Stories about Education from June, 2008
Algeria: Muslims and Education
Muslims in Europe and America prefer to study engineering, biology, business, pre-medical/pre-dental, and other such majors while Art, English, art history, political science, and general studies are frowned upon or even viewed contemptuously, says Algerian blogger Nouri.
Bahamas: At the Crossroads
Rick Lowe at Weblog Bahamas says that his country is at the crossroads.
Iran: Victory for students
Azarmehr reports that all the demands made by the Teacher Training Students were met by the university administration after the students at this college went on hunger strike for 11 days. 120 students had taken part in the hunger strike.
China: Best Seller
Ruan Yifeng summarizes a local magazine's special feature on the culture of reading in China, with some statistic information on best selling books [zh].
Bahamas: Somewhere Over The Rainbow
“The conversation about the rights of gays and lesbians in this country is stuck in a Christian fundamentalist scriptural war that cannot see gays and lesbians, bisexuals or transgender people as integral to the wide spectrum of human existence”: The Gaulin Wife writes a stirring tribute to slain AIDS activist...
Jamaica: Living with HIV
Geoffrey Philp highlights the reporting of poet Kwame Dawes, who has been examining the HIV/AIDS crisis in Jamaica, while DigiActive says that “the Jamaican government went as far as preventing its country’s leading gay rights group from even attending the (UN AIDS) New York meeting”.
Iraq: University Warning to Female Students
Iraqi blogger Abbas Hawazin comments on a ruling by an Iraqi university which had issued a warning to female students not to dress up provocatively.
Saudi Arabia: The Hijab and France
France banned students in its schools from wearing any religious symbols and dress denoting religious affiliations - including the Islamic headscarf or the Hijab for women - in 2004. Saudi woman are now protesting against the ruling, say bloggers.
China: Self-Victimization Ideology
The former Singapore president Lee Kuan Yew recently suggested that when China's middle class grows in size, the educated people would stop perceiving themselves as victims of the West. Xueyong pointed out that in the recent Olympic torch relay protest, the overseas Chinese students continued the East vs. West dichotomy...
China: Why School Crumbled?
Hu Yong said that the Chinese government should answer to the question why schools were crumbled in the earthquake zone. The blogger insisted that if the truth was buried, China would have no future [zh].
China: Blogger suggests temperance, accused of brown-nosing
Cultural commentator Yu Qiuyu has written a post to his blog offering some suggestions to angry parents of children who died in the thousands of school buildings which collapsed in the earthquake, many of whom are now being forcibly prevented from both mourning and denied legal recourse by courts. Roland...
Poland: Bilingualism
Scatts writes at Polandian about raising a child in “two languages and two cultures” – Polish and English.
China: Earthquake Witness from Beichuan
Qiang-shan You-ke from my1510 writes in detail what had happened in Beichuan secondary school after the earthquake. The writer lost his wife on that date and witnessed the deaths of hundreds of teachers and students. He believes that 80% of the deaths were result of human mistake [zh].
Algeria: Mesh Blog
“Harvard’s MESH blog is an important resource for scholars and for students of the Near and Middle East. It is nevertheless heavily biased, particularly on Levantine affairs, and its discussion of the Maghreb is grossly underdeveloped,” writes Algerian Nouri.
Ukraine: Saying Goodbye to School
Last Friday, Kyiv schoolkids celebrated the end of classes this year – and posed for The Turkish Invasion.
Iran: Student protest and hunger strike
According to [Fa]Ehterame Azadi,an Iranian blogger, more than 50 students of Tarbiat Molem University in Tehran have started hunger strike to protest against the bad condition of their university.
Estonia: ‘Zavood’ Pub in Tartu
AnTyx writes, according to one reader, on “a local issue with international appeal”: Zavood, “the most legendary of Tartu booze houses.”
U.S.A.: Arthur Mkoyan's Dream Act
Talk Turkey comments on the case of an immigrant from Armenia who has been in the United States since the age of two. The valedictorian at his high school in Fresno, Arthur Mkoyan will be deported after he graduates. The blog criticizes Congress for not passing the Dream Act which...
Colombia: Children in Caldas to Receive XO Laptops
Greg Yohn of OLPC News writes about the latest announcement by the governor of the Colombian region of Caldas that 65,000 children will be receiving the XO laptops.
Venezuela: Gaining Admission to Public Universities
There is a proposal to change the current public university admissions system in Venezuela. The government seeks to eliminate the admissions test in favor of something with a social value by recognizing the disparity between public and private secondary schools. Local bloggers wonder how the changes might affect the perception of a university diploma, but also about what these tests actually measure. The policy has yet to be placed in effect, but the debate continues.
India: Spelling Bee in the US
The Imagined Universe muses about the Indian-American obsession with the spelling bee in the US.
