Grade inflation - time to give in?

An interesting debate and not something exclusive to the USA. Every year when GCSE or A-Level results come out in the UK talk of grade inflation fills the news.

Chris Blattman suggests here that we shouldn't resist 'the new equilibrium'. Having marked students' work myself, I kind of agree with this. As Chris Blattman suggests, surely it's all relative? So, for example if there are only five piles of graded work ranging from A+ to B-, in theory is this not the same as the graded work in five piles ranging from A to E? And I hesitate to add: the B- therefore being equivalent to the E...or have I been subjected to too much of a private school mentality?! Or do certain grades have connotations and therefore an A- will always be viewed (subconsciously) as better than a B despite the fact their quality is the same (given that they would both be in the second pile of graded work).

I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts on this and Chris Blattman's suggestion that we should go with the flow. 

Neglect of education in slow-onset emergencies

'In Somalia in 2011, school enrolment rates plummeted due to the food crisis and large-scale displacement. The Education Cluster estimates that more than 1.8 million children aged 5–17 are out of school in South and Central Somalia alone – the worst-affected region, due to persistent and ongoing conflict and drought. The current education coverage and response supports only 20% of the school-age population in this zone. The availability of education for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and local host communities has not been sufficient to meet the need.  

Challenges to effectively delivering education in Somalia include:
• the lack of an appropriate curriculum
• inadequate learning spaces
• a lack of trained teachers from affected communities
• insufficient teacher remuneration and incentives for teaching
• the underlying challenge of the absence of a governance structure.  

Scarce teaching and learning materials are not enough to cover even the current low enrolment rates, made worse by the continued lack of funding for education in emergencies. 

In the Dollo Ado camp in Ethiopia and the Dadaab camp in Kenya, resident populations increased significantly during the 2011 crises – from already high levels. More than a quarter of a million Somali refugees arrived at the two camps in 2011 alone. The camps now host more than 600,000 Somali refugees, approximately 60% of whom are children. 

Providing education in the camps is particularly challenging given the chronic lack of services for the host populations in marginalised, drought-affected areas, where many refugees have settled. Many refugee children have had little or no previous access to formal education in Somalia, making it even more difficult to integrate them into the limited formal schooling in host communities. In Dollo Ado, only an estimated 15–20% of children are currently accessing education services.'

As well as East Africa, the report also discusses West Africa. Read the full report here.

One of the most important things we can teach youth

Thanks to a comment on a LinkedIn discussion based on this blogpost, I was pointed in the direction of the work of Kiran Bir Sethi. It got me thinking about what it is that we should be teaching youth particularly in marginalised communities or refugee situations. They are surrounded by negativity of one form or another: stigma, being told they're not good enough, poverty, unrealised dreams. 

What then should we be teaching them? As Kiran suggests, the concept of: I can. Now we've all heard about positive thinking, but somehow we've all assumed this is something applicable to adult life, that kids somehow sail through easily without the doubts and negative thoughts creeping in. Kiran's ideas show how important 'I can' is in youth life and the impact it can have on their lives as well as - and arguably more importantly - that of the society at large, and the community in which they live. 

Here is a link to a TED talk in which Kiran explains the concept much more powerfully than I do. Well worth a watch, if only to see how the word 'infection' can be used in a positive context. 

Mr Mandela on the power of education

I saw this and just had to share:

Courtesy of: http://www.motivationblog.org/nelson-mandela-quote-poster/#.UDKrvamPXup 

Pakistan - missing out on literacy targets

'[Education expert, Professor Fateh Malik] lauded the efforts of senators towards the implementation of the Article 25-A, for the betterment of future generations. "It was only Zulfikar Bhutto who brought revolutionary reforms in the education sector by making education free and compulsory for all the children," Malik said. "Private institutes were nationalized by Bhutto and salaries of teachers of private institutes were made equal to the salaries of government teachers," he said. Education was the backbone of any country and Article 25-A would provide free education to those children who were deprived of education due to poverty and had to resort to child labor, he said. According to the UNESCO report [...] the country had 18.64 million illiterate people in the year 1951, 22.08 million in 1961, 33.59 million in 1972, 42.69 million in 1981, 50.38 million in 1998 and 55.24 million in the year 2010.'

The stats at the end of the above quote are particularly concerning - how is it that the illiteracy rate is increasing? I haven't been able to locate the report, so I'm unsure how these figures were collated, however, they do raise questions. Questions which I am prone to asking anyway e.g. do targets such as Education for All (which are due to expire in 2015) really achieve results?

On that sobering note, Happy Independence Day, Pakistan (the country is 65 years old today). Here's hoping the next 65 years of your existence is full of educational development.
Read the full news article from Pakistan Today here. 

Three things the world of celebrity has taught me about NGOs and education

1. Anyone can set up an NGO, in fact most celebrities seem to have one. It has almost become the 'in' thing to do. The INSERT CELEBRITY NAME Foundation seems popular... However, it takes much more than that for an NGO to be successful. And, it seems the type of celebrity you are is likely to determine its success given that the NGO the celebrity sets up is often linked to what they are famous for. So surely a 'Kim Kardashian Foundation' is likely to pale in comparison to the 'Nelson Mandela Foundation'. Well, you'd hope so. 

2. That leads to the second thing I've learned: Education is not really up there on the list of celebrity foundation mandates. Why? Because very few celebrities - well, at least that I know of - are famous for being educators or similar.

The final point then:

3. In a world where 'celebrity rules', education - in not being linked to the world of celebrity - doesn't seem to get much publicity on the grand scale. The likes of Angelina Jolie are long-time ambassadors for refugees for example, or David Beckham for children's issues (because of his work with UNICEF), however I can't seem to think of someone who advocates for education in and of itself. Time we changed that? And if yes, who do you think would work well as the 'face' of education reform either internationally or in your country?

Was the current system of education designed for a different age?

One of the important questions Sir Ken Robinson answers in this must-watch video on Changing Education Paradigms.

Sir Ken Robinson suggests that children have been 'anaesthetised' to get through schooling, and instead we should be waking them up to discover what is inside of themselves. If this is the case then, the question is: at what stage do children learn what is inside themselves under the current education norms?

He also mentions that we need to go in the exact opposite direction of standardisation - I do agree, however struggle with how this plays out in practice. Is this why more and more people are turning towards homeschooling? Are schools currently stifling the critical - or divergent, as Sir Ken Robinson calls it - thinking abilities of children? It would be great to hear your thoughts.

Quick note: The video constantly refers to education, however I think that Sir Ken Robinson is talking about schooling. For more on the difference between schooling and education, take a look at this previous post. 

Madaar - volunteers needed!

Madaar - Open Islamic Curriculum is a project I am involved with, and we're currently looking for volunteers. If you have some time to spare - no matter how much - then get in touch, or please forward on to someone who might be interested.

Check out why you should help us here. For more about the project, take a look here. 

Progress for Children: putting secondary education in the spotlight

Taken from the UNICEF report Progress for Children - A report card on adolescents, the map below highlights the net enrolment/attendance ratio of adolescents worldwide (net enrolment accounting for students of the official secondary school age, rather than students of all ages). My areas of interest - Pakistan and East Africa - evidently have a lot of progress to make. 

'In many countries there is a drop-off in enrolment  between primary and lower secondary education, and between lower and upper secondary education. Particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, drop-off is high  between the primary and lower secondary levels.  Globally, the lower secondary gross enrolment rate  was 80 per cent in 2009, whereas the upper secondary gross enrolment rate was 56 per cent. 

[...] 

The gap in lower secondary school completion rates between sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the world appears to be widening. In fact, sub-Saharan Africa has the worst secondary education indicators of any region: Its level of enrolment of secondary-school-aged children is the lowest, as are its rates of secondary school completion, and it has fewer girls enrolled than boys. 

Low secondary school enrolment stems in part from low primary school completion. In sub-Saharan Africa, only 47 per cent of 15–19-year-old girls and 52 per cent of 15–19-year-old boys have completed primary school (see Figure 3.3 for percentages in selected countries). 

The effective transition rate measures the probability that a student in the last grade of primary school will enrol in the first grade of secondary school. Many industrialized countries and many countries in CEE/CIS, the Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean have primary-to-secondary school transition rates of nearly 90 per cent or above. In the least developed countries, three fourths of children who complete primary school make the transition to secondary school. 

Behind the regional averages, however, are wide  variations in primary-to-secondary school transition rates. In sub-Saharan Africa, rates range from as low as 36 per cent in the United Republic of Tanzania to as high as 98 per cent in Botswana. The transition rate does not reflect whether primary completion in the country is high or low, nor does it reflect such quality indicators as age in grade.'

Good to see a focus on adolescents, at a time of disproportionate attention given to primary education. The report explores adolescence in relation to various areas including education and work; sexual behaviour, maternal health, and HIV; and violence. You can read the full report here. 

Education vs. Schooling - the same but different?

Apologies for the lack of blogging over the past week: I've been away from decent internet access, and I admit enjoying a bit of a blogging break as well.

I recently went to a seminar on the Capabilities Approach and the potential for it in helping to eradicate inequality in schools. One thing that I noticed was many people at the event were using the terms education and schooling as interchangeable terms. I think this needs to be questioned.

We might assume that learning and therefore education is 'happening' in schools, however how does schooling differ from education in general? Of course schooling is confined by age, education on the other hand is not. The main difference as I see it though is that on the whole schooling is something driven by the state, and therefore the content needs to come under close scrutiny. What is the purpose of the schooling agenda? State-building? Helping children to become good or better citizens?

Rather than giving schooling and education a definition myself, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Is there one universal definition for both terms, or is it really dependent upon context? Does 'real' independent - here meaning non-state defined - learning only take place once we are adults? Do we question enough the content of the curricula in schools, or do we just assume that the state knows what our children should be learning?  

Get discussing below! 

    

Education in the Africa Progress Report 2012

From the Africa Progress Report 2012:

'Looking towards 2015, there is an unfortunate air of resignation hanging over much of the region. Many governments and donors appear to view a large shortfall against the MDG targets in education as an inevitable outcome. Indeed, much of the debate surrounding the MDGs in education has moved on to dialogue on the “post-2015” agenda.   

Without discounting the importance of this dialogue, the shift in priorities is premature. As many countries across the region have demonstrated, rapid progress towards the 2015 goals is possible. Both Tanzania and Ethiopia reduced out-of-school numbers by over 3 million in the first half of the decade after 2000. The immediate challenge for governments and their development partners is to identify strategies aimed at getting more children into school, reducing dropout rates and improving learning achievement levels.  

Some of the barriers to participation in education can be swiftly removed through well-designed policies. 

[...]

The more difficult part revolves around teaching. Ultimately, no education system is better than its teachers. With a deficit of around 1 million teachers, Africa urgently needs to step up recruitment. However, far more needs to be done to raise the quality of teaching. Many of Africa’s teachers enter classrooms with limited subject knowledge. One survey found that fewer than half of grade 6 teachers in Mozambique, Uganda and Malawi were able to score at the top of the competency level for the pupils. Teaching is typically delivered in rote fashion, reflecting training systems that regard “child-centred learning” as an alien concept. In-service support systems are weak. And whether as a result of low morale, poor pay or a lack of accountability, Africa’s schools are plagued by an epidemic of teacher absenteeism.'

Check out the Report for more on what more can be done for education across various different African countries. 

Investing in Disaster Risk Reduction in Education

Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) - what is it?

According to the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction,  DRR 'aims to reduce the damage caused by natural hazards like earthquakes, floods, droughts and cyclones, through an ethic of prevention'.

How is this linked to education I hear you ask. Check out this poster from UNICEF and UNESCO which tells you how education is linked to DRR, and why we need it. 

This child-friendly publication from Plan International is also helpful to get young people thinking about how they can get involved with responding to disasters, and possibly preventing them in the future.

What are your thoughts on DRR? Have you been involved in DRR initiatives? Do you think they could be used for preventing crises such as conflict? It would be great to hear your experiences (both good and bad) - feel free to share them below. 

Online Resources from UNESCO-IBE on Conflict and Education

A useful list compiled by the International Bureau of Education (IBE) at UNESCO on online resources relating to conflict and education.

Joining the Rio +20 Conversation - including education in the agenda

The Rio +20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development is taking place between 20 and 22 June 2012.

'The objective of the Conference is to secure renewed political commitment for sustainable development, assess the progress to date and the remaining gaps in the implementation of the outcomes of the major summits on sustainable development, and address new and emerging challenges.'

Perhaps important to note that the international community is unlikely to meet any of the Millennium Development Goals or Education For All goals by the target of 2015.
 
The Rio +20 Conference is going to focus on the following themes:

1. a green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication;
2. the institutional framework for sustainable development.

The following seven areas have been noted as needing priority attention: 

1. Jobs
2. Energy
3. Sustainable Cities
4. Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture
5. Water
6. Oceans
7. Disaster Readiness

Of particular note in the area of Disaster Readiness is the fact that education has on the whole been overlooked as the mechanism through which any of the sustainable development goals may be internalised and acted upon. Take a look at the related Issue Brief for more on this. In light of this, the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) is calling for education - in particular crisis-sensitive education - to be brought to the forefront of the conference agenda.

What do you think?
Should the conference be paying greater attention to the links between education and sustainable development? Is excluding education as an explicit area of focus in the Rio +20 Conference simply setting up for failure?
Visit the Conference Website. 
See INEE's call to include education in the conference agenda here.