Government urges new teachers to join fight against poverty

BAGUIO CITY (PIA)—After passing the October 4 Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET), almost 2,000 new teachers from Regions 1 and the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) took their oath in a simple ceremony held at the University of Cordillera Gymnasium last December 9.

The guest of honor, Dr. Nilo Rosas, Professional Regulations Commission (PRC) Commissioner, congratulated the new teachers and told them to be proud as they are now set to join the elite corps of professional teachers. He said that education is the key to the people’s freedom against poverty, and cited Efren Peñaflorida, newly awarded CNN Hero of the Year, as an example of a teacher worthy of emulation.

Dr. Rosas said that like Peñaflorida, whose advocacy gives street children a fighting chance against ignorance and poverty, each new teacher “has a potential to be a hero, and each can make a difference because being a teacher is not just a job [but] a mission to help fight against ignorance and poverty.”

More than 80,000 graduate teachers took the October 4 LET. Of the 43,086 elementary teacher examinees, 18.67 percent or 8,045 passed. Meantime, 10,792 or 28.15 percent of the 38,339 examinees successfully passed the secondary LET.

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Emergency learning modules set for affected schoolchildren in Maguindanao

MANILA (PNA)—To ensure that students’ learning would not be affected by the current turmoil in Maguindanao, Education Secretary Jesli Lapus on Thursday said that the department will assist the regional education office under the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) in providing emergency learning modules to the affected schoolchildren.

“We will be sending educational learning modules for home study of the school children for this emergency,” Lapus said when reached for comment about reports that many schools in the province, particularly in Shariff Aguak have closed, while among areas where schools opened, there are only a handful of students.

At the same time, he said they will also send nurses and guidance counselors to the province.

“These nurses and guidance counselors will conduct stress debriefing and psychosocial intervention on our schoolchildren and even the teachers,” Lapus added.

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Spanish language to be included in Philippine high school curriculum

MANILA (PNA)—The Department of Education (DepEd) has signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the University of Alcala in Spain to allow the inclusion of Spanish language in the high school curriculum as well as to strengthen educational and cultural ties between the Philippines and Spain.

The agreement was signed by DepEd Secretary Jesli Lapus, together with University of Alcala Rector Professor D. Virgilio Zapatero Gomez. It seeks to develop students’ skills in listening, reading, writing, speaking and viewing, which are fundamental to acquiring communicative competence in a second foreign language.

“Bringing back the Spanish language in the school curriculum would help us understand and connect with our past,” Lapus said. “Many of the works of our forefathers, including our national hero Jose Rizal, which were written in Spanish, remain significant up to this day.”

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Mobile phone English lessons a hit in Bangladesh

DHAKA (AFP)—Every morning, Ahmed Shariar Sarwar makes it his daily ritual to call number 3000 on his mobile phone to get lessons in English—his passport to a better life in impoverished Bangladesh.

The mobile tutorial lasts only three minutes, but Rahman, 21, who is studying the textile trade says it is already helping him learn the language, which is key to getting a lucrative job in foreign firms based in Dhaka.

He is among hundreds of thousands of young men who have turned to the novel English teaching service since it was launched last month by a charity arm of the BBC. The aim is to teach the language to six million people by 2011.

"It’s simple and good. It costs three taka (four US cents) per lesson—the cheapest way to learn English in Bangladesh,” Rahman said. “There are a lot of English courses available here, but most rip you off and the quality isn’t so good.”

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Iranian student writes of hope, fear over protest

BEIRUT (AP)—On Dec. 7, tens of thousands of students marched at universities across Iran, in the most significant anti-government protests in the country for months.

The Associated Press asked a 20-year-old philosophy undergraduate at Tehran’s Allameh Tabatabei University to record his thoughts and experiences in a diary before, during and after the protests. He provided the AP the diary on condition of anonymity, because some of his friends have been arrested or suspended for contacting the foreign media.

The student has been suspended this semester for taking part in protests. More than 100 other students, including friends of the diarist, have been arrested in recent weeks, some sentenced to long prison terms.

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Parents’ financial hardships reflected on students’ report cards, study shows

The Clark County School District has always struggled with its sky-high population of poor children. The number of homeless students is expected to reach 8,000 by the end of the academic year, a 30 percent increase. And a full 44 percent of the district’s students receive free or reduced-price lunches, a commonly used indicator of childhood poverty.

Family poverty, in turn, is correlated with lagging student achievement. Now, the deep recession threatens to make this problem worse, and do so for years to come.

According to a study from two economists at the University of California, Davis, a parent’s job loss can increase by 15 percent the likelihood that a student will repeat a grade.

This short-term damage, which is particularly acute in families where the breadwinner has just a high school degree, matches up with other data showing the negative long-term effects of poverty on student achievement.

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English department offers modern Greek class

For many students and community members the Greek language seems difficult and out of reach, reflecting the cliché “It’s Greek to me.” However, learning the language is no longer a dream but an obtainable goal.

For those interested in learning to read, write and speak the Greek language, the English department at Shawnee State University will offer a Modern Greek class for the spring semester 2010.

“Many students want to take the class to learn how to read the Bible in it’s original language, Greek, while others are interested in learning the language to gain a competitive edge in their careers," said Dr. Stylianos Hadjiyannis, the professor who will be teaching the course.

According to Hadjiyannis, a native of Greece, thousands of words in the English language have been borrowed from Greek. The language is based on phonetics and the English alphabet, making it easier to learn.

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“Mediocre” schools in the United Kingdom warned

The annual report of education watchdog Ofsted says that school improvement in England is being held back by a “stubborn core of inadequate teaching.”

But the chief inspector Christine Gilbert hit back at local authority leaders who had accused Ofsted of “feeding fears” over child safety. She said criticism of children’s services was justified if it “saves just one child from abuse.”

The report also raised concerns over maths and English in primary schools. Chris Keates, leader of the NASUWT teachers' union, attacked the focus on negative aspects of the report. “This regular ‘talking down’ of teachers and state schools is not only totally unfair, it is grossly inaccurate,” she said.

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