Degree for nothing?
What political consequences can you predict from this report?
Dire figure shows 42 percent of Iran’s unemployed are university graduates
Iran is facing a crisis represented in the high percentage of the unemployment among the universities and institutes graduates at 42 percent of the total unemployment.
Dr. Saeed Nemki, Assistant in the Development of Social and Public Affairs [said]… “We are facing this situation, while educating these people had cost a lot. Thus we should think about a basic solution for this dilemma and eliminate the elite from immigrating (abroad),”…
[T]he 42 percent of the unemployed, either have bachelor’s degree or even higher, despite allocating major financial resources for their graduation. This is a very important issue in the society. Actually, the society’s expected something different than those graduates. Thus brain drain is one of the worries facing the labor market in the future…
Iranian news agencies published reports that mentioned the details of the report of the interior minister of Khamenei, indicating that there are about 11 million Iranians are marginalized, 1.5 million are drug addicts, and 600,000 are imprisoned, these are catastrophic numbers for a country that exports more than 4 million and 500 thousand barrels of oil daily.
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Labels: economy, education, Iran, political culture
Bring 'em back
China encourages students to study in the USA and Europe. The big problem is that many of those students don't come back to China. The State Council has said they want to encourage more young people to return. What incentives ae they offering?
This report comes from
Xinhua, the Chinese news agency.
China will intensify efforts to encourage return of overseas talent
China will roll out more incentives for overseas Chinese students to return for starting their own businesses and making innovation, a State Council executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang decided…
Measures will be introduced to simplify the certification requirements and procedures at local levels and to make it easier for overseas Chinese students to obtain hukou, the government system of household registration for urban residency. Favorable policies concerning the schooling of returnees' children will be implemented without delay, according to a decision at the meeting…
Between 1978 and 2017, 83.73 percent of overseas Chinese students, totaling 3.132 million, had come back after completing their studies, according to the Ministry of Education…
There are now 351 entrepreneurship parks nationwide, home to more than 23,000 companies and attracting 86,000 overseas returnees.
According to the decision at the meeting, favorable policies will be adopted to incentivize their entrepreneurship, including intellectual property-backed loans for start-up financing, simpler process for trademark registration, optimized application procedures for export qualification and support for the commercialization of R&D findings…
"Given the changing international environment, we must facilitate two-way flow of talent to provide strong intellectual support to our country's development," Li said.
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Labels: China, economics, education, political culture
Privilege will out
Did anyone really expect different results? Cleavages are persistent. And there are reasons for that persistence.
Oxbridge uncovered: More elitist than we thought
The sheer dominance by the top two social classes of Oxford and Cambridge University admissions has been revealed in newly released data.
 |
| Punting on the Cam |
Four-fifths of students accepted at Oxbridge between 2010 and 2015 had parents with top professional and managerial jobs, and the numbers have been edging upwards…
Nationally about 31% of people are in the top two social income groups. They are the doctors, the lawyers, the senior managers.
The data reveals these top two social classes cleaned up in terms of places, with their share of offers rising from 79% to 81% between 2010 and 2015.
This was despite both universities spending £5m each a year on efforts to cast the net wider for students, according to official figures…
[David Lammy MP] said the scale of the regional divide went far beyond anything he could have imagined.
Mr. Lammy accused Oxbridge of failing to live up to its responsibilities as national universities, saying: "Oxbridge take over £800m a year from the taxpayer - paid for by people in every city, town and village.
"Whole swathes of the country - especially our seaside towns and the 'left behind' former industrial heartlands across the North and the Midlands are basically invisible.
"If Oxbridge can't improve, then there is no reason why the taxpayer should continue to give them so much money." …
Analysis By Branwen Jeffreys, BBC News education editor
We should all care who goes to our top universities because they end up running the country.
Less than 1% of the adult population graduated from Oxford or Cambridge, but the two universities have produced most of our prime ministers, the majority of our senior judges and civil servants, and many people in the media…
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Labels: cleavages, education, political culture, UK
Embarrassing
Part of the north-south cleavage in Nigeria is educational. Christian missionaries (and their schools) had greater successes in the south than in the mostly Muslim north. This imbalance had a role in causing the civil war since colonial and (after independence) Nigerian bureaucrats were mostly southerners.
Echos of that historic situation show up in this embarrassing example of misgovernment.
Kaduna primary teachers fail pupils' exam
 |
| Kaduna |
Thousands of primary school teachers in Nigeria's northern Kaduna
state are to be sacked after failing the exams they set for their six-year-old pupils.
State governor Nasir El-Rufai said 21,780 teachers, two-thirds of the total, had failed to score 75% or higher on assessments given to pupils.
He said 25,000 new teachers would be recruited to replace them…
"The hiring of teachers in the past was politicised and we intend to change that by bringing in young and qualified primary school teachers to restore the dignity of education in the state," he was quoted as saying by Nigeria's Daily Trust newspaper…
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Labels: cleavages, education, Nigeria
What do students learn from a teachers' strike?
Does Mexico have a federal system or a unitary system? What would it be called if the teachers' union controlled public schools? Would the school still be public? This issue deserves more investigation. Do you have experience in Mexican schools that can shed light on this situation?
Why teachers have been occupying one of Mexico’s most alluring public spaces since May
With its towering cathedral, stately trees and many cafes, the central plaza here usually exudes a sense of peace and elegance…
But sit-ins, roadblocks and violence linked to Mexico's roiling conflict between teachers and the federal government have cast a pall over Oaxaca City and the Guelaguetza, the signature annual celebration of the indigenous and mestizo heritage of this culturally rich state.
The plaza, or zocalo, has become a desolate eyesore, a tent city of sleeping bags and plastic mats topped with a jagged array of plastic tarps thrown up as protection against daily thunderstorms.
Teachers enraged at federal education reforms have occupied the plaza since May, stranding thousands of pupils…
The Guelaguetza starts Monday and hotel bookings are down 50% or more in the heavily tourism-reliant capital of the state also called Oaxaca…
“We won’t leave until our demands are met,” vowed Nelly Ruth Vicente, one of a number of teachers posted at a blockade…
“This is all about politics,” asserted Villacana, a member of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, whose standard-bearer is President Enrique Pena Nieto, architect of the controversial education overhaul package and chief villain of the protesting teachers.
For their part, the teachers say they have no plans to pull back until the government modifies its sweeping blueprint for an education overhaul, especially a new call for mandatory evaluations of teachers…
“What the government wants is not reform of education, it’s control of the schools and destruction of education in our communities,” said Pedro Ariel Aparacio, a 26-year veteran teacher from rural Oaxaca…
There is widespread agreement that Mexico’s public education system is dysfunctional and widely corrupt, representing a major barrier to social mobility for generations of Mexicans…
Both the government and the unions share responsibility for the dismal state of Mexican public education, experts agree.
Many critics have cited unions’ traditional near total control of the educational system, from hiring of teachers to deciding on curriculum…
Caught in the middle of the current conflict are tens of thousands of students who lost up to six weeks of classes since the teachers walked out in May. Teacher strikes have become an almost annual event in Oaxaca, where students regularly score near the bottom on nationwide standardized tests.
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Labels: education, Mexico, political culture, politics
Lords' concern over inequality
The subject of inequality of opportunity is one I'd expect to hear about from Labour Party politicians, not the House of Lords. How do we explain this?
Social mobility hindered by ‘culture of inequality’ in school system – peers
Social mobility in Britain is hampered by a “culture of inequality” that penalises school leavers who enter the workforce rather than higher education, according to a parliamentary report.
An investigation by the House of Lords committee on social mobility called for radical revisions to the content of schooling from the age of 14, to better prepare teenagers who do not go on to university for the world of work…
Young people were in danger of being trapped in low-skilled, low-paid work, with little chance of a rewarding career… said Lady Corston, who chaired the committee…
The report… concludes: “The expansion of higher education has served some groups well. It has, however, disadvantaged those already underserved by the education system and inhibited upwards social mobility for those in the middle.
“Non-academic routes to employment are complex, confusing and incoherent. The qualifications system is similarly confused and has been subjected to continual change.”
Instead, the final four years of schooling should be redesigned so that more pupils can pass recognised vocational qualifications on a par with A-levels…
The report also wants a new “gold standard” in independent careers advice and guidance for state school pupils, with the government consulting local employers on the skills needed in regional labour markets.
The Department of Education also said it was planning to invest £70m in its careers programme over the next parliament, and had set up structures to develop closer links between young people and employers.
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Labels: cleavages, education, inequality, politics, UK
How to succeed in business, politics, medicine, arts, and the military in the UK
Looking at the generalization about recruitment in the UK that's in your textbook is only the beginning of seeing the statistics behind the generalization.
Glossary:
- "Oxbridge" refers to Oxford and Cambridge, the two most prestigious universities in the UK.
- "fee-paying school" is a school to which students (or their parents) pay tuition, i.e. a private school
- "independent school" is another name for fee-paying school
- "grammar school" is a public school which admits only those students who, at age 11, earn high scores on admissions tests
Privately educated 'still dominate professions'
[T]he Sutton Trust says… says professions like politics and the law continue to be dominated by privately educated Oxbridge graduates.
 |
| St. Edmund Hall, Oxford |
The Trust said a child's chances of reaching the top still came down to their schooling and contacts…
Researchers for the Trust, which campaigns for greater social mobility, looked at the educational backgrounds of more than 1,200 people, working in high positions in medicine, the law, the military, journalism, politics, the civil service, business, film and pop music…
The report - Leading People 2016 - found that… three-quarters (74%) of the UK's top judges went to a fee-paying school, and nearly eight in 10 (78%) went on to Oxford or Cambridge University.
Among top military personnel, some seven in 10 (71%) were educated in the private sector, although just 14% were Oxbridge educated.
Slightly more than half of leading print journalists and solicitors (51% each) attended fee-paying schools.
Just over half (54%) of these journalists attended Oxford or Cambridge, along with 55% of solicitors and 51% of the senior civil servants included in the study.
In politics, half the Cabinet were privately educated (including old Etonian Prime Minister David Cameron) compared with 13% of the shadow cabinet, and around a third (32%) of MPs…
The trust said that of the country's top doctors, 61% were educated at independent schools, nearly one-quarter at grammar schools (22%) and the remainder (16%) at comprehensives.
The private school sector educates 7% of the population…
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The Comparative Government and Politics Review Checklist.
Two pages summarizing the course requirements to help you review and study for the final and for the big exam in May. . It contains a description of comparative methods, a list of commonly used theories
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Labels: concepts, education, recruitment, UK
Common Core for Religious Education?
In the USA, arguments about common goals of a national curriculum seem to have centered around mathematics. In the UK and
Russia the arguments extend to the contents of curricula for religious education.
Although the idea of separation of church and state is seen in most places as a good one, religion is part of the state school curriculum in most places.
Students of comparative politics ought to be able to describe the major issues that arise from discussions about religious curricula in the countries they study.
Religious education in England 'needs overhaul'
Religious education in England's schools needs a total overhaul to bring the subject into the 21st Century, argues a report.
Religious belief has changed sharply in recent years but religious education has not kept pace, says the Goldsmiths, University of London, report.
"Content should reflect the real religious landscape," said co-author Prof Adam Dinham…
Teaching is currently required to reflect mainly Christian traditions while also taking into account the teaching and practices of other principal religions - but official statistics from the 2011 Census showed an increasingly fractured pattern of religious belief, argue the authors…
"The religious landscape now includes religious traditions, informal religion and beliefs as well as non-religious world views," said Prof Dinham.
"We think non-believers and those with informal beliefs need to be treated more seriously as a growing part of the picture."…
Primarily, the authors recommend a national panel to develop a new statutory framework for the subject which would be applicable to all schools and would balance a national approach with local needs.
It should also be compulsory for all students to 16…
The government did not directly respond to calls for reform but a Department for Education spokeswoman said religious education was vitally important to help children develop the British values of tolerance, respect and understanding for others.
"It prepares young people for life in modern Britain and that is why it remains compulsory at all key stages…
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
The Comparative Government and Politics Review Checklist.
Two pages summarizing the course requirements to help you review and study for the final and for the big exam in May. It contains a description of comparative methods, a list of commonly used theories
, a list of vital concepts, thumbnail descriptions of the AP6,
and
a description of the AP exam format
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Labels: education, policy, politics, socialization, UK
A new aspect of China's neglect of children
It's long been known that secondary school enrollment in rural areas of China has fallen because heading to the big cities offered more opportunities than getting an education at home.
In addition to that it seems that huge numbers of children are being left in rural areas when their parents head for the bright lights and jobs.
Neglecting this resource might have economic and political repercussions.
Little match children: Children bear a disproportionate share of the hidden cost of China’s growth
Over the past generation, about 270m Chinese labourers have left their villages to look for work in cities. It is the biggest voluntary migration ever. Many of those workers have children; most do not take them along. The Chinese call these youngsters liushou ertong, or “left-behind children”. According to the All-China Women’s Federation… [and] UNICEF… there were 61m children below the age of 17 left behind in rural areas in 2010…
Just over half of the 61m counted in 2010 were living with one parent while the other spouse was away working; 29m had been left in the care of others. Mostly the carers were grandparents…
36m children had gone to live with their migrating families in cities. But this has its own problems; very few of these children can go to a state school or see a state doctor at subsidised prices in their new homes. Moreover, their hard-working parents often cannot look after the children. Without grandparents or a state school to keep an eye on them, such migrant children can be just as neglected as those left behind in the country…
Anecdotal evidence suggests that an unusual number of left-behind children have siblings. One reason for this is that China’s one-child policy has been implemented less strictly in the countryside…
Most left-behind children are lonely. Many live in rural boarding schools far from their villages because, in an attempt to improve educational standards in the countryside, the government shut many village schools down in favour of bigger institutions. About 60% of children in the new boarding schools have been left behind…
In 2010 researchers at the Second Military Medical University in Shanghai studied over 600 children in 12 villages in Shandong province, in the north-east, half left behind and half not. The difference in the physical condition of the children was minor. But the difference in their school performance was substantial and so was the emotional and social damage to them, as measured by a standard questionnaire…
[L]eft-behind children are vulnerable to sexual and other abuse…
Child abuse is distressingly common anyway. An analysis of 47 studies in Chinese and English this year estimated that over a quarter of Chinese children are physically abused at some point in their lives. The left behind are among the most vulnerable to such abuse, especially those in boarding schools, because any adults who might speak up for them are far away…
Those left behind can be perpetrators of crime as well as victims… Juvenile offences are rising in China, which may well in part be because of the increased numbers of left-behind children. Two-thirds of all Chinese juvenile offenders came from rural areas in 2010…
Given the harm that being left behind does to children’s health, education and emotional development, it is not hard to imagine that the damage will be felt not just by the left-behind themselves but by society as a whole…
At its heart, the problem of the left-behind is one of misplaced hopes. Like so many parents, China’s migrants are deferring pleasure now (that of raising their children) for the hope of a better life later (to be bought with the money they earn). One result has been the stunning growth of cities and the income they generate. Another has been a vast disruption of families—and the children left behind are bearing the burden of loss.
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Labels: China, civil society, economics, education, politics
Chinese achievement gap
The educational achievement gap between racial/ethnic groups in the US is a political issue. The gap in China is between urban and rural students. It's also a political issue.
Down and out in rural China
In the past three decades China has made impressive gains in sending rural children to school. This has helped fuel its rise as a low-end manufacturing power. But the easy gains have been achieved. If the country is to create the “knowledge economy” it says it wants, the government will have to change the way rural teenagers are educated and schools in the countryside are funded.
 |
| Americans visit a Chinese middle school |
Completion of junior middle-school has been compulsory since 1986. (Middle-school in China refers to the six years of education before university [7th - 12th grades in the US].) In big cities it is already the norm to finish the remaining three years, known as senior middle-school. In the countryside growing numbers are entering senior middle-school too, but it is far less common. In 1990 just 7% of rural students did so. Today the figure may be just over one-third. Even at the junior level (despite government figures suggesting full attendance), dropout rates are high: a study of rural students in four provinces found they ranged between more than one-sixth to nearly a third.
Some quit school because of the cost; in contrast to many other countries, the upper years charge for tuition. Senior middle-schools are often far away from villages, so students have to board. Including the cost of books, the bill for three years can easily amount to thousands of dollars—more than a year’s income for poorer rural families…
Tens of millions of rural workers have moved to urban areas since the 1990s. But China’s system of household registration, or hukou, makes it difficult for them to send their children to better-resourced and better-run middle-schools in the cities. Migrants often have no choice but to leave their children behind to be educated. A lack of parental supervision compounds many students’ difficulties…
China has set out to make education cheaper. In 2006 it began eliminating tuition and book fees for primary and junior middle-schools. But urban secondary schools still have much bigger budgets than rural ones…
The government encourages teachers to steer academic underachievers to vocational schools [which has]… helped to boost enrolment in such schools by nearly 50%… But vocational schools in rural areas, no less than their middle-school counterparts, are blighted by scant funding and poor-quality staff. Students still have to pay, hence richer ones enroll more than poorer ones… Many experts argue that providing more opportunity for students to stay in standard secondary schools would prepare them better for the workplace. But that would land the government with a huge new bill.
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Labels: China, cleavages, education, state capacity
