Students attending Lagos State-owned tertiary institutions and their teachers have praised the Jobs Initiative Lagos (JIL), a schemed aimed at improving the entrepreneurship and employability skills of students in the last two years of their studies.
About 8,000 students in the stipulated classes have benefited from free programme aimed at fine-tuning their soft skills, new market skills, soft skills, business skill as well as re-orienting their minds.
During the programme which has both online and physical training components, the students are exposed to resume Writing ,Work Etiquettes, Presentation and Pitching , Corporate E- Mail Drafting , Negotiations Skills, Interviewing Techniques, Microsoft Suites, Microsoft Power Point Presentations, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Outlook and Entrepreneurship Skills development.
Students of the Lagos State College of Nursing (LASCON), Igando, who participated in the initiative (an improved version of the ReadySetWork) for the first time desicribed JIL as a catalyst to reduce brain drain affecting the country’s health sector.
Speaking at the end of the JIL training held within the College premises in Igando, which was organised by the Office of the Special Adviser on Education (OSAE), President, Lagos State College of Nursing Student Association, Timothy Bada, praised the government’s idea to extend the employability programme to medical students, saying the move has helped him to see beyond what he was taught in class.
He said: “This programme has actually enlightened me on what to do after leaving school. This is an addition to our profession because most of our senior colleagues often focus on caring for patients alone. I am not saying that is wrong because it is our primary responsibility, but when we put in some other extra activities that the community can recognise, it will bring more money that can help to cater for our needs.”
Another student, Alimah Biliamin, said she had learnt a key factor that could assist her to become employable after leaving school and possible areas that she could venture into within the health sector rather than going abroad.
“I have done some of the courses outside and I know how much I had to pay to get it. But with the government giving it out for free, one must commend them. I must appreciate the government for giving me this opportunity. And I appeal that all students should be made to undergo the training”, she said.
Student Adviser for the institution, Matthew Friday, commended the state government for the initiative, just as he stressed that it had exposed students’ to other soft skills required to become employable immediately after leaving school,
Assistant Project Coordinator, LoftInc Allied Partners Limited, the organisation collaborating with the state government on the training, Olatokunbo Aiyenimelo, told the students that the aim of JIL was to prepare them for life after school so they could get engaged quickly.
“To ensure that they become employers and good employees that can work effectively in the 21st century, we also trained them on how they could coordinate their data using different digital tools that could ease their stress at work,” she said.
Training for the JIL 2021 began last week for students of all the tertiary institutions.
The Osun State Government has said it closed about 600 private schools, especially primary schools that do not meet the state’s minimum standard requirements.
Speaking during the Inter-ministerial Press briefing held at State Secretariat, Abere, the Education Commissioner, Folorunsho Bamisayemi, said the closure was part of the government’s effort to ensure sanity in the education sector.
“We have declared a war on mushroom schools. We have zero-tolerance for quacks in the system and schools that do not meet standards. We know the danger of mushroom schools because once anyone damages the education foundation of a child it becomes difficult to build a solid structure on it.
“Starting from the ministry, we have reviewed our department of schools to ensure greater efficiency. We have segmented the department to supervise basic and post-basic schools. Anyone who wants to start a school must produce a TRCN Certificate, among other requirements. We no longer grant licenses just because someone has spare funds to spend.
“We have set minimum standards and also given provisional registrations to some schools, that runs for a window of two years, during which we ensure proper monitoring. If after two years, the benchmark isn’t met, it attracts outright closure,” he said.
However, the commissioner lamented that the 11 mega schools built by the previous administration were underutilised.
Jun 15, 2021, 14:10 ISTProf. T. G. SitharamBy Prof. T. G. Sitharam
The sudden closure of all the institutions in India and around the world after March 2020 had led to abrupt conversion of conventional face-to-face instruction to the fully online (blended / hybrid) format in many IIT’s and NIT’s in a very short transitional time. Initially, it was very difficult to move completely to online platforms for teaching learning, evaluation and laboratory classes. Due to the Covid 19 pandemic, where physical distancing, safety and hygiene has become the new norm, there was no option left for the traditional educators to change quickly and adopt to new normal in the last 1.5 years.
Many were scepticalto run the online education through the internet particularly while delivering engineering education. However, over a very short time in few months (due to sustained closure of institutions with indefinite doubts about reopening of the institutions), things changed very drastically. Although the online education has not been a new concept to educators in general and even for technical education, during this pandemic online education has leapfrogged by many folds and many started adopting it boldly doing new experiments.In India with initiative like National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) and SWAYAM, online education has become a viable component of higher education in engineering.
However, online delivery is more popular in engineering subfields such as electrical and computer engineering, data sciences and artificial intelligence, computer science and information technology, Internet of things, management courses, etc., especially at the master’s or post-graduate level. Online learning has become popular just because of the rise of the internet and new technologies, however due to the scare of Covid 19 pandemic and its spread many are adopting by force of the nature. The engineering education that has been traditionally content-centered with orientation towards design and laboratory content todevelop critical thinking or problem-solving skills in the student has to adopt suddenly to completely online. Online or virtual education has many advantages for the following reasons: flexible and offers wide selection of programmes at lower cost, accessible and allows customized learning experience along with learning effectiveness with their own pace, student and faculty satisfaction, scaling and cost.
Various pedagogical methodologies have shown efficacy during these difficult days that an enhancement of engineering education happens due to active learning, flipped classroom with student focussed learning withhands-on project-based learning with virtual internships. IIT’s have developed new learning formats by empowering teachers to use the technology with blended learning.
Blended learning is the future face of learning across higher educational institutions particularly in Engineering and technology based courses. Blended learning prepares the student to be disciplined with time management and learning skills in addition to the learning the usage of technology. Most of the younger generation in India and in particularly the students who enters technical education domain in HEIs are ready and equipped to deal with this new learning mode.Instructors / teachers should develop a familiarity with online learning pedagogy and tools for instruction and evaluation.
However, a training is essential for most of the faculty/teachers to handle this dual mode of teaching-learning processincluding handling of the learning management system.Development of fair assessment methods to evaluate the performance of students with no cheating and plagiarism will be a great challenge for the online education.It will continue to create a digital divide in the country given the fact that its online component will leave the less privileged sections in tier 1 and tier II towns deprived.
Governments should make an effort to increase access to the internet across the country and reduce the digital devide. When it comes to lab-driven subjects, it is essential that blended learning should be carefully used to strike a balance of hand-on, skill development and conceptual learning.Hands-on training in laboratory courses to work with equipment, instruments, and materials is an inherent and necessary aspect of engineering education, which needs to be carefully blended in online delivery.
In the future, a combination of face to face and online learning will give students some flexibility in terms of place, pace and path.The NEP 2020 enacts numerous changes in India’s education policy with emphasis on technology assisted learning and hope to bring many positive aspects for the online learning in higher education in particular technical education. With NEP 2020 implementation plans, many universities started promoting online engineering education for the post-pandemic era.
– Prof. T. G. Sitharam is director at Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati.
image caption? A school project in Malawi – educating girls can improve health and prosperity in the wider community
Boris Johnson at the G7 summit has pledged £430m to improve education in some of the world’s poorest countries – with girls’ education a priority.
The prime minister said it was a source of “international shame” that so many girls in poorer countries were missing out on access to school.
With an education, these children could have been “titans of industry or scientific pioneers”, he said.
But aid agencies called for a reversal of cuts to the UK’s aid budget.
“The best way we can lift countries out of poverty and lead a global recovery is by investing in education and particularly girls’ education,” the prime minister told world leaders gathered in Cornwall.
‘Silent emergency’
The prime minister has made girls’ education a flagship issue of the G7 – and the summit will approve plans to get 40 million more girls into school, in countries where girls might either be kept out of school or drop out early.
The £430m over five years will be the UK’s biggest amount contributed to the Global Partnership for Education, an international co-ordinating body which wants to raise $5bn (£3.5bn) at an education summit next month, for projects in 90 countries.
image caption? Helen Grant, special envoy for girls’ education, at a school in Sierra Leone
Lis Wallace of the anti-poverty charity, One, said the destructive impact of the pandemic on education in poorer countries had been “staggering” and a “silent emergency”.
But she said the amount offered so far “falls short” of what is needed – and warned the cut to international aid risked “undermining these efforts”.
The funding announcement was “a good start” but there still needed to be a reversal of “shameful cuts to overseas aid”, said Rose Caldwell, chief executive of Plan International UK.
Mark Sheard, chief executive of World Vision UK, said the funding announced was not enough after the “drastic cuts” to the aid budget.
‘Game changer’
Helen Grant, the prime minister’s special envoy for girls’ education, said the ambition to get 12 years of quality education for every girl would be a “game changer”.
“If you want to change the world for the better, girls’ education has to be the place to start,” she told the BBC.
image caption? A Voluntary Service Overseas project is backing educational technology in Malawi
Better education would mean an upward cycle of improvement in health and economic chances for girls and their families, and would reduce the risk of early marriage and poverty, she said.
“An example would be that a child with a mother who can read is 50% more likely to live beyond the age of five,” she said.
Mrs Grant said it was in the UK’s own interests not to “pull up the drawbridge on some of the most vulnerable, marginalised and needy people”.
Improving education in developing countries, particularly in Africa, would create a “better, safer, fairer and more prosperous world – which is good for all of us”.
The government has faced a rebellion, including from some of its own MPs, over the reduction in the international aid budget from 0.7% to 0.5% of national income.
The chair of the international development select committee said it was “ridiculous that the government trumpets its commitment to girls’ education” while cutting aid.
‘Tough choices’
Mrs Grant said the “seismic impact of the pandemic” meant taking “tough choices” – including a “temporary reduction in aid”.
“We are hoping that it will return to 0.7% when fiscal conditions allow.”
image caption. Helen Grant says it is in the UK’s interests to support education in countries such as Uganda
Describing how education could be such a crossroads in young lives, Mrs Grant said she’d spoken in a school in Uganda to a “clever little girl, embracing everything, full of life”.
The girl told her she wanted to become a doctor – but without access to school she would have a life of “collecting wood, collecting water, making the food”.
“That drives us all on,” she said.
‘Bewildered and infuriated’
The UK Bangladesh Education Trust (UKBET) is a UK charity working with child domestic workers in Bangladesh.
It pays for local teachers to visit girls like Sayeeda, 9, who works as a servant to earn money for her family, or 16-year-old Lalit, who has now learned to write her own name, having never gone to school.
In March 2020, UKBET began applying for UK funding of £50,000 over two years to continue with and expand its programme. But in April of this year the charity was told the fund it had applied to had been withdrawn due to the government’s aid cuts.
Reacting to news of the new funding, announced at the G7,, UKBET’s Annette Zara said she was “I’m bewildered and infuriated”.
“A month ago the government needed to save £25,000 by cutting one of the few programmes bringing education to young girls enslaved in domestic work in Bangladesh. Yet today, they have found £400m at the back of the cupboard.”
At least 936 students of secondary and tertiary institutions were abducted by suspected bandits and Boko Haram members across the country between December 2020 and June 5, 2021.
Findings by our correspondents showed that abductions were carried out across the country.
During the period under review, abductions were recorded in Ohordua, Edo State; Effurun, Delta State; Kankara, Kaduna State; and Mahuta village, Katsina State.
Other places where cases of abduction were recorded are Kagara, Niger State; Jangebe, Zamfara State; and Afaka, Kaduna State, among others.
Some parents who spoke to our correspondents said they would not allow their children return to school.
One of them, Alhaji Ibrahim Bageba, whose children were among the kidnapped Jangebe schoolgirls, said, “I have decided to withdraw my children from school because of the security situation in the whole country.
“Our children are no longer at ease due to rampant cases of student abduction across the country and as such, I feel that it is better to withdraw my children so that I will have peace of mind.”
A mother of two of the students who were abducted by bandits during the Jangebe School abduction, Hafsat Sani, said, “Many parents are skeptical about the government’s readiness to fight banditry. As such, I don’t think my children will return to school.
“Two of my children were kidnapped; I will not allow them go back unless something tangible is done.”
The Director of Press, Ministry of Education, Bem Goong, told The PUNCH that the Federal Government was working hard to ensure that schools were safe.
He urged state governments to also do the same.
Goong said, “If you go to our unity schools, you will notice the presence of security operatives. During the 2021 Common Entrance Examination monitoring exercise, the permanent secretary also added that unity schools are the safest and it is because we have deployed security operatives there.”
The Zamfara State Government said it would close down boarding schools till security situation improved in the state.
The state Commissioner for Education, Aliyu Tukur, said, “A committee has been constituted to look into the possibility of reopening the boarding schools that are not prone to attacks by bandits. We have deployed security operatives in schools that are open and we have organised workshops for school principals.”
A security expert, Nnamdi Chife, called on the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to resuscitate the Safe School Initiative.
Chife said, “The government of President Jonathan designed a security strategy called Safe School Initiative, which was meant to provide comprehensive security for the schools that were under attack by the Boko Haram.
“It is high time for this administration to resuscitate that security programme to provide safe corridor for students. Otherwise, we may lose a generation.”
Another expert, Olalekan Ojo, said, “School abduction is becoming worrisome and some of us have been calling for a national security summit on this issue. A national security summit will involve school owners, security experts and other stakeholders.”
Ojo said if nothing urgent was done, the number of out-of-school children in the country could increase to about 30 per cent of the student population.
Today the government has unveiled a £1.4bn package to address pandemic learning loss, including £1bn allocated over three years to support pupils through additional tutoring.
The Education Policy Institute finds that the new education recovery package of £1.4bn amounts to around £50 extra per pupil per year – a fraction of the level of funding required to reverse learning loss seen by pupils since March 2020.
Two weeks ago, EPI published research findings which showed that a three-year package totalling £13.5bn will be required from the government to undo the damage to pupils’ learning as a result of the pandemic.
Per pupil, this level of funding required to reverse pupil learning losses is ten times higher (£500 per pupil per year) than that which the government has set out today.
Even after factoring in education recovery funding prior to today’s announcement, EPI finds that the total level of funding committed for England over three years is £310 per pupil, which compares to equivalent total funding of £1,600 per pupil in the US, and £2,500 per pupil in the Netherlands.
Commenting on today’s recovery proposals, Jon Andrews, Head of Analysis at the Education Policy Institute (EPI) said:
“At £50 per pupil, our analysis shows that today’s funding package is a long way off what is required to remedy the lost learning seen by pupils over the last year. This was an opportunity for the government to offer significant investment in a range of evidence-based interventions that would help protect against long-run negative impacts to young people’s education and wellbeing. They have decided not to take that opportunity.
“Today’s proposals are an inadequate response to the challenge the country is facing with young people’s education, wellbeing, and mental health.”
David Laws, Executive Chairman of the Education Policy Institute (EPI), said:
“The government’s education recovery package does not remotely match the scale of lost learning and is unlikely to be enough to support children to catch up on the many months of lost learning that most have suffered
“It appears that the government’s own Education Recovery Commissioner recommended a package of policies that would have delivered ten times the financial support unveiled today – £15bn, instead of the £1.4bn announced.
“It is unclear why the government has chosen to ignore the evidence of how much it would cost to recover lost learning, but there must now be a real concern that learning loss will not be recovered and that the most disadvantaged pupils will fall permanently behind the rest.
“In the longer term, the unmitigated learning losses could cause lower productivity, lower earnings, and lower tax revenues – so skimping on a properly funded recovery package will prove to be a false economy.”
What is required to reverse learning loss vs. what the government’s package offers
Today’s additional funding of £1.4bn over three years to support pupils in England amounts to around £50 per pupil per year.
Earlier this month, EPI published analysis which showed that a three-year funding package totalling £13.5bn will be required to reverse the damage to pupils’ learning as a result of the pandemic.The EPI study was the first to model the impact of lost learning and set out a series of fully costed, evidence-based, proposals for government.
EPI’s proposed package of £13.5bn over three years (£13bn just for schools and post-16 education), would allocate around £500 per pupil per year – ten times the level of funding that the government has committed to today.
EPI’s proposals for education recovery, which are based on its latest learning loss research for the Department for Education (DfE), can be read here.
Further EPI research for the DfE on pupil learning loss will be published shortly.
How government funding for education recovery compares to other countries’ programmes
The government’s overall funding for education catch-up in England now totals £3.1bn since the beginning of the pandemic (£1.7bn already announced since 2020, plus today’s extra funding of £1.4bn).
When examining the overall level of government funding for education recovery, this is found to amount to around £310 per pupil in total over three years.
The total level of funding committed to date by the government also falls short of the investment in education recovery seen in other nations. The government’s total of £310 per pupil over three-years for England compares to the equivalent funding of £1,600 per pupil to support education recovery in the United States, and £2,500 per pupil in the Netherlands.
A weekly update on the most important news in American education.
By Amelia Nierenberg and Kate Taylor
Today, we’re covering the fight for Asian American history classes and previewing two education cases at the Supreme Court.
Ribbons with messages of peace, love and hope at a public elementary school in New York’s Chinatown last month. Michael Loccisano/Getty Images
Asian American history lessons
After a series of violent attacks against Asian Americans across the country, some state lawmakers are focused on making sure schools teach students about the contributions of Asian Americans to the economy, the government and the culture of the United States.
It’s a movement that in some ways runs counter to efforts by Republicans across the country to block curriculums that emphasize systemic racism. As our colleagues Trip Gabriel and Dana Goldstein reported this week, these efforts are part of a broad strategy by Republican politicians to run on culture-war issues in the 2022 midterm elections.
The movement to teach about Asian American history took its largest step forward this week in Illinois, where a bill known as the Teaching Equitable Asian-American History Act was sent to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk. The legislation would require that the state’s public elementary schools and high schools teach units about Asian American history.
A spokesman for Pritzker, a Democrat, did not respond to an inquiry about whether the governor planned to sign the bill. But if enacted, the bill would be “a watershed moment in Asian American history education,” said Sohyun An, a professor of social studies education at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, who has studied the extent to which Asian American history is taught in U.S. schools.
She said that, to the extent that state standards require history curriculums to include the experiences of Asian Americans at all, they generally only require teaching about two things: the experience of early Chinese immigrants to the United States and the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Little attention is paid to the role of Asian Americans in the civil rights movement or labor movements, she said.
Legislators in New York have introduced a bill similar to the one in Illinois. And in Wisconsin, a bipartisan group of legislators is pushing a bill that would require school districts to teach students about Hmong Americans and Asian Pacific Islander Desi Americans (a term that includes people of East Asian, South Asian, Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander descent), in addition to teaching them about Native Americans, Black Americans and Hispanic Americans, as required under current law.
Two big Supreme Court cases
The Supreme Court usually saves its most consequential decisions for June, the final month of the annual term. This year, the justices will most likely rule on one major education-related case and decide whether to hear another in the fall. We wanted to give you a preview.
Brandi Levy. Danna Singer/A.C.L.U., via Reuters
Case 1: School speech, on and offline
Background: In 2017, a 14-year-old filmed an expletive-filled video off-campus and posted it to Snapchat, frustrated that she hadn’t made varsity as a cheerleader. A coach saw a screenshot and suspended the student, Brandi Levy, from the squad for a year. (Listen to last month’s episode of the Daily about the case.)Continue reading the main story
Stakes: The ultimate question here is whether a public school can discipline off-campus speech, especially online behavior and social media use, without infringing on the First Amendment.
Background: In 1969, the court allowed students to wear black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. But it said disruptive speech, at least on school grounds, could be punished.
Argument 1: The suspension violated Levy’s right to off-campus free speech. “Her message may seem trivial,” Levy’s lawyer said, “but for young people, the ability to voice their emotions to friends without fear of school censorship may be the most important freedom of all.”
Argument 2: Times have changed, and schools can discipline online speech. “The internet’s ubiquity, instantaneous and mass dissemination, and potential permanence make the speaker’s location irrelevant,” a lawyer for the school board said.
Things to consider: The justices may send the case back to a lower court instead of issuing a sweeping ruling about student speech and social media.
Background: A group of Asian American applicants to Harvard says the school intentionally discriminated against them. In November, a federal judge ruled that the college’s admissions process, although “not perfect,” does not violate civil rights law.
Stakes: If the Supreme Court takes the case for the fall term — a reasonably safe bet — affirmative action in higher education will again be in peril. The conservative strategist behind the case told our colleague Anemona Hartocollis that he hoped a court decision in favor of the Asian American plaintiffs would “end all considerations of race in college admissions.”
Methodology: The court has said that the proposition that diversity enhances education is the sole permissible rationale for taking race into account in admissions decisions.
New research: Our colleague Adam Liptak reported on a recent studythat found that articles published by prestigious law reviews were cited more often after the journals adopted diversity policies for choosing student editors. That “lends credibility” to the idea that diverse groups perform better, researchers concluded.
Things to consider: In 2016, the court upheld the constitutionality of a similar admissions program at the University of Texas. But justices in the court’s conservative bloc have also indicated a willingness to reconsider more than four decades of affirmative action.
Around the country
College update
The Virginia Theological Seminary is giving cash to descendants of Black Americans who were forced to work there. The program is among the first of its kind.
A new state-sanctioned report found that the Virginia Military Institute must be held accountable for failing to address institutional racism and sexism, The Associated Press reports.
A good read from Slate: After a year of virtual interviews, some medical schools may do away with on-campus interviews, which can be prohibitively expensive for applicants.
K-12 update
Children mostly don’t need masks outdoors, the C.D.C. said, which could have big implications for summer camps.
About 60 percent of students in the Washington, D.C., area have not learned in a school building since March 2020, The Washington Post reports.
Officials at West Scranton High School in Pennsylvania sent students home on Tuesday amid fears that a bobcat was loose in the building, WNEP reports. They were wrong, but a very happy family got their house cat back after it went missing three months ago.
A good read from The Times: Dalee Sullivan, 18, thinks her school erred in tabulating grade-point averages. She couldn’t afford a lawyer, so she represented herself in a Texas court.
A good read from The Boston Globe: For 15 years, an independent contractor hired by the Boston Public Schools pressured students to participate in unorthodox group / that some students described as emotional abuse.
Yifan Wu
Teens need a break this summer
“In the more than two decades I’ve spent as a psychologist working with adolescents, I have never seen teenagers so worn down at the end of an academic year as they are right now,” Lisa Damour writes in The Times.
After a dark and lonely year, teenagers are now eligible for Covid-19 vaccinations, and this summer is wide open. But Damour urges families to keep pressure low, and not try to get teens to use the time to “recover lost ground” or even “put the past year behind them.”
Instead, she frames this past year as “the psychological workout of their lives,” and urges parents to give them time for recovery to prepare for the next.
LONDON (AP) — Nik Geraj’s voice fills with pain as he talks about how he struggled to help his daughter study during the coronavirus lockdowns that shut her school for more than four months over the past year.
Before the pandemic, 6-year-old Mia was doing well. But she had a hard time during lockdown, missing her friends and teachers at Holy Family Catholic Primary in southeast London. Geraj, a former refugee from Albania, and his wife Mai Vu, who comes from Vietnam, weren’t able to fill the gaps.
“She really missed out,” he said. “I don’t think I did such a good job. I tried. The missus tried.”
Mia Geraj with her father Nik Geraj pose for a portrait after speaking to the Associated Press at the Holy Family Catholic Primary School in Greenwich in London, Monday, May 24, 2021. Geraj talked about how he struggled to help his daughter study during the lockdowns that shut her school for more than four months over the past year. Before the pandemic, 6-year-old Mia was doing well. But she had a hard time during lockdown, missing her friends and teachers at Holy Family Catholic Primary in southeast London. Geraj, a one-time refugee from Albania, and his wife, who comes from Vietnam, weren’t able to fill the gaps. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
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Plagues, fires, war — London has survived them all. But it has never had a year quite like this. The coronavirus has killed more than 15,000 Londoners and shaken the foundations of one of the world’s great cities. Amid a fast-moving mass vaccination campaign, The Associated Press looks at the pandemic’s impact on London’s people and institutions.
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Schools across Britain are racing to offset the disruptions caused by COVID-19, which has hit kids from low-income and ethnic minority families the hardest. At Holy Family, an after-school math club, a new reading area and a focus on exercise and fresh air are some of the ways the staff is making up for lost time.
“I don’t believe in saying that ‘They’ve lost, they’ve lost, they’ve lost,’” Executive Principal Colette Doran-Hannon said. “My mantra is that for a period of time, they lost out. It’s up to us to give them the toolkit to build themselves back up again.”
A staff notice written on a notice board in the teachers common room at the Holy Family Catholic Primary School in Greenwich, London, Thursday, May 20, 2021. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
Students across England lost an average of 115 days of in-school instruction to the pandemic, curtailing academic progress and hampering the social and emotional development of students from all backgrounds. But children stuck inside cramped apartments without easy access to computers suffered the most, fueling concerns about rising inequality in a country where 800,000 people have lost their jobs and food bank use is soaring.
Even before COVID-19, students from disadvantaged backgrounds were about 18 months academically behind their wealthier classmates by the end of secondary school. That gap is likely to have widened over the past year, according to the Education Policy Institute, a London-based think tank.
Alex Dickerson the reception class teacher, left leads the class at the Holy Family Catholic Primary School in Greenwich, London, Monday, May 24, 2021. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
This may be one of the longest-lasting impacts of the pandemic, said Arun Advani, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Warwick whose research focuses on inequality.
“It is going to create a kind of set of knock-on effects that will continue in the years to come, because it will be these kids who had very different experiences and different amounts of learning,” Advani said. “There will be kids who just are further behind.”
That focuses the agenda for schools like Holy Family, a state-funded Catholic school in the London borough of Greenwich, home of the historic Cutty Sark clipper ship and Greenwich Mean Time.
Some 28% of Holy Family’s students qualify for free school meals. English is the second language for almost two-thirds of the children, who have roots in Africa, the Caribbean, South Asia, South America and other European countries.
A world map showing the origins of members of staff at the Holy Family Catholic Primary School in Greenwich, London, Wednesday, May 19, 2021. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
While every school has its own pandemic story, Holy Family’s is marked by pain.
Months before anyone had ever heard of COVID-19. Doran-Hannon was dispatched to get the school back on track amid turmoil from previous management. Funds were spare. The school had eight laptops for more than 160 students.
Her sidekick was Sarah Hancock, who had 22 years of experience in nearby Bexleyheath. But then Hancock died on the first day of lockdown in March 2020. Though it was not COVID-19, the bereavement shook them all.
“That was really quite hard,” Doran-Hannon said, her voice trembling. “That added a whole dimension to COVID that we just genuinely didn’t expect.”
Noah Popula listens to his teacher during a year 2 lesson at the Holy Family Catholic Primary School in Greenwich, London, Thursday, May 20, 2021. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
A pupil writes with a pencil during a lesson at the Holy Family Catholic Primary School in Greenwich in London, Monday, May 24, 2021. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
Ola listens to teacher Lorraine Eva as she has a spelling test at the Holy Family Catholic Primary School in Greenwich, London, Wednesday, May 19, 2021. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
Amid grief, the staff set to work.
After initially sending paper study packs home with students, they adjusted to online learning as the first lockdown stretched through April and May 2020. Staff members regularly phoned students and parents, letting them know they weren’t alone.
Doran-Hannon and new headteacher Amanda O’Brien kept adjusting.
When they realized kids were going hungry over Christmas, the school organized a food bank that helped more than 60 families. Since the hardship didn’t end with the holidays, they created a permanent food cupboard with long-life products for anyone who needs help, no questions asked. And when students needed laptops for home learning, they went looking for a benefactor.
Pupils queue up for lunch in the main hall at the Holy Family Catholic Primary School in Greenwich, London, Wednesday, May 19, 2021. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
Lindsey Parslow, founder of a charity called Business2Schools, answered their call.
An events manager who found herself without much work during the pandemic, Parslow persuaded businesses to donate old computers when they upgraded. The project exploded, and now about 20% of England’s schools have asked to be on her donation database.
“If you give schools everything they need to do the best possible job that they can, then grades have to go up,″ she said.
Holy Family student Pelumi “Samson” Solola, 11, Year Six pupil, speaks about COVID’s impact on his education. (AP Video/Jo Kearney)
In contrast, the U.S. has allocated about 1,600 pounds ($2,268) per student, the institute said.
The Times of London, citing a leaked report, said Tuesday that the U.K. government is planning a 15 billion-pound education recovery program focused on extra class time, teaching and tutoring.
But creativity can be as important as money.
Holy Family’s pandemic response includes a new addition to its campus: a bright green shack decorated with yellow letters that is the “Little Pop-up Book Hut.”
An unfinished ‘Pandora’s Box’ things the pupils of year 3 feel are wrong along with the word ‘Hope’ is displayed in the classroom at the Holy Family Catholic Primary School in Greenwich, London, Wednesday, May 19, 2021. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
Stocked with titles like “Hyena Ballerina” and “Polka Bats and Octopus Slacks,” it sits under a shady tree next to a new deck where students can read outdoors with their friends. Hancock’s family helped raise the money for the project, passing along her love of literature.
Then there’s the math club, which helps kids build confidence with numbers.
On a recent afternoon, the club gathered on the playground for a game that mixed bean bag tossing with multiplication practice. When a sudden downpour struck, the 11-year-olds played on, laughing and tossing sodden bean bags at a chalk target even as the lines bled into rivulets of color.https://player.vimeo.com/video/556129505?background=1
Behind it all is Doran-Hannon’s prescription that teachers must get to know each child individually and show them the school cares.
Walking through the halls, she notices a student whose shoe is untied. Although she’s wearing a skirt and heels, the principal immediately drops to his level and pats her knee for him to put his foot there so she could tie the offending laces.
The boy ducks his head sheepishly. He ties the shoe himself.
“It is very much about knowing those children, knowing what they are, what they stand for and what they can achieve,” she said later. “I think if I build that into them, if I build that desire to be great at whatever they do, then we will succeed.”
Amariah, left, with Anay, Mathew and Nevaeh, take part in a lesson with reception class teacher Becky Slight, at the Holy Family Catholic Primary School in Greenwich, London, Thursday, May 20, 2021. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
The Geraj family has weathered the pandemic better than many.
Nik Geraj, 41, kept his job at a supermarket and Mia had a tablet. They also had Mia’s teacher, Ruth Monkman, who called every week just to see how everyone was getting on.
Now that Mia is back in school, her dad can think of the future. He hopes her life will be easier than his.
“Parents say ‘I want my kid to be prime minister.’ I don’t want to say she should be prime minister,″ he said. “I just want her to be happy.”
Ayomide plays catch in the playground of the Holy Family Catholic Primary School in Greenwich, London, Wednesday, May 19, 2021. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant) Ayomide plays catch in the playground of the Holy Family Catholic Primary School in Greenwich, London, Wednesday, May 19, 2021. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
The Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund, has raised the alarm over attempts by fraudsters to defraud unsuspecting Nigerian students by luring them to register for a fake grant purportedly given by the fund.
TETFund’s Director of Corporate Affairs, Mr Abdulmumin Oniyangi, in a statement on Monday, said the fraudulent information has been circulating on various platforms, suggesting that the fund is giving out a grant of N20,000 to each Nigerian student.
Oniyangi further explained that the fraudsters claim that the grant is part of TETFund 2021 budget to support the 2 million Nigerian students, urging students to register before registration closes on the 6th of June 2021.
The TETFund boss dissociated the organisation from the claims.
He warned that such a move was another attempt by fraudsters to deceive students and Nigerians.
“The Management of TETFund dissociates itself from the above claims as it is another of similar attempts by criminal elements to deceive, not only the students but the public as well, into falling prey into the hands of these faceless individuals.
“The Fund reiterates that student bursary has never been a part of its intervention activities and that the entire information is false and should be disregarded.
“TETFund however enjoins anyone with relevant information that could lead to the arrest of these criminal minded individuals to alert the Nigerian Police or reach out to the Fund on the following address: info @ TETFund.gov.ng,” he said.
The TETFund Director also cautioned Nigerians to be wary of the fraudulent registration website with the address https://bit.ly/TETFUND-GRANTS.
By Gbenga Akinfenwa As Nigeria joins the rest of the world to celebrate Children’s Day, students have appealed to the Federal Government to tackle insecurity in schools and create an enabling environment for displaced students in the north to return to school. They spoke with Gbenga Akinfenwa.
Govt. should come up with strategies to end kidnapping, insecurity in schools It is unfortunate that students are victims of kidnapping in our country today. I use this year’s Children’s Day celebration to appeal to the government to see to the safety and protection of students.
I also call on the Federal government to come up with proactive security strategies that would put an end to the problem. Necessary communication equipment and transport facilities should be made available for security personnel.
Displaced students should be given sufficient opportunity to go on with their learning. Government must ensure that they continue their education. Baqeeyah Adeteru, Peace Foundation International College, Abeokuta, Ogun State.
Displaced students in the North should be settled to continue learning NIGERIA is in a period of crisis. Kidnapping of school children makes me sad. On this occasion of Children’s Day, I want the Federal and state Governments to work together with utmost commitment to find solution to attack on schools.
All government-approved security agencies can be constituted into a network to provide adequate security. Government should also relocate displaced students in the North, so that they can continue their education. Learning centres can be created to enable them go back to school. Their right to education should be respected. Maria Adekunle, Peace Foundation International College, Abeokuta, Ogun State.
Kidnappers should be sentenced to death STUDENTS have become soft targets for kidnappers in recent times. Schools are no more safe, yet government at all levels continues to treat the problem of insecurity with kid gloves. I want the problem of kidnapping addressed in schools.
Government should come out with seminars and other methods to teach students on how to stay safe and secured in the hands of kidnappers. These would enable them walk freely without fear of being kidnapped. Government should also promulgate laws that will stipulate death penalty for kidnappers.
Also, government should give priority attention to displaced children from the north that has been deprived qualitative education, to bridge the wide education gap between the region and the south. New methods should be introduced to ensure they return to school to fulfill their dreams. Oluwatosin Abolarin, S.S.S 3A, Methodist High School, Arigbajo, Ogun State.
We Need Adequate Security In Schools IT pains to hear about displaced students in the north and attack on schools, with no solution in sight. Students in Nigeria are no longer safe like their colleagues in other countries. It is unfortunate that we now study in an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, causing us psychological trauma.
My request to government is to ensure that adequate security is provided in schools to allow displaced children return to school. I am also appealing to government to address the rising cases of kidnapping of school children, to keep us safe as future leaders of Nigeria. Emmanuella Romanus, J.S.S, Brainfield Schools, Abule-Egba, Lagos State.
There should be regular orientation on how students can stay safe THE major problem facing the country today is insecurity, which has snowballed into kidnapping of students. My request to government is to ensure that culprits are prosecuted to serve as deterrent to others.
Government should also ensure that schools provide adequate security for students, while there should be regular orientation on how students can stay safe from kidnappers.
Government should also address learning disruptions in some northern states, relocate displaced persons and make learning continues. Government should find a way to ensure that schools in the north are opened to students. Olabanji Areola, J.S.S 2, Brainfield Schools, Abule-Egba, Lagos State.
There should be proper counseling, programmes for students on security. AS we mark this year’s Children’s Day, I want government to address the issue of insecurity, especially in schools. Parents are now worried because kidnappers are targeting schools. I want government to create awareness, organise programmes in schools on how children can be security conscious, especially when in school. Schools should also provide adequate security to safeguard their students. Also, government should look into the plight of displaced students in the north, who have left their schools for years. New methods of studying should be introduced like online classes. Government should provide security gadgets in schools in the region; proper counseling and programmes should also be introduced to help our psyche. Grace Ozokolie, Chrismeon International College, Ekoro, Abule-Egba, Lagos State.
Government should set up online learning for displaced students IN commemoration of this year’s Children’s Day, I am appealing to government to address the issue of kidnapping in schools. Steps should be taken to ensure that kidnappers are brought to book. Government should also work closely with schools by providing necessary support in terms of security to keep the students safe at all times.
Online teaching method for displaced children in the north should be set up to enable learning resume in the region. And to encourage those who have lost interest in education, scholarship can be introduced.
Sarah Ogunyankinnu, Chrismeon International College, Ekoro, Abule-Egba, Lagos State.
Prof. T. G. SitharamBy Prof. T. G. Sitharam
Afro-Global Education Deliveries 