless about their children’s education, these kids are likely to quite studying forever. The change of educational policies in these countries is urgent: the time to discipline for children with a rod is over and there is a need for teachers to be trained in more modern ways of teaching methods. Despite the fact it’s not easy to change the attitude that are deep embedded in a society , it is our duty to take active role in giving awareness to the masses .
This is from Bonnie---Education is a basic human right. Yet across the world there are vast disparities in education based on wealth, gender, location., language and other makers for disadvantage. There disparities threaten to undermine efforts to achieve the six Education for All goals agreed by over 160 governments in 2000. Failures to place strategies for great equity at the centre of the EFA agenda will deny millions of children, youth and adults the education and learning opportunities they need to realize their potential, escape poverty and participate fully in society.
ReplyDeleteEducation plays an enormous role in the formation of creative personalities and of adapted members of human society. By education and learning we have brought our genetic inheritance to blossom. Human history and human culture are the products of millennia of learning and teaching. We can not overestimante the importance of education for the past and the future of mankind. As a teacher, I will apply in the following ways:
1. Keep a long breath. Success won’t be easy and swift even after determining education goals and applying appropriate education policies. It take quite a long time to effectively improve the education quality and the students’ skills and performance. In Chinese saying: If you want to give students a bowl of water, you should have a button of water. I want to learn more things to make me a qualified teacher.
2. Based on the research, I want to develop my research on educational situation in Yunnan Province to help my dissertation proposal.
3. Yesterday Shira took me to attend the conference held by the international schools in Bangkok. It’s a large group of international schools and foreign teachers! I think that the international schools and foreign teachers offer the kids opportunities to touch different languages to help them touch with multiculturalism which endows them abilities to keep up with the global pace and build the film educational basic for the future development. I study English for many years. I study English for studying, not for using. I can pass the Level 8 English Test easily in China, but I can not understand what Dr Andy’s questions in ABAC. So how to improve English Studying situation causes my thinking.
4. We have a famous tale for many generations. Many many years ago, an old man called YuGong, wanted to move the mountain in front of his house because the mountain baffled his family members to the outside world. The people around him began to laugh at him for an impossible task. But YuGong and his family members began to keep digging the mountain. Until he death, he only digged a small piece of the mountain. Before he died, YuGong urged his family members to keep on. After many generations, his family members moved the mountain in front of their house to have the road to the outside world.
Let’s do something.
Bonnie
Bonnie makes a good point. There ae many people who can pass a test in a subject that they do not udnerstand. Not just language, but other subjects as well. But real understanding is USE, not just passing a test. This is why in the Canadian Army, on leadership courses, people are often only failed for practical applications and never, or very rarely, for theory, since in the army leadership mistakes get people killed! Class testing is often at the lower levels of understanding. Using Bloom's taxonomy, perhaps only at the level of factual recall. But the ability to analyze and synthesize is where real learning begins. In practical terms, the only way to improve this is real, everyday use, and a LOT of practice. Also, spend time focusing on what you know and build on that, improve on that. Spend less time worrying about what you do not know. For Bonnie, an example of this would be her going over the ideas of the Barefoot College, and her discussions and questions in class, which, at least to me, indicate that she KNOWS A LOT MORE than she thinks she does. Dr. Andy
ReplyDeleteSorry about the typos, above, I was correcting and accidentally posted too soon and now can't seem to correct it! Andy
ReplyDeleteJerome Said……..
ReplyDeleteTo achieve a functioning society, members need to appropriately advanced education that engages and challenges all of its members to be productive now and for futuristic purposes. Equity to this education is a primary responsibility of the leaders of these societies. Educational leaders have an important role at affecting change through:
1) Developing Cognitive thinkers (academic achievement for the 21st century)
2) Providing job training for various technical careers and opportunities
3) Developing Critical Thinkers and Creative Thinkers to advance and innovate their societies, communities nations and cultures
4) Developing the Humanistic Formation Character Development for ethical responsibility and leadership!
Giving knowledge to people I think we can't avoid to concern about the receivers also. Thus the EFA project have showed the result of the project. Although this project is unfinished now, it seems, however, impossible to have high expectation for success. There are many problems that we have known from the EFA report. Since we have the diverse in ethnics, establishing education for them should varies and should met the learner's needs too. Some area, they don't want to know about other languages, they don't want to learn World history subject, or even Math, Science, etc., they prefer how do they still alive, or how they can survive in the World, how can they have more effective in their products. Moreover, it may not about their poverty. Some communities do not care about rich or poor, and also they may do not understand what is it, disadvantage in education? We as a leader may have the right to protect them and give them "education" that fit for them. It means that it may not be as we had defined the word "education." The 21 century of education tried to have the equality in education, but it may forget about the beauty of diversity. I am not a contrary man. I just think that the direction of education nowadays is quite over to follow the way of Humanism. However, education for all is still very important and it is our duty as a leader to bring it to people around the World, but more than that the educator, the leader, or the whatever, must consider about their living life too.
ReplyDeleteFrom this lesson I can apply to my life
1. Good curriculum for urban people may not good for some local people. Then curriculum design should think of the being or the environment of the learners too.
2. It's my duty to bring education to people in many areas to have them education.
3. Education is not just only knowledge, don't omit to teach children the humanity.
4. Teacher is very important. Cannot refuse that students normally they learn and copy some behavior from their teacher, then it's very important to think more about developing teacher to be a good leader in order that the students can learn and copy the good things from their teacher.
As we aware that when a majority of the word’s countries committed at the turn of the new century to achieve Education for all (EFA) by 2015, they did so with the confidence that the EFA goals would stand the test of time.
ReplyDeleteAfter, we had discussed in class with different idea and perspective. To make EFA achieve the goal. The following are my reflection to share.
1. The recommendations given can be made possible and realistic if the four keys
to better aid governance are seriously followed.
a. The shift from individual projects to system-wide programmers. By sharing
or giving some projects not only your field public sector but also private
sector around the world.
b. National ownership. Strengthened national ownership is based on a two-
way partnership between national governments and donors. There must an
official agreement between national government and private agencies, example
ministry of education and World Bank.
c. Aligning aid with national priorities and using government systems. Service the
needs and give priorities the vital l and important issues, like health employment
over population and literacy problem.
d. For aid to be managed effectively, countries need to know how much will be
received and when. They must a proper auditing of the money provided by
government and private sector.
2. As a school leader, we must support the EFA program of UNESCO being the molders of the youths. By realizing the vision and mission objective of the school through the educational development for the teachers and staff by sending them for a seminars, workshops and other trainings that can upgrade their educational qualification, improving possibility of the school and providing the student with the right instructional material for learning, so that they can completed globally.
3. To help uplift the literacy problem of individual people is not our responsibility but we can educate the people through community outreach program, like teaching the parents of the student during weekend or collaboration with the community to organize the training program for adult.
4. School leaders must be vigilant to whatever challenges that can affect changes.
His/her vision and mission must fit to the current trend of education and technology.
By introducing the latest technique and program - communication supper high way.
5. The goal of EFA is to uplift and alleviate the status of the people and minimize the literacy problems of the world. By the following ways;
1. Providing scholarships to poor but reserving students
2. Providing health education programs
3. Providing literacy programs
4. Population explosion awareness programs and
5. Providing livelihood programs
We are as a part of the world educator; we cannot leave all education problems behind. Let us help and collaborate our wish to make EFA achieve the goal.
Cheers!
Jackie
It sucks when you type for anhour and nothing posts!
ReplyDeleteHow can I check if my week one posted?
Okay Second try and much shorter!
ReplyDeleteHere i go again!
I stand firmly and agree that it is our obligation as professionals in the field of Education to encourage and strive for equal access of education for all participants.
However I fell itis unrealistic for the following reasons:
1). there is a failure to recognize that all governments-not just some use the field of education not only as apolicy tool to promote their own agendas and believes but also as a popularity tol by merely giving verbage to the idea of equal access to education while actually doing very little if anything to promote this Access!
Secondly, THe idea of equal access to education to impart a better style of living, increase wealth and increase a society's health and viability fails to recognize the scarcity of resources. Resources throughout the world are fixed and fiercely gaurded and fought for in the present international global economy. Those people and countries that have the power will not willing give away their power and competitive advantage to another. These power mongors for lack of better name will not willing allow or encourage an adoption of international standards that would deprive nor probably even effect the status and existence of their current level of power.
Finally The increased level of sophistication of knowledge throught the use of technology is superficial! Wile general knowledge and indeed the level of knowledge is increasing, the pwers that control will raise the level of knowledge needed to succeed and receive high compensation will be raised proportionately to a higher level! Therefore the background education will be at a higher level and any higher economic incentives will also be raised according to the law of limited resources so that there will be little or no actual gain to a society or its populace in the long run!.
Therefore Thee role of the educational leader can only be to continue the success of the last 100 years of developing and giving access not only to those who can afford it but to those individuals who show genius, true talent, or intense motivation to be educated in any or all skills.
This is what I consider to be the true success of educational access in last century granting and searching for access to those with talent and ability to access education.
The role of the educator must be like a diamond company-finding those rare resources-students or gems and developing them, cutting them,shaping them into even more beautiful and useful and talented works of art and commodities useful to the modern world!
In respond to Sara comments, I strongly suggest her to have evidence to support her points especially in generalizing some personal experience in the scale of a country. I can bring many examples of teacher’s abuse toward students in many developed and developing countries but I never dare to generalize to the whole country. As far as I concern education system in Iran has been achieved transformation to improve quality of education, governance and management of education as well as developing learning community, and I can support my saying with statistical data. I believe Iran like many other developing countries needs more effort advancements in achieving economic growth, increasing income, and sustaining a healthy society through educational system. On the other hand I consider educational leaders to have a sense of hopefulness with an energetic openness to positive possibilities as well as to have a sense of efficacy which enable them to make a difference. I hope to see ourselves as constructive educational leaders. I am grateful to Sara for giving me this opportunity to talk about Iran.
ReplyDeleteFatima
I am do agree with the strategies for equitable decentralization for example 1.Establishing clear guidelines 2.developing equitable financing formulas and 3.Establishing clear policy objectives since it could help for better change in the equality of education. All of these ways cover in each the big point for driving the inequality. As a leader of an educational institution we can apply these ideas in the following ways:
ReplyDelete1.As a school leader, I would decentralize the current state of school management by using a shared leadership approach.
2.As a teacher, I know I can affect the inequality of teaching by differentiating my lessons to ensure all students are successful.
3.My future plans as an educational leader include conducting needs assessments to ensure equity is achieved as a result of my leadership skills, education, and experience, and that the quality of my leadership is conducted through high ethical standards.
Aey
Sorry about the difficulties, Jeff, possibly for all of us, especially if we are doing a long post, it might be best to compile our thoughts in word first, saving frequently, than cutting and pasting the post in case there are difficulties with either the internet or the computer we are using. This way, we won't do a whole lot of work then lose it, as with Jeff's unfortuante experience. Thanks, Dr. Andy
ReplyDelete