UNESCO Philippines calls for indigenous wisdom stories

MANILA (PNA)—The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)-Philippines on Friday said it is putting together an anthology of “Philippine Wisdom Stories for Sustainable Development” by sponsoring a contest of stories that are indigenous to the country, has potentials for teaching philosophy to children, and inspires people to care for the environment.

It is in support of strengthening the Philippine basic education’s efforts to nurture high-order thinking toward popular social commitment for national transformation and UNESCO’s Intersectoral Strategy on Philosophy.

The UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines said its Social and Human Sciences Committee is spearheading the event.

Three winning entries will be presented to basic education teachers, education officials, philosophers and civil society during a National Conference on “Philippine Wisdom Stories for Sustainable Development” to be held at the Social Development Center Conference Hall, Ateneo de Manila University in 26 October.

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Wikimedia launches Philippine arm

Wikimedia launched its official Philippine chapter early last week, eyeing burgeoning use among students and the academe. It made its official debut at the Philippine Youth Congress in Information Technology last September 14 to 17 at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City.

Wikimedia Philippines is the official local chapter of the Wkimedia Foundation, the international non-profit free content organization best known for its Wikipedia open encyclopedia project. Just like its mother organization, Wikimedia Philippines aims to promote the growth and development of free media but with an emphasis on content created for and by Filipinos.

The group’s collaborative work is not limited to the English language but supports other Philippine languages including Tagalog, Bicolano, Cebuano, Ilocano, Kapampangan, Pangasinan, Waray, and Zamboangeño.

According to Joseph Ballesteros, Wikimedia Philippines vice president, Filipino Wikipedia users mostly just edit articles that are related to the Philippines or to their own personal interests, but he hopes that the presence of Wikimedia Philippines will help organize such individual efforts into larger-scale endeavors.

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86.4% of Filipinos are functionally literate

BAGUIO CITY—About 58 million of the estimated 67 million Filipinos aged 10 to 64 years old are functionally literate—meaning they can read, write, compute and comprehend.

This is based on 2008 Functional Literacy, Education and Mass Media Survey (FLEMMS), the results of which were released just this September and presented by National Statistic Office Administrator Carmelita Ericta during the 2010 National Literacy Conference and Awards held at the Teachers Camp here.

According to Ericta, the 2008 functional literacy of 86.4 percent is slightly higher than the 2003 FLEMMS survey result of 84.1 percent. She also stressed literacy is much higher among persons who have completed high school or higher education.

Ericta reported that the National Capital Region NCR has the highest functional literacy rate at 94.0 percent, followed by CALABARZON (93.5 percent) and Central Luzon (92.1 percent). Cordillera ranked fifth among seventeen regions with 89.2 literacy rate.

The Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao has the lowest functional literacy rate at 71.6 percent.

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Zamboanga del Norte NGO bags first place in national literacy awards

DIPOLOG CITY—The Center for Social Concerns and Development (CESCOD), a non-government organization (NGO) operating in Zamboanga del Norte, has emerged as the national first place winner in the outstanding literary program category during the 2010 National Literacy Conference and Awards held at the Teacher's Camp in Baguio City recently.

CESCOD’s Executive Director Fr. Enrico Montano received the award, which included a presidential trophy handed by Undersecretary Rizalino Rivera of the Department of Education (DepED).

In his acceptance speech, Fr. Montano expressed CESCOD’s thanks to its partner NGO, the Peace and Equity Foundation (PEF), for funding its project, a functional literary program implemented in the remote barangays of Pange, Guibo, Domogok, Diongan and Balunokan in Siayan, Zamboanga del Norte.

“This award, although most unexpected, will surely serve as our inspiration to continue our mission of helping our brothers ands sisters in the hinterlands of Mindanao,” the CESCOD chief said.

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TESDA Kalinga gets 200 slots for free English proficiency training

TABUK CITY, Kalinga—The Technical Education Skills and Development Authority (TESDA) national office has allotted 200 English Language Proficiency free training slots for the province.

Greg Bagtang, TESDA Kalinga Provincial Training Center Registrar and Information Officer, said that the training is divided into four batches to be conducted this year.
Each batch will undergo 100 hours of free training. Two of these batches have already finished the course and are now preparing for their assessment test to qualify them for certification by TESDA. The two other batches are currently undergoing training.

Bagtang said most of the trainees are unemployed college graduates planning to look for jobs in foreign companies locally or overseas.

With the lack of employment opportunities in the province, he said that new graduates are opting to apply as skilled workers in various in-demand jobs such as business process outsourcing, agribusiness manufacturing, creative industries, mining, tourism and wellness, and construction.

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US and Turkey Education Board launch major English language program

ANKARA—The United States government and Turkey’s Higher Education Board, or YÖK, are involved in a new joint effort to send scores of U.S. English Teaching Assistants, or ETAs, to dozens of Turkish universities.

“The aim of this program is not to teach English in the classical sense, but rather to raise the general familiarity of students with the English language and help them improve their communications skills in English,” Dr. Bradley Horn, English language officer at the U.S. Embassy here, told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.

“Last year there were only some 10 American teaching assistants working in Turkey, but this year, with the inclusion of YÖK in this program, this number has risen to 54,” Horn said. “Next year the objective is to have some 200 teaching assistants.”

The 54 ETAs mostly are new graduates of U.S. universities in various fields willing to work at Turkish universities. They were selected by the Fulbright Commission.

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English language to be made compulsory for Slovak pupils

A new education bill was approved by the Slovak parliament on Wednesday, September 22. It was passed in the form proposed by Education Minister Eugen Jurzyca on September 13, following reservations about its wording expressed by the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) in a previous parliamentary debate.

The approved bill states that one of the obligatory foreign languages taught in Slovak elementary schools must be English. However, it will probably not be taught from the very beginning, as was first proposed, but rather from the 3rd grade onwards (another foreign language will then be taught from the 5th grade).

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Nation of Georgia seeks English teachers

The nation of Georgia is hiring English-language teachers by the hundreds, hoping to give its students a competitive business and cultural advantage.

Learning English is so important to the former Soviet Republic that it is providing round-trip airfare, health insurance, lodging, food and a salary to teachers. No experience or college degree is required.

Georgia’s goal is to have 1,000 native English-speaking teachers in place by the end of the year, according to a news release by Footprints Recruiting, the Canadian company contracted to supply the instructors.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili met with the first 50 teachers who arrived July 30. The country’s goal is for all Georgian children aged 5-16 to learn English, the president said. English teachers are paid about $300 a month and are provided room and board with a Georgian family. Those who teach for an entire year receive round-trip tickets home for a month during either winter or summer break.

Atlanta has a growing number of connections to Georgia, a former Soviet republic, which has a population of about 4.6 million. Tbilisi, the capital, has been an Atlanta sister city since 1988.

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Teachers may be fuelling gender gap by stereotyping boys as badly behaved

Teachers may be fuelling the gender gap in education by stereotyping boys as badly behaved, research suggests.

The use of phrases such as “silly boys” and “schoolboy pranks” can reinforce the view that boys are more likely to misbehave than girls, it was claimed.

The study said children’s beliefs could become a “self-fulfilling prophecy” and influence their achievement in the classroom.

Teachers were warned against employing stereotypical language or separating classes into “boys vs. girls” to avoid adding to children’s preconceived ideas about the gender divide.

The disclosure follows the publication of figures last week showing that boys are falling behind girls at the age of seven.

Data published by the Department for Education showed that 24 per cent of boys in England failed to reach the standard expected of their age group in writing compared with just 13 per cent of girls.

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Taxi drivers told to brush up on English

Taxi drivers in Cardiff will be required to present proof they have a strong understanding of English, Cardiff Council agreed today.

The requirement, discussed at the public protection committee this morning, means any existing licence holders who are brought before the committee may be asked to take a Skills for Life entry level three qualification to improve their English.

New taxi drivers are already required to hold a BTEC level qualification, which proves a good understanding in English—a requirement brought in January 2010.

The decision follows a meeting of the committee in July, in which members expressed concerns that the level of English language understanding by some city taxi drivers was still not up to scratch despite the required qualifications – and a report into possible options was launched.

Officers who met with BTEC training providers were satisfied that while the BTEC course does not test English specifically – it is conducted in English to such a standard a good understanding of the language is required to sit the examination.

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Battle to preserve Asian languages in schools
By Perminder Khatkar, BBC Asian Network

Some Asian families are struggling to retain their mother tongue as their children and grandchildren attend English-speaking schools. But complementary schools that teach children the language of their forefathers could be redressing the balance.

“My mother tongue and that of my children’s is English and I’m proud to say that,”
says Zee, a second-generation British Asian and a mother-of-three from Birmingham.

Her children, nieces and nephews now only speak English, despite being brought up in an Asian family.

“You have to accept that we're British and our mother tongue is English, and it’s unfortunate that our Asian language will perish one or two generations down the line,” she says.

In the past Bangladeshi children were considered to fall behind in educational achievements. But speaking both Bengali and English now appears to be improving academic development.

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South Africa gets new Zulu dictionary, first in 40 years

JOHANNESBURG (AFP)—Oxford press said recently it has published a new Zulu-English dictionary, four decades after the last such reference book was released for one of South Africa's most widely spoken languages.

“In a country with a linguistic diversity spanning 11 official languages, it is essential that learners are able to access languages other than their mother tongue—at home, school and later on, in their careers,” said Oxford University Press Southern Africa managing director Lieze Kotz.

Zulus are South Africa’s largest ethnic group, accounting for 24 percent of the population, and their language is the most commonly spoken home language in the country, although English is generally used in business and politics.

More than 2.8 million pupils take Zulu as a language subject at school, according to Oxford.

Oxford’s publishing manager for dictionaries, Megan Hall said the dictionary would help pupils and teachers keep up with the changes in the language.

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Mumbai’s dabbawalas learn English, use of computers

MUMBAI (ANI)—Mumbai’s famed dabbawalas, or tiffin [light midday meal] suppliers are now getting special training in the English language as well as in the use of computers to enable them to understand the requirements of modern customers.

The President of the Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers, Raghunath D. Medge, explained the need for learning computers and English.

“Our customers give the address of their destination, office or residence in English, so it is difficult for us to understand. So, we have to ask people walking on the streets for that address. But everybody is so busy, that they don’t help us out. So, if we will learn English then it will be easy for us to read the address of our customers and will help us in delivering the tiffin easily,” he said.

Medge also said many signboards and nameplates in Mumbai are also in English, causing difficulties for the dabbawalas.

The special programme of English and computer training was jointly launched by the Mumbai Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University (YCMOU) and the Agrawal Institute of Management and Technology for the 5,000 dabbawalas of the city.

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