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June 2007 |
Ukraine:
Butchers, Bakers, and Software Makers
26 June 2007
Ukrainian trade schools are still coming to terms with their loss of
prestige as they try to supply new workers to fast-changing markets.
by Oksana Forostyna
by Oksana Forostyna |
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Take a look at the previous education newsletters:
http://archive.tol.cz/nsl-list.html.
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Monitoring School Dropouts
The Education Support Program (ESP) and the Network of Education Policy Centers (NEPC) published a monitoring report on school dropouts which consists of an international overview as well as six country summaries. The report examines the context, scope, causes, and consequences of dropping out early from school. NEPC members from Albania, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Mongolia, Slovakia, and Tajikistan volunteered to conduct research on school dropout in the respective countries.
The international overview provides highlights of the key issues and related policy problems regarding non-enrollment, misreporting on non-attendance, and the consequences of dropping out of school. The country chapters examine factors and current policies, survey findings, and provide a set of recommendations for policymakers. They provide a better understanding of the reasons why many children in these countries do not complete school.
The key findings of the country studies will be disseminated in order to give more space for opening discussions and advocating for further and more specific information gathering. The findings can be useful for national legislative bodies, ministries of education, school administrators, local authorities, and other policymakers when they review or formulate their policies, or monitor trends.
Full-text country reports and supporting materials are available online at
http://www.edupolicy.net/EN.php
First Experts Meeting in the framework of the ETF project "Ethnic minorities and social inclusion in the Western Balkans".
The European Training Foundation (ETF) is launching a three-year project (2007-2010) on the social inclusion of ethnic minorities through education and training. The objective of the project is to enhance the capacity of national stakeholders in the Western Balkan (WBA) countries to address skill deficiencies of ethnic minorities and facilitate their social inclusion through education, training and better employment opportunities.
The specific expected results of this work are:
- Elements of good practice for the inclusion of ethnic minorities through education and training policy measures in EU Member States (particularly the new ones) and Western Balkan countries will be identified.
- The results of this work will be disseminated to the European Commission for EU programming purposes and they will contribute to the national debates which will assist policy makers in the countries of the region to develop a concerted action for the inclusion of ethnic minorities and to identify EU funded projects.
- It will promote the capacity building of national actors to incorporate in their education, training and employment policies/measures which address the specific needs of ethnic minorities.
An expert group - with an advisory role to ETF - will be established at an early stage of the project in order to build upon WBA countries' knowledge and bring the project activities and outcomes closer to the realities and considerations of the participating countries. The expert group will have a mixed profile of academics, policymakers and practitioners, national experts, and representatives of international organisations (such as European Commission).
Close co-operation will be developed with the Council of Europe and other international organisations and institutions in order to build upon their knowledge of the region as well as the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights in order to take on board EU considerations with respect to issues of ethnic minorities in the EU context. Finally, the project will take into account any relevant conclusions coming out from the EU cluster on "access to education and social inclusion" established under the Education 2010 Work Programme.
The first meeting of the experts took place on May 31 - June 1 2007 in Turin, Italy and brought together 37 participants: officials and experts from all WBA countries, representatives of the European Commission - DG Employment, and international organisations/institutions (Council of Europe, Roma Education Fund and Open Society Institute) and ETF.
The purpose of the meeting was to develop a common understanding on the issues and challenges involved in the social inclusion of ethnic minorities in the Western Balkan countries and the importance of education and training in this process. Participants focused on terminological and conceptual clarifications concerning the theme of the project, and the challenges that countries are facing in ensuring social inclusion of ethnic minorities. They also discussed specific aspects of education and training.
For more information please contact: Xavier Matheu de Cortada, Regional Coordinator IPA Region at
xavier.matheu-de-cortada@etf.europa.eu
International Seminar in Romania on Inclusive Education (June 14-16 2006, Sinaia, Romania)
UNESCO-IBE (International Bureau of Education) carries out a series of seminars worldwide as preparatory activities of the International Conference of the Ministers of Education on Education (ICE 2008) entitled "Inclusive Education: the way of the future" to be held on November 25-28, 2008 in Geneva, Switzerland. The International Conference on Education (ICE) is a major international forum for educational policy dialogue among Ministers of Education and with other stakeholders (researchers, practitioners, representatives of intergovernmental organizations and NGOs).
IBE plans to implement regional workshops in the different UNESCO regions as a way of sharing visions, strategies and good practices. They will be followed by a worldwide e-forum where regional inputs will be discussed, and foundations, strategies and contents of a roadmap to achieve inclusive education will be worked out.
The Center Education 2000+ together with UNESCO IBE held the Regional Workshop - Europe in Sinaia, Romania on June 14-16 covering East and South East Europe. A selected group of 10 to 15 of high-level educators and curriculum specialists discussed a series of questions regarding inclusive education related to the ICE 2008 sub-themes: definition and development of the notion of inclusive education; role of inclusive education in the curriculum change and the educational agenda; current concepts of inclusive education relations to the curriculum structure of basic education. Experts presented country specific case studies on current developments in inclusive education.
The Report of the Regional Workshop, including the country/sub-region reports as well as minutes of the discussion sessions, will be published online. For more information, please contact: Alexandru Crisan, Ph.D., Executive President, Center Education 2000+ & International Education Expert, Head - IBE Curriculum Network,
acrisan@cedu.ro
Empowering English Language Teachers for Education Policy Development in Russia
The Omsk English Language Teachers' Association (OmELTA) in Russia launched a two-year project Empowering English language Teachers for Education Policy Development in September 2006 with funding from the RE:FINE grant program of the Education Support Program (ESP) of the Open Society Institute (OSI).
The goal of the project is to establish a proactive, cross-regional network of English Language associations which will advocate for the needs and rights of English teachers, and promote the introducing of higher standards of English language teaching through effective use of resources, which have been accumulated in the course of English language reform activities in the participating countries. Geographically, the project covers Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Russia.
They have already published English language teaching materials designed by the professionals from four associations of the network. They also conducted best practice sharing seminars in several Russian cities: Omsk, Novy Urengoy, and Noyabrsk. As the result of the project, they will publish a feasibility study for a quality assurance scheme.
The grantee is preparing for a closing international conference titled "Teaching / Learning Environment for English Language Teaching" with the support of Open Society Institute & Omsk State Teacher Training University. It will take place on November 6-7, 2007 in Omsk, Russia.
The objectives of the conference are:
- to share best practices;
- to explore issues of field teacher's role in education policy;
- to promote networking, exchange and communication amongst ELT specialists in different regions and countries.
- The organizing committee invites proposals for presentations and workshops at the conference. For more information and downloading the call for papers, please visit: http://www.soros.org/initiatives/esp/news
For more information, please contact:
tamararussia2003@yahoo.com
Developing parents` advocacy skills, influence and knowledge in education
In September 2006, the Lithuanian association "New Connections" launched a two-year project "Advocacy Skills for the Parents Knowledge and Influence on Education" funded from the RE: FINE grant program of the Education Support Program (ESP).
The overall goal of the project is to develop parents' advocacy capacities in education through joint activities and networking. The underlying concept is that parents need to be taught to cooperate with each other, schools, ministries, departments and other stakeholders in order to be successful in their advocacy activities. They need to learn certain skills, strategies and methods of conflict resolution, successful negotiations, and collective bargaining.
The NGO "New Connection" has initiated and helped to establish the National Parents` Forum in Lithuania that lobbies and advocates for educational and social needs of children. The aim of the project is to help partner countries learn from the experiences of the National Parents Forum by sharing common issues, generating new ideas in joint training and providing consultancy by external experts and establishing national groups of Parents Councils for advocacy activities. The project covers Tajikistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, and Lithuania.
The project results will be presented at a final conference in October 2008 in Azerbaijan. The conference will serve as forum for sharing success stories, and help develop follow-up activities at least for another year.
Training material as well as country action plans will be published online by all the participating organizations. An information service, including a website, special newsletters, and a collection of links to useful international websites, will be set up and maintained for parents in order to help them get better informed about educational issues and educational change.
On April 4-5, 2007 a joint training was organized in Georgia to discuss the relevant parts of major declarations and conventions, with the aim to make parents more knowledgeable about their rights when negotiating with teachers, politicians, or when these need to presented in the media. Participants were encouraged to take over good practices from successful associations, to make use ofopportunity for information exchange.
For more information about the project, please contact:
egle.kapociute@gmail.com
; or
www.naujosjungtys.lt
Conference on the role of IT in education in the 21st century (May 21 - 23, 2007, Yerevan, Armenia)
Use of information technology in the educational process creates a new dimension and provides new opportunities for provision of a qualitatively different type of education. In order to meet the challenges of the new knowledge society, new approaches and methodologies in the area of general and higher education should be applied that will enable the educational sector to keep up-to-date and in line with other sectors of the society. Moreover, the application of information technology will help shrink the current gap in collaboration that exists between higher education institutions, research, business and industrial communities.
Acknowledging the importance of the change that information technology can bring into the educational sphere, Yerevan State University organized a conference on May 21 - 23, 2007 in Yerevan, Armenia. The conference was an exceptional opportunity to share the achievements of several years of work of Armenian professionals with the international community and to further expand networks for future collaboration.
From 2001 to 2006 the Algorithmic Languages Department of the YSU with the support of OSI AF-Armenia, UNDP and OSCE carried out a project aimed at the creation of a basic toolset for e-learning support and development and adoption of software tools for IT support in the teaching process of Armenian schools. The aim of the initiative was to bring together education policymakers, academic staff of educational institutions, and representatives of the IT community to share their experiences in promoting the use of information technology in education, success stories in providing a qualitatively different type of education as well as the challenges they faced in their attempts to integrate IT into educational curricula. Also, the use of open source solutions, which is currently an urgent issue especially for developing countries taking into consideration their affordability and localization opportunities, was presented using examples from the different countries.
This initiative brought together professionals from Mongolia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Moldova, Macedonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Estonia, UK, Germany, Italy, and Russia.
OSI's East-East Program, OSIAF-Armenia's Information Program, EU Tempus Program, British Council and USAID supported the event.
For additional information please contact Mr. Tigran Zargaryan at
tigran@flib.sci.am
or Mrs. Siranush Sargsyan at
alglan@ysu.am
Drop-out monitoring research completed in Turkey
Dropping out from compulsory primary education is one of the major problems in Turkey. To address this, Education Reform Initiative (ERI), Mother Child Education Foundation (ACEV) and Association to Support and Train Women Candidates (KA.DER) are collaborating on the project "Raising Women: Reducing gender disparity in education through functional and political literacy, parent training, collective action and advocacy" funded by European Commission. Field research has been completed on one of the project activities, "Drop-out at Primary Schools in Turkey and Policies on Monitoring and Preventing Drop-Out," and the results were announced to the stakeholders at a conference.
In order to identify the risk factors for dropping out; research was conducted in five different cities in different regions of the country (Diyarbakir, Erzurum, Istanbul, Mardin, aanliurfa) that have high dropout rates. One of the dramatic findings of the field research showed that "being a female" is the most important predictor of dropping out of school. This is followed by the literacy of the mother, socio-economic condition of the families and academic achievement of the children. This last predictor is closely related to the physical condition of the schools, attraction of extracurricular activities as well as behavior of the teachers.
Policy recommendations for monitoring and preventing drop-out were made in the light of the presented research data. Policy recommendations aim to reach four main targets:
- To build a standard and statistical infrastructure on determination of drop-out;
- To define risk groups and to form a monitoring system for prevention;
- To raise the institutional and functional capacity of schools;
- To widen economic and social resources and support.
For more information please contact: Zeynep KILIC,
zeynepkilic@sabanciuniv.edu
The Executive Summary can be read on
www.kizlaricinegitim.net
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