Posted 24/06/2010 at 3:22PM

The Educating Global directors recently met Ministry officials in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and UAE. Gulf States all have significant education initiatives. Kuwait, for example, is going through a complete overall of all sectors of education. Educating Global sees great opportunities with these changes.

The highlight for Educating Global was a private meeting between Minister Tim Groser and the CEO of the Khalifa Fund, Dr. Ahmed Khalil Al Mutawa. The meeting paved the way for the Khalifa fund, Abu Dhabi’s entrepreneur development agency, to work with Educating Global on new ways to encourage business skills among young people. 

Educating Global has also begun work on delivering road safety education to students in AbuDhabi. Twenty-six teachers have received special training in how to deliver road safety education to their pupils and starting at the end of June they will provide the programme to children aged between six and ten at their schools.

Health officials say 63% of fatal injuries among children aged 0-14 were caused by traffic accidents “It is about keeping them safe right now,” Mr al Mirr a teacher in the programme said. “Then they will have a comprehensive awareness of road safety, which they will apply and disseminate to others.” The programme was reported in the ‘National’ daily newspaper: http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100622/NATIONAL/706219848/1042

Posted 24/06/2010 at 3:13PM

1. Auckland sky tower is the tallest free-standing structure in the Southern Hemisphere – True or False?

 

 

 

TRUE

2. Which country has the world’s largest Muslim population?

 

 

 

INDONESIA

3. Which social media was founded by Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey?

 

 

 

TWITTER

4. Which New Zealand city was ranked one of the world’s top five for liveability?

 

 

 

 AUCKLAND

5. The United Arab Emirates is composed of how many emirates?

 

 

 

 SEVEN

 

 

Posted 22/04/2010 at 9:41AM

Today, 72 million children in the world are denied the chance to go to school. These children could be our next generation’s leaders, sports stars, doctors and teachers. But they face a lifelong struggle against poverty.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Since 2000, 40 million more children are in school. Education beats poverty – and gives people the tools to help themselves.

Educating NZ supports 1GOAL, a campaign seizing the power of football to ensure that education for all is a lasting impact of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Raising our voices all over the world we believe that, together, we can make education a reality for the millions of boys and girls who remain out of school.

“This is our chance to show not just out-of-school children, but our own children, that when we make a promise, we keep it. With your help, we could have billions of fans cheering not just for their teams, but for one team: 1GOAL. This is our moment to shine; we can bring millions of children in from the shadows of ignorance, and light up their lives with the legacy of education.” Her Majesty Queen Rania Al-Abdullah, Co-Founder and Global Co-Chair, 1GOAL

You can help make education for all a reality, buy joining 1GOAL: http://www.join1goal.org/home.php

1GOAL is bringing together footballers, fans, charities, corporations and individuals to lobby and achieve our ambitious aim of education for everyone. By joining the 1GOAL team, you can strengthen the campaign’s voice and give them the best possible chance of success.

Posted 25/03/2010 at 1:43PM

Skipping school is pretty much a rite of passage, so it’s a brave government that promises to improve student attendance rates. Minister Tolley is prepared to try though.

It’s encouraging to see this government is prepared to address some of the stickier issues across the education system at the moment. The latest campaign from the Minister of Education is to deal with student disengagement from school ie truancy. A sticky problem if ever there was one.

With the encouraging possibilities of adventure that have long been promised to the wagging student in the tales of Huckleberry Fin through to Ferris Bueller and Bart Simpson, it is hard to imagine students not skipping school for a bit of fun. But there are serious consequences for young people and their communities arising from chronic absenteeism, and government is right to be worried about it. The difficulty is, what can schools do about truancy?

Certainly there are efficiencies in the processes schools use to record and track attendance that might help, and the big stick of prosecution for parents of recidivist truants will no doubt influence some.  But it’s hard to see either of those things making much of a dent in the statistics for student participation.

Students avoid school because they feel it doesn’t provide what they want or need, be it intellectual fulfillment, physical and/or emotional safety, social interaction or more sleep and less control. Getting stricter with rules applied by adults doesn’t seem like it’s going to hit the target.

Making meaningful reductions in the numbers of students skipping and dropping out of school will surely require finding a way, or more likely many ways, of making young people’s formal education experiences a better alternative to not being there. Aligning government policies could be critical to that being achieved, because if new initiatives such as the National Standards limit teachers’ and schools’ ability to make education relevant, meaningful and fun for ALL students, Ferris Bueller’s temptations may continue to win the day.

 

[photo: www.flickr.com/photos/annnna/2286266103/]
 

Posted 25/03/2010 at 1:40PM

• Can a man drown in the fountain of eternal life?
• Your mission is not to accept the mission. Do you accept?
• If the temperature this morning is 0 degrees, and the weather forecast says it will be twice as cold tomorrow, what will the temperature be?
• Answer truthfully (yes or no) to the following question: Will the next word you say be ’no’?
• When the words ‘this page has been intentionally left blank’ are printed on a blank page, is it still blank?
• If a book about failures doesn’t sell, is it a success?
• What is a ’free’ gift? Aren’t all gifts free?
• Why isn’t phonetic spelled the way it sounds?

 

[photo: www.flickr.com/photos/babasteve/3138533800/]

 

Posted 25/03/2010 at 1:23PM

A recent letter from a parent to Karori Normal School in Wellington showed once again that What’s the Plan Stan really works.  What’s the Plan Stan is the disaster education resource that we developed for the Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management. 

The parent related how his wife and two children travelled to Chile two days before the 8.8 magnitude earthquake occurred. They were staying on the 12th-floor of a building, and because of jetlag symptoms, they were awake in bed when the earthquake struck at 3:34am.

"I am going to use this opportunity to acknowledge the excellency of Karori Normal School teachings which probably made the difference, in my case, between sadness and joyfulness," he said. "Thanks to my daughter’s training at Karori Normal School, she immediately advised her Mum to get under the dining table, so the three of them did so."

"During the quake everything fell over, I mean everything, including refrigerators, TVs etc. If they had just stayed in bed as they were, very likely they would have suffered serious injuries since a lamp fell over the bed. Under the table, they were able to protect themselves against ’flying saucers’ and glasses coming from shelves."

It is a wonderful feeling to see our work saving people from injury or even death.