More lessons and more active and varied teaching from teachers are the main features of Sweden’s new “Mathematics Initiative.” This fall, The Swedish National Agency for Education is prescribing measures to reverse the negative trend of Swedish pupils’ mathematical skills. International comparisons show that Swedish students have less instructional time in math than the average among EU and OECD countries. Government has directed the National Agency for Education to examine how mathematics teaching can be expanded and improved. The result is the “Mathematics Initiative,” starting on a trial basis in 33 selected schools in October.
Prior learning in Korea refers to educational programs offered via private institutes, which teach above-grade-level school curricula to students in advance. Subjects are taught a year ahead of schedule, and even three years in certain cases. South Korea’s Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology announced that the excessive prior learning has caused problems in students’ cognitive, social and emotional, and educational development. The ministry has presented an outline for a new policy that plans to solve the problems through:
-Examination of public school curricula that might encourage prior learning.
-Examination of the effects of prior learning on the entrance exams for high schools and colleges.
-Exploration of the successful public school models with regard to curriculum management.
-Conducting scientific and practical research on the disadvantages of prior learning.
Alex Fernando Rojas, Prensa Libre (September 19, 2012)
Guatemala President Otto Perez Molina
In a controversial move to improve the training of teachers in Guatemala, the government there has eliminated the add-on program that allows high school graduates to become teachers after an additional year of study. Despite violent student protests across the city over the last several months, the Ministry of Education, with the backing of President Otto Perez Molina, ratified the new regulation to take effect in 2013, when the new school year starts in January. With this change (targeted at teachers at the primary level), individuals who wish to become teachers will need to attend university for at least three years.
Cynthia del Águila
The Ministry of Education, led by Cynthia del Águila, remarked that this law is intended to improve the state of education in Guatemala and to benefit Guatemalan children and adolescents. President Pérez Molina added that before this law, there were two unsuccessful attempts to boost the quality of education in the country. This move to focus on teacher education has been controversial because teaching was long thought of as an affordable profession, leading some students to protest the increased time and financial investment that would be needed to obtain a teaching degree.
According to del Águila, the government will focus the subsequent school year on coverage for pre-primary levels of education as well as on initial training for primary teachers. María Ester Ortega, an expert in education interviewed by Prensa Libre, believes that the state of education in Guatemala can improve but only with more scrutiny of all educational institutions; this, she states, includes preparation, training, and follow-up with teachers to ensure that they have followed the mandates of the national curriculum.
Since the food offered at school cafeterias and truck shops is considered fatty and sweet, 14 schools in the Austrian state of Styria have decided to eliminate burgers, potato chips and sweet carbonated drinks from their campus food. From now on, only healthy food of high quality will be offered for purchase, such as fresh vegetables and fruits. Students the age of 14 or older often go to school without bringing their own lunch from home and simply buy what is offered at the truck shops and cafeterias. Therefore, there is a responsibility to offer high quality food, says Alois Stöger, the Austrian Minister for Health.
The number of students from multicultural families in South Korea rose more than 20 percent in 2012, growing to 0.7 percent of the country’s total student population. According to the data compiled by the Education Ministry, the number of multicultural students who attend primary or secondary schools in South Korea reached 46,954 in 2012. This is nearly five times larger than the 9,389 multicultural students who attended school in 2006, when the ministry began compiling the data. If the current trend continues, multicultural students will take up more than 1 percent of the country’s total primary and secondary school students by 2014.
The South Korean government has responded by devising diverse measures to help the students better adapt to school, including operating “preliminary schools” across the country to teach them the Korean language and culture for about six months before they start regular schooling, and adding “the Korean as a Second Language” subject to the regular curriculum in schools.
V. Shuman, Rozanna Latiff, Yiswaree Palansamy, Eunice Au, Punitha Kumar, Akil Yunua and Lavanya Ling, New Straits Times (September 12, 2012)
Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has announced a blueprint to transform its education system through 11 educational shifts, to be implemented in three “waves,” from 2012 to 2025, to attain educational access, quality, equity, unity and efficiency. Wave 1 (2012-2015) will focus on turning around the system by supporting teachers and focusing on core skills, while Wave 2 (2016-2020) will focus on accelerating system improvements. Wave 3, from 2021-2025, will move the system towards excellence coupled with increased flexibility in operations. To ensure that implementation is on track, annual progress reports will be published. Initiatives include reworking the primary and secondary school curricula to ensure students will learn to apply new knowledge to unfamiliar contexts. Vocational education will also be given a greater focus, and new evaluation frameworks will be put in place to weed out “under-performing teachers.”
Nagano prefecture in Japan began adopting a merit pay system based on the result of the teacher evaluation in 2011. The recent report on the result of the 2011 evaluation indicate that the system doesn’t work effectively. The result shows that 16,767 out of 17,000 received C in the A to E scale. A former principal in Nagano commented that he had no choice but to give a C to all teachers because assigning low evaluation scores required an evidence-based account, which was not practically feasible. The Nagano Department of Education commented that the current teacher evaluation system has to be something that produces mostly average C scores. This is due to the reconciliation with the teacher union, which argued against the Nagano Department of Education about highlighting the differences among teachers in terms of their teaching effectiveness.
Marian Chiriac, Balkan Insight (September 10, 2012)
Romania’s Senate approved a plan to introduce vocational school-leaving exams that will allow students to qualify for vocational training instead of university studies. The Education Ministry proposed the plan in order to address a growing concern over poor results in graduation exams, which have declined steadily since officials raised standards and clamped down on cheating after 1990.
Just under half of all twelfth grade pupils passed their university entry qualification exams this year. In 2011 around 44 per cent of high school pupils failed the exam. Experts cite delays in education reform, inconsistent leadership, and under-funding, as factors that have led to the overall decline of education in Romania.
Since Lee Myung-bak took office in 2008, the government of South Korea has invested close to 30 billion won ($26 million) in The National English Assessment Test (NEAT), an English language test that is expected to replace American tests like the TOEIC or TOEFL in the university entrance system beginning in 2013; however, serious questions have been raised by Rep. Yu Gui-hong of the Democratic United Party from the Ministry of Education and Science as to whether NEAT has been effective and reliable.
Students sit a trial version of the National English Aptitude Test at a school in southern Seoul. (Kim Myung-sub/The Korea Herald)
Jiji Press, The Daily Yomiuri Online (September 7, 2012)
In an effort to reduce bullying in schools, Japan’s education ministry has set guidelines for directly dealing with the issue. The ministry plans this month to seek aid from special advisors such as lawyers, former police officers and psychiatrists on how to “prevent and handle” bullying in schools. Moreover, the ministry has requested that its budget be increased to permit the allocation of more funds directed towards instituting programs to reduce bullying. They have requested an increase from about 2.7 billion yen from fiscal 2012 to about 7.3 billion yen for the next fiscal year. With the institution of the new budget, the ministry plans to direct the funds towards an increase in social workers and clinical psychologists available to public schools and victims.
Education minister Hirofumi Hirano said at a press conference Wednesday, “After serious cases in which students’ lives were at risk, we will face the issue directly and sincerely.”
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