Stories about Education from April, 2010
Pakistan: Brain Drain?
Fatima Saleem at Teeth Maestro refutes the popular claim that Pakistan is suffering from brain drain.
St. Lucia: Getting Kids to Read
“All over the world there is mounting concern among educators and parents that kids are not showing enough interest in reading for pleasure, both in and out of school”: St. Lucia's Caribbean Book Blog thinks that “writers must stand up for the children.”
Puerto Rico: Amidst protests, students speak up for themselves online
Amidst protests over budget cuts students of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) have a found an additional space to express themselves: the Internet.
Bahamas: Public Education
Weblog Bahamas‘ Rick Lowe wonders if there's hope for the country's public education system.
Algeria: Mauritania's Language Struggle
“A short post on the struggle among Mauritanian students over Arabic and French language will appear here sometime next week. Mauritanians on the front lines are encouraged to send the blogger their thoughts and accounts either in the comments field here or by email,” writes Algerian blogger The Moor Next...
Haiti: Visiting the Capital
Adventures in Life visits downtown Port-au-Prince, while Chronicles of an Unplanned Return blogs about Haiti's school system.
Bhutan: Education Defined
Bhutanese blogger Dorji Wangchuk defines education: “When you have forgotten what you have learnt in school and still be successful in life, you were well educated.”
Singapore: Retraction of invitation to hearing-impaired educator
Singapore's Ministry of Education retracted a conference invitation to a top U.S.-based educator after learning that she is hearing-impaired. The Ministry has already apologized for this mistake. Bloggers react.
PR career in China
Imagethief has written some advices for young foreigners who want to build a PR career in China.
ICT for Development in Francophone Africa
Although there is undoubtedly a strong push to grow information and communication technology (ICT) initiatives for development in francophone Africa, the region is still somewhat lagging behind their English-speaking neighbors.
Costa Rica: Clashes Over Autonomy on UCR Campus
On April 12, 2010, Costa Rican police officers arrived to the University of Costa Rica to detain a campus transit officer, accused of corruption. However, members of the university community said that this attempted arrest goes against the university's status of autonomy, which led to clashes.
Peru: Lima Residents Run to Raise Awareness for Water Issues
On April 18, 2010, residents of Lima participated in the Dow Live Earth Run for Water, a 6-km run/walk, which represents the average distance many women and children walk every day to secure water and raised awareness about the serious water issues facing Peru.
Venezuela: Community Theater Addresses Urban Realities
Nuevo Circo Artístico is a Venezuelan project that uses community theater to engage youth in Caracas to explore the realities of their urban surroundings.
Caucasus: Social Innovation Camp
Although Internet penetration remains low in the South Caucasus, all indications are that new and social media has an increasingly important role to play in the area of democratization and activism. With that in mind, the first Social Innovation Camp in the region took place in Tbilisi, Georgia on 8-10 April.
India: Education In Mother-Tongue Is The Key
Kiran Rao Batni at Karnatique opines that innovation in mother-tongue education is the need of the hour in India and explains why.
India: Television As Educator
MANA TV has been running five education channels in the Andhra Pradesh state in India for nine years. “Their popularity has proved that notwithstanding computers, television can grab eyeballs in the classroom”, says Jai Chandiram at The Hoot.
Haiti: Back to School
“You could see some parents crying by the streets watching other neighborhood kids leaving for class; their kids had gone to school once, on January 12th, and never came back”: For Inside Disaster, Emmanuel Midi reports on back to school time in Haiti.
USA: Lesbian Student Sent to “Fake Prom” in Mississippi
An 18-year old girl in Mississippi was barred from attending her high school prom in April because she planned to bring a female date and wear a tuxedo. Gay rights bloggers shared their outrage.
Japan: The enigma of Japanese intellectuals
Ken Mogi shares his thoughts on “The enigma of Japanese intellectuals“: “Although it is sometimes a dirty word, I consider myself as “a kind of” intellectual. “
Plagiarism in Chinese Academia
C Custer from ChinaGeek discusses a recent debate on plagiarism in Chinese academia. Wang Hui, a public intellectual leader in the “New Left” movement, is charged by Nanjing University literature professor Wang Binbin regarding the missing of proper citation in Wang's dissertation on Lu Xun.
Macedonia: Ridiculous Advertising Songs
Filip Stojanovski writes about an amusing overlap between Macedonian pop music, advertising and education, and reviews Macedonian bloggers' reactions to some of the "ridiculous advertising songs."
