Philippine government to push for revised Magna Carta for Teachers

MANILA (PNA)—The Aquino administration will continue to push for the revised Magna Carta for Teachers to ensure a better working environment for the mentors and support the continuing capacity-building of teachers.

The Department of Education (DepEd) said it would continue promoting accountability among teachers and encourage them to organize themselves into forming professional learning communities in support of improving student learning approaches.

Education Secretary Armin Luistro said in a speech marking the World Teachers’ Day celebration on Tuesday morning that this recognition “has been long in coming.”

“We applaud the move to honor them by dedicating one day each year to teachers and the nobility of purpose and profession that they all stand for,” Luistro said.

He said that the DepEd is striving hard to support the educational efforts of the teachers by making teacher education and development a second key reform thrust of the Basic Education Sector Reform Agency, aimed at improving learning outcomes through improved teaching quality.

According to Luistro, the DepEd is now using the Competency-Based Teacher Standards (CBTS) for recruitment, selection and hiring of teachers to ensure that only the best will mentor the learners.

Full story...

English blamed for poor literacy of Filipinos

MANILA—The use of English as a medium of instruction even for starter learners may be the reason why some nine million Filipinos aged 10 to 64 find it difficult to read, write, compute and comprehend, according to an education official.

Education Undersecretary Yolanda Quijano said that the use of a secondary language in classroom instruction inhibits learning among young students, eventually leading to poor literacy skills when they become adults.

“Maybe it’s because our children are taught in English,” Quijano, a veteran educator, said. “They are trained to listen but because they don’t have the facility of the language they cannot answer back what they think and what they’re feeling.”

The 2008 Functional Literacy and Mass Media Survey (FLEMMS) of the National Statistics Office, released in September this year, found that one out of every 10 Filipinos is functionally illiterate, meaning they have difficulty with basic life skills like reading, writing, calculating and understanding.

The FLEMMS survey, the fourth nationwide literacy study since 1989, found that nine million, or some 13.4 percent of 67 million Filipinos, fell below the literacy gauge pegged on these practical skills.

Full story...

Philippines has too many universities, says its Commission on Higher Education

MANILA—The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) is zeroing in on the excessive number of higher education institutions (HEIs) in the country as one of the major causes of the deteriorating quality of higher education.

Dr. Patricia Licuanan, CHED chair, said the proliferation of colleges and universities offering degree programs is making it hard for CHED to check on the quality of programs offered to students.

“We have too many HEIs offering too many programs,” Licuanan told teachers gathered at the University of Asia and the Pacific auditorium recently for the Metrobank Foundation’s launch of celebrations in connection with World Teachers’ Day on Oct. 5.

Licuanan said as of their latest count, there are 2,180 HEIs nationwide, quite a big number considering the country’s size and population of college students.

Of this number, Licuanan said 88 percent are private institutions while the remaining 12 percent are state colleges and universities.

The CHED chief said they will check on the quality of courses offered by all these HEIs to identify which schools should be encouraged to discontinue certain programs, if not close down altogether.

Full story...

Philippine Education Department bares 12-year education plan

MANILA—The Department of Education (DepEd) yesterday unveiled its ambitious 12-year basic education curriculum (BEC) plan that could change the current structure from 10 years with six years of elementary level and four years of high school to a combined Grades 1 to 12 path.

Former DepEd undersecretary Isagani Cruz bared the plan before education stakeholders and the media. Cruz, an education columnist of The STAR, has been tapped by DepEd to present the plan dubbed the “K+12 Basic Education Cycle” that would add two years to the BEC. He said the program would address the major deficiency found by other countries in the Philippine education system.

“Internationally, we’re one of only 2 countries with less than 11 years (of BEC),” Cruz said. “We’re teaching 12 years’ worth of knowledge and skills in 10 years. In the process, we’re shortchanging the students. That is not good for students. We’re trying to cram everything in 10 years,” he said.

Cruz said the Philippines had joined Myanmar in having a BEC of less than 11 years. Developed and developing countries in Europe such as England have a 14-year BEC, Scotland has 13, Russia has 11; the US has 12 and in the Asian region, Malaysia has 13-year BEC; Singapore, Japan, India, China, Indonesia, and South Korea have 12.

Full story...

Let’s honor our teachers, says Philippine education secretary

PASIG CITY—In line with the Teachers’ Month Campaign and World Teachers’ Day Celebration, the Department of Education has started conducting various activities to honor all Filipino teachers nationwide.
Through Department Memorandum 352, series of 2010, DepEd joins the rest of the world in celebrating World Teachers’ Day on October 5. Education Secretary Armin Luistro calls on the support of all private and public elementary and secondary schools in giving recognition to Filipino teachers, who he said hold one of the biggest responsibilities in our society.

“October 5 is a day to honor our teachers who play a critical role in guiding our children and in providing them life-long learning,” he said.

To prepare for this special annual celebration, the Teachers Month Campaign (TMC) was established in 2008. It is spearheaded by the TMC Council of Leaders and Steering Committee, which is composed of representatives from key business and academic institutions and private education organizations.

With the theme, “My Teacher, My Hero,” this year’s Teachers’ Month Campaign was launched during the Awarding Ceremony of 2010 Metrobank Foundation’s Search for Outstanding Teachers last September 3.

Full story...

Mindanao educators push for Mindanao context in Philippine textbooks

COTABATO CITY (PNA)—Convinced that education is an important tool for development in southern Philippines, Mindanao educators are pushing for major revisions in the Philippine educational textbooks focusing on more context on Mindanao’s cultural diversity and history.

“There’s a need to review existing textbooks to find out how much of Mindanao materials and history are there,” Catholic priest Albert Alejo SJ, lead project director of Konsult Mindanaw and the Mindanawon Initiatives for Cultural Dialogue.

During his presentation on the Comprehensive Mindanao Education Program (CMEP) at the Mindanao educators, consultation on Mindanao 2020 Peace and Development Framework Plan (Mindanao 2020) in Davao City last Sept. 30, Alejo said education plays a major role in uplifting the socio-economic condition of Mindanao.

“If education neglects its cultural sensitivity it will only propagate injustice and divisiveness among the people,” Alejo said. “The people in Mindanao must learn to embrace its diverse religion, culture and tradition by way of education.”

Alejo noted that there is not much Mindanao substance in the existing textbooks—even in Mindanao history—being distributed to public schools.

Full story...

English now the language of Europe as two-thirds of its people can speak it

Two-thirds of Europeans can now speak English, a survey shows.

More than 300million use English as their first foreign language and half of these regard themselves as fluent.

The research marks the eclipse of French, historically the language of diplomacy. Fewer than one in eight European adults can make themselves understood in it.

And it raises questions about the £1billion a year spent by Brussels translating every official document and speech by EU politicians and bureaucrats into the 23 recognized languages of the bloc.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “It’s only right that the EU institutions think carefully about every penny they spend to ensure that they’re getting the most from their money.
Governments across the EU are reining in their spending—EU institutions should do exactly the same.”

The survey by Eurostat, the EU’s statistics arm, found that English is the first foreign language studied in primary schools in every country outside Britain and Ireland except Luxembourg, where children study German. In secondary schools, English is the first choice in every EU country.

Full story...

Boston agrees to help non-English-speakers in classroom

About 8,300 students in Boston who are not fluent in English will receive the extra help to which they are legally entitled to overcome their language barriers, under a settlement reached between federal civil rights investigators and the Boston public schools.

The agreement, announced this afternoon by local and federal officials, caps off an investigation launched earlier this year by the US departments of education and justice, who were concerned that Boston schools had been denying thousands of students appropriate services to learn English since 2003.

The students, starting this school year, now receive specialized instruction in core academic classes, such as English and math, that is designed for students not fluent in English. These classes will be taught in English, but teachers will use more simplified English and other techniques geared for students with a language barrier. On limited occasions, the teachers will speak in a student's native tongue.

The district also has agreed to overhaul its testing of students for fluency in English. The federal investigation found that about 4,000 students should have been receiving services, but were not because the district's inadequate testing erroneously determined they were fluent.

Full story...

English kindergartens thriving in South Korea
By Kang Shin-who, The Korea Times

Is 20 million won ($17,000) a year in tuition for a child attending an English-language preschool reasonable? It sounds pretty expensive, but such kindergartens are thriving here, capitalizing on the frenzy of ambitious Korean parents to get their children an English education at an earlier age.

According to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, the number of English-language pre-schools reached 270 last year and they charged up to 1.7 million won per month.

Those kindergartens are not registered as official schools but private language institutes or hagwon, as the government has yet to permit English learning programs for pre-schoolers. Accordingly, these hagwon are not allowed to be advertised as, “English-language kindergartens,” but they still operate as institutes teaching students in English

By region, Seoul and Gyeonggi Province had the majority of these institutes targeting very young children, with 76 and 70, respectively. South Gyeongsang Province came next with 30, followed by Busan with 22 and North Chungcheong Province with 18.

Gangnam, the affluent southern district in Seoul, had 23 such preschools, the most in any single district.

The tuition varied widely depending on the region. A hagwon in Gangnam charged the highest tuition, 1.7 million won per month ㅡ more than half of those in the district charged over 1 million won. However, there are some institutes charging a much cheaper fee of only 600,000 won per month.

Full story...

Students encouraged to be fluent in Arabic and English

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN—Both Arabic and English languages should be practiced dutifully by teachers and students in all Arabic schools in the Sultanate without neglecting the Malay national language.

This was highlighted by the Minister of Religious Affairs, Pengiran Dato Seri Setia Dr Haji Mohammad bin Pengiran Haji Abdul Rahman, during his visit to Pengiran Anak Damit Arabic Religious Secondary School for Girls (SUAMPRIPAD), in Jalan Tutong, yesterday.

The minister stressed on the importance of both languages to be used fluently in the school to enable students to continue their higher education in the country as well as abroad.

He advised the teaching staff to find proper methods for mastering Arabic and English languages as “tudents can have an upper hand and be accepted in a competitive working environment in the future”

“Arabic language should be studied in detail as the Islamic religious knowledge is taught in Arabic,” he said.

Full story...

Experts to present English language workshops in classroom at Education City

Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar and Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar (WCMC-Q) will host a one-day workshop on English language integration and best practice learning methods for university and secondary school instructors on October 9.

The workshop program, held each fall, provides an opportunity to discuss, promote, and develop high quality English language and literature teaching in the state of Qatar.

The professional development workshops are being organized by Carnegie Mellon Qatar faculty Erik Helin, Silvia Pessoa, and Dudley Reynolds, and WCMC-Q’s Alan S. Weber. Deborah Short, director of the consulting firm Academic Language Research & Training and a senior research associate at the Center for Applied Linguistics, will be giving the keynote speech and will lead a workshop on the SIOP model (Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol) of language instruction, which she developed.

Katherine Kiblinger Gottschalk, the Co-Director of the Knight Writing Institute at Cornell University’s main campus in Ithaca, New York, will also be leading a workshop on “Integrating Writing Instruction and Content in Writing Intensive Courses Across the Curriculum.”

Full story...