TOL: Open Society Education News: July 2006


July 2006
Uzbekistan: Speak No English 29 June 2006 With their crackdown on advocacy groups and international media organizations in Uzbekistan, the authorities in Tashkent have effectively stemmed the teaching of English to much of the population. by Paul Bartlett

Romania: Failure Factories 9 June 2006 In 10 years, says one writer, a wave of incompetents will move from Romania’s lecture halls to its labor market. by Emilia Chiscop

--------- Educational standards can decline as a result of well intentioned public policy. They can also fall because of a government campaign against freedom of expression. In June TOL's education articles looked at examples of each of these cases. In Romania after the fall of communism, the state's idea was to boost the country's miserably low rate of university graduates by drastically freeing up the admissions process. A decade later, Romania is nearly on a par with the European average for the rate of young people enrolled in higher education, but the price, many educators charge, is too high: universities full of ignorant students whose professors have given up trying to instill even the most basic knowledge. In Uzbekistan, a problem of a different sort is emerging as the authorities, concerned over the spread of "Western" ideas and reporting of facts they don't want citizens to know, close down nearly all foreign-language media and many NGOs that offered instruction in the English language. Many young people are switching to Russian studies or dream of winning a very rare scholarship to study at an English-language institution abroad. --------- To Subscribe A bi-monthly newsletter sponsored by OSI's Education Support Program, the Open Society Education News highlights upcoming events, new publications, and all of TOL's education articles. Subscribers to this newsletter will also receive notifications about opportunities to contribute to TOL's education section. Subscribe at TOL’s newsletter signup page. --------- Take a look at the previous education newsletters: http://archive.tol.cz/nsl-list.html.

New book on anti-corruption education

Lithuania's Modern Didactics Centre, with the support of the Lithuanian government and the UN Development Program in Lithuania, recently published Anti-Corruption Education at School, a methodological book in English and Russian for general and higher education. The book is a selection of two separate volumes published initially in Lithuanian as the outcome of national anti-corruption projects.

This book aims to help teachers learn more about the concept of corruption and the ways of integrating anti-corruption training into the main disciplines and extracurricular activities, as well as promoting pupils' civic involvement. The book provides methodological materials prepared and tested by teacher practitioners for teachers in general education schools as well as lecturers in institutions of higher education.

The section designed for general education teachers is a result of an anti-corruption project, sponsored by the RE:FINE fund of OSI Education Support Program (ESP). For more information, please write to: daiva.dc@vpu.lt, or click here

2006 RE:FINE funded projects

The Review Committee of the RE:FINE program selected seven projects for funding at its May 20th meeting in Ljubljana. This year ESP received 43 proposals to the call announced in November 2005.

RE:FINE supports projects which further open society goals in the general education field in four education priority areas: equity, quality, public accountability and anti-corruption. View the guidelines here.

The program provides strategic grants for networking opportunities between NGOs and other organizations that support gains already made in the education sector in order to maximize impact and enhance capacity of civil society actors in bringing about school reform.

The 2006 RE:FINE funded proposals focus on: translation of the book Anti-Corruption Education at School into Romanian, Bulgarian, Georgian, Ukrainian, Armenian and Azeri (the book is available in English) and dissemination of best practices in anti-corruption education; developing capacity of journalists to cover education issues; strengthening the network of "open schools"; improving governance and accountability of school governing bodies; setting up a transnational association of English-language teachers to promote higher standards of teaching and influence policy decisions; developing parents' advocacy skills; and establishing an international network of school principals committed to democratic changes in education.

For more information about the selected projects, please visit the ESP website.

RE:FINE’s Preliminary Assessment of Achievements

The ESP is commissioning a study which will assess the extent to which the goals and objectives of RE:FINE (the Resourcing Education: Fund for Innovations and Networking program) have been realized so far. The study will focus on how the funded projects are contributing to promoting networking for enhanced impact; building capacity and resources in the region; promoting civil society involvement in education change; and strengthening advocacy on education issues. The results of the study will help to further enhance the working of the fund, inform its future design, and contribute to better serving the needs of its constituency.

The RE:FINE fund, which supports a number of projects in the general education sector, was established in 2004. The study will assess 12 of the 15 projects that have been supported since the launch of the fund. These projects are still being implemented, so opinions of grantees and partner organizations will be sought to reflect their experience so far with the realization of the projects.

The developed survey will focus on the networking experience of grantees with partner organizations; capacity-building efforts undertaken as part of the project; advocacy activities; and ways in which beneficiaries were involved in the project and their experience working with the RE:FINE fund. Follow-up phone interviews will then be conducted with selected respondents. In the latter stage of the study about 100 Soros-related NGOs will be surveyed to receive their input on the future design of the fund. The study will be carried out between July and December 2006.

For more information, please contact Natalia Shablya at nshablya@osi.hu