Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
Aristotle
Release Date:
Monday, April 20, 2015
Education Nation 2016 outlines a very progressive course of action that includes revitalizing alternative
learning systems through evidence-based policies and practices that rigorously study the extent and
distribution of the out-of-school youth phenomenon.
According to PBEd president Chito Salazar, we must respond to the challenges of todays rapidly changing
world and we have to continue finding new and better ways to work together.
In this light, Education Nation 2016 enjoins the winning presidential candidate to push for the creation of a
Department of Information Communications Technology, for adequate access to the Internet on a national
scale via public-private partnerships (PPPs), for the development of learning institutions in locations
relatively safe from the impact of natural disasters, and the provision of adequate space to allow these
institutions to perform ad hoc functions such as during calamities and elections.
PBEd strongly recommends that the government expand PPPs toward social services and encourages
Congress to institutionalize collaborative linkages by designating the National Industry-Academe Advisory
Council as the driving entity for the creation and oversight of sectoral skills councils.
Decade upon decade of global evidence shows beyond all doubt that high-performing education systems
with clear learning goals at every stage of the continuum are a key characteristic of a stable society
regardless of a countrys prevailing system of government.
As Eggie Apostol herself remarked in 2009: It is true that we should seek reform at all levels, especially in
the larger political context. But the scenario is by no means linear. As education stakeholders and members
of our respective communitiesor, more accurately, education revolutionariesour collective experience
shows that meaningful education reform happens from the ground up, and is always dynamic.
Education reform is the rallying cry that will bind our communities together. However, the Eggie Apostol
Foundation maintains that our efforts should be characterized by a continuing dedication to learning and
focus less on trying to influence the outcome of the coming political exercise.
We do need an education presidentone who truly understands the nature of education reformbut any
president-elect can shape himself to be one. All he needs to see is that his mandate comes from an Education
Nation.
This was true back then, and it still is true today. Dear presidentiables, your thoughts, if you please.
Butch Hernandez (butchhernandez@gmail.com) is the executive director of the Eggie Apostol Foundation.
his article was written for ShareAmerica by Judith Heumann, the U.S. Department of States special adviser for
international disability rights.
Growing up in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, I wasnt allowed to go to school until fourth grade
because I used a wheelchair and was unable to walk.
But my parents were adamant that I get an education equal to my brothers so I could support myself if I
never married (women were not typically breadwinners back then). They teamed up with other parents to
force some of the local secondary schools to become accessible to students with disabilities.
Later, I battled successfully to be the first person in a wheelchair to teach in New York and taught there for
three years.
Education is a great equalizer: It opens opportunities for girls and boys, for disadvantaged people and
especially for people, like me, who have disabilities.
Hamza Jaka and Amber Buckley-Shaklee, two students with disabilities, worked as interns at the U.S.
Department of State. Their stories indicate that inclusive education is moving forward.
Both Hamza and Amber have always attended integrated schools, as required under laws that didnt exist
when I was in school. Hamza, who graduated from the University of California Berkeley in 2014, was
resented by peers who thought the accommodations he received (such as having a computer for spelling
tests) were unfair. And Amber, a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, had
friends at nearby schools who were told they could come to school, but only if they didnt bring their
wheelchairs.
Parents and students need to know their rights. In the United States there are Parent Information Centers that
help. Also, after years of implementation of our laws, more students with disabilities are graduating from
secondary school and entering work or higher education.
We have come a long way since I had polio in 1949, and we have far to go. Our laws are not always
enforced as they should be. As I work for equality and the advancement of human rights, I want to teach this
lesson: People with disabilities should have the same rights and opportunities as all people. Granted these,
we can and do improve our communities, our country and the world.
This piece is one of three articles on tackling global education, with a special focus on Africa, and is
published in partnership with the Financial Times This is Africa magazine. View the full series here.
When I went to school there were very few classroom desks. Most of us sat on benches and when the
teacher asked us to write; we knelt down on the floor and used the benches we had been sitting on as our
desks.
Later, when I was a teacher myself, most of my students had to endure the same demeaning process, as yet
another generation went without the most basic of infrastructure. How is it, that in the 70 years since I was a
school boy, so little has changed?
An estimated 95 million children in sub-Saharan Africa attend school without the benefit of a classroom
desk. In emerging markets, communities and villages, children continue to experience oppression by not
having the opportunity of receiving a quality basic education. and support. These conditions bear witness to
the persistent imposition of oppression. What message are we sending our children? That they are not
worthy of a basic & simple infrastructure. That they cannot be allowed the freedom to dream of a better way
of learning, and a better way of life? Surely, we cannot accept that that is so! Enough is enough! It is time
for decisive leadership and immediate action.
James D. Wolfensohn, former President of The World Bank said that the only effective means of breaking
the cycle of poverty is through education I agree with him wholeheartedly.
By not acting with immediate, innovative solutions in basic education, we are not offering our children
anything different from what I experienced as a child decades ago, we are merely entrenching poverty and
this is why The Tutudesk Campaign is so important.
Tutudesk was started against all odds, by a dedicated group of young South Africans who recognised that
education is a basic human right and that all children deserved an equal education foundation. This
Campaign represents a form of positive activism, proof that critical thinking, innovation and simple
solutions can provide immediate results to our most pressing social challenges.
This positive activism has become a movement, with more than a million children assisted thus far. Tutudesk
is important to me for the same reasons it should be important to you, because for too long now I have
witnessed the outcomes of education without such solutions. The quality of education offered today, instead
of building confidence, literacy and dignity, often adds little value and holds children back. We are capable
of doing so much more! We must no longer accept a childs educational experience being prejudiced by the
lack of a most basic piece of educational infrastructure a classroom desk so critical to their literacy
development and academic performance.
As an African innovation in answer to a challenge that affects African children disproportionately, Tutudesk
is so much more than mere infrastructure; it offers children a sense of dignity and a message to say: this is
an investment in you. We recognise your potential. Use it, because you are somebody!
All children everywhere deserve a quality education which is one of their fundamental human rights. The
ability to read and write; laying a foundation for a future without poverty , hunger or disease. Our future and
the success of future generations depend on this. I am witness to how a Tutudesk in the hands of a child, is a
significant step towards this future
Are these challenges insurmountable? No. To most people, one child is a drop in the ocean when we know
there are still millions in need. I do not see it that way. I see one child as important as all the others, and
when each child is treated as an individual, and recognised that he or she counts in the world, and then these
drops become a river, a lake, an ocean.
If we each do our little bit of good where we are; those little bits of good put together overwhelm the world
as each of us is indeed made for goodness, and our children for greatness!