Higher education body supports moving start of Philippine school year

MANILA (PNA)—Commission on Higher Education (CHED) chair Dr. Emmanuel Angeles said that with the revival of the move to set the opening of classes in summer the Commission expressed support to the idea of moving the start of the school year.

“We are ready to support any initiative to move the start of the school year,” Angeles said.

Angeles, however, stressed that moving the start of the school year should either be in the months of August or September claiming that this should ‘benchmark with our Asian neighbors like Singapore and Malaysia which starts classes in August and January, respectively.”

He added that CHED has considered supporting any move in changing the start of the school year to either August or September in view of the series of possible weather disturbances that the country experiences which have affected the number of school days in a year.

The initiative to move to the opening of classes was revived in the wake of destruction brought by typhoon Ondoy and Pepeng, which hit the country in succession recently disrupting classes tremendously.

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UNESCO cites La Union town for literacy programs

La Union—The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) awarded to Agoo, La Union, the prestigious Confucius Prize for Literacy in recognition of the municipal government’s effort to eradicate illiteracy in its areas of jurisdiction over the past several years.

Mayor Sandra Eriguel received from UNESCO representatives a $20,000 check and appropriate citations for their excellent literacy programs which had been implemented by the local government over the past years.

Earlier, the Department of Education (DepEd) elevated to the Hall of Fame the municipal government here in the Class A municipalities and the municipal government of Tubungan, Iloilo in the Class B category for their excellent performance in the implementation of innovations in their respective literacy programs to attain a 100 percent literacy rate in their places.

Eriguel cited the support of the private sector and stakeholders coupled with the political will of the local government as instrumental in their achieving a 99.3 literacy rate – one of the highest so far for a first-class municipality in the country

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Overseas students are better at English than the British

British undergraduates are nearly three times more likely to make errors in English than those from overseas, according to new research.

A study of written work produced by final-year students revealed that, on average, they had 52.2 punctuation, grammatical and spelling errors per paper compared with just 18.8 for the international students.

The research is disclosed today by Professor Bernard Lamb, reader in genetics at Imperial College London, and president of the Queen's English Society, after studying the written work produced in the year by his students. It will be published in the society's journal, Quest, next month.

Spelling errors included "flourescence" for "fluorescence", "alot" for "a lot", "seperate" for "separate", "yeild" for "yield", "relevent" for "relevant", "introduications" for "introductions" and "pail vains" for "pale veins."

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Parents get “virtual school gate”

BBC News

Parents are to get access to a social networking site linked to their children's school, under a new government-backed scheme. Through the site acting as a virtual school gate, parents will be able to discuss their children's education and issues like bullying in the online community. And those considering sending their child to a school could get information from parents already doing so.

Children's Secretary Ed Balls said it could boost parents' involvement.

Mr. Balls said: "We need to find innovative ways of involving parents in schools, particularly secondary schools.

"I like to think of it as a 'virtual school gate'—where parents can chat to each other online, find out what is happening in the schools and pass on useful information to each other."

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Annual campaign to promote English held in Malaysia

Aiming to enhance students’ English Language skills, the Tunku Abdul Rahman College (Ktar) recently held its annual Promote English Campaign. The year-long campaign is activity-oriented so as to engage students in sharpening their skills in language learning.

Organised by the institution’s Extra-Mural Studies Department (EMSD), the start of the campaign coincided with the Freshie Orientation Week, making the event more meaningful for the new students.

Aside from encouraging students to speak well and write better in English, the event hoped to help students cope with their studies by improving their presentation skills and self-confidence in using the language for self-expression and social interaction.

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