· March, 2006

Stories about Education from March, 2006

Venezuela: Op-Ed Translations

  31 March 2006

Katy of Caracas Chronicles has translated an opinion piece, originally published in Tal Cual by Marino González, a professor at Simón Bolívar University. Venepoetics translates an op-ed, also from Tal Cual, by Oswaldo Barreto.

Japan: Textbooks

  30 March 2006

The issue of Japanese textbooks is revisited today with new translations from Coming Anarchy and background to the controversy at The Korea Liberator.

Russia: Putin Plagiarized His Dissertation

  29 March 2006

W. Shedd of The Accidental Russophile and Alex(ei) of The Russian Dilettante's Weblog discuss Vladimir Putin's plagiarized dissertation: “What was Putin doing in 1997? If I am not mistaken, he was vice mayor of St. Petersburg. For some reason, he decided on getting a PhD […]. What would the typical...

Taiwan: Teaching English

  29 March 2006

Scott Sommers provides some context in response to recent comments on websites frequented by English teachers regarding government restrictions on private language schools in “The Continued Crackdown on Commercial Education.”

Jamaica: High school sports teams at war

  28 March 2006

From Leon Robinson, a rather dispassionate discourse on the “war” being waged between rival Kingston high school teams in the “Champs”, the VMBS/ISSA Boys & Girls Athletic Championships. “We even have “territories”, places where rival schools are not welcome, at least not in frequency or numbers. . . . We...

India: Forget the public school

  23 March 2006

A recent post on the Freakonomics blog on a 10 year old Indian boy writing in, sparks a post that talks of government schools being uniformly worse than private schools world over, regardless of the country.

Singapore, Malaysia: Comparing Educational Systems

  22 March 2006

Rajan Rishyakaran recently got his exam results back. That got him writing about the differences between the Singapore and Malaysian systems of education. Singapore's is highly competitive and meritocratic while Malaysia's has affirmative racial discrimination.

Philippines: Linguistic Divide

  22 March 2006

Howie Severino talks about the linguistic divide in the Philippines between Tagalog a.k.a. Filipino (the language spoken in and around the capital Manila) and English (the widely-used colonial lingua franca). “…a foreign correspondent once noted that our presidents use Filipino only when they want to tell jokes or be folksy....

Cayman Islands: Grammar

  21 March 2006

Fed up with the quality of the writing in his comment thread, Cayblogger urges the people of the Cayman Islands “to unite in your indignation of all things grammatically incorrect, and stand up against the scourge of poor grammar”.

Barbados: A Caribbean education

  21 March 2006

Barbados Free Press links to an article which states that British children of Caribbean heritage are being sent back to Barbados to be educated.

Belarus: Students Face Expulsion

  21 March 2006

LJ user lipski reports (RUS) that photos from the Oktyabrskaya Sq. protests have reached the dean's office of Belarus State University's history department: two students from the department are on these pictures, and faculty members are now considering expelling these students. Also, dean's office of the geography department demands lists...

China: Plagiarism under pressure

  20 March 2006

Chinese Law Prof highlights a reader's comment on the subject of academic plagiarism in Chinese universities, which cites a recent analysis by Prof. Gong Renren of the Beijing University Law School. Much of the problem hinges around the fact that pay and benefits packages are linked to the number of...

Landing at the Iraqi Blogodrome

Today's report is dedicated to the women of Iraq. Women have suffered greatly in the new Iraq and on top of everything have to cope with the prejudice of some western journalists too. Again a mixed selection of blogs but you must read to the end for more cute animals!...

China: Anti-corruption vaccine

  16 March 2006

The Peking Duck Pond has a discussion thread on attempts to “vaccinate” Chinese schoolchildren against corruption at an early age, with special educational sessions addressing the temptations of power.

Nigeria: University closes

  16 March 2006

Jangbalajugbu Homeland Stories reports on the closure of his university, Obafemi Awolowo University in Ife during the middle of semester exams.. “Students are to leave the University before 4pm on Sunday. Mobile policemen have already been positioned at the University gate to ensure that students comply with the instruction. By...

Iran: USA & Censorship

Antropologiinfo blog talks about censorship of research in the USA. Blog says” Recently, two articles by teams from the University of Bergen were accepted by prominent US journals and then turned down because, the publishers said, “we cannot publish your paper because the United States government restricts publishers from publishing...