In a bid to improve technical education in the State, the Department of Employment, Technical Education and Training (DoET&T) has drawn up an ambitious plan of  Rs  500 crore for 2014-15.

The plan includes infrastructure development of polytechnics and setting up more universities, industrial training, employment exchanges and other institutions. Sources said part of the funds will be provided for the programme in 2014-15 budget.

According to sources, as part of the infrastructure development of the educational institutions, Rs  200 crore will be provided during 2014-15. While Rs 50 crore each will be provided to the Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT) and Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology (VSSUT), ` 100 crore will be earmarked for all the five Government engineering colleges.

Similarly, in order to develop the  infrastructure of polytechnics, Rs  138 crore will be spent as the demand for such institutions is on the rise. Infrastructure of the Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) will be strengthened with utilisation of Rs  148 crore.

The State Government has decided to set up 24 more ITIs in the State besides the existing 29.

While there are 12,352 seats in 29 Government run colleges, it will go up to 23,400 with inclusion of these new institutions.

The State Government is harping on improvement of infrastructure and introduction of new and innovative subjects in these ITIs so that more students are attracted to the institutions.

Hong Kong is lagging behind on inclusive education, while most advanced economies are moving ahead. Many students with special educational needs are not getting the support they require and deserve.

Last year, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child issued its concluding observations following China's combined reports under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Not surprisingly, the committee expressed its deep concern over children with disabilities in Hong Kong. It urged the government to "promptly identify and remove all the barriers, including physical, that prevent students with disabilities from entering and staying in the mainstream system … and reallocate resources from the special education system to promote the inclusive education in mainstream schools".

The benefits of inclusive education are well documented, not least because it imparts to all children the importance of empathy and acceptance, while enabling those with disabilities to form a positive sense of self. An inclusive classroom exposes children to communication with different groups, which trains them in multiple modes of expression and understanding. These are important skills in this age of globalisation, where cross-cultural competence is vital.

In short, with the right support, children learn better together. In adulthood, they will be more likely to embrace diversity, respect differences and fight for equality, not only for themselves but also for others. This is the foundation we need to foster a truly inclusive society.

Yet, despite these obvious gains, support measures to promote inclusive education remain woefully inadequate in this city. Indeed, the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) has long voiced our concern that students with disabilities should have access to equal learning opportunities through inclusive education.

Our study on this issue in 2012 found that the system is far from satisfactory. Nearly half the teachers had not received any training in this area, and over 60 per cent of principals felt that schools do not receive enough government resources to implement inclusive education. Given the current situation, this will be one of our priority areas over the next few years.

More must be done. Access to quality education for all is fundamental to Hong Kong's competitiveness. Our children who are not able to adapt to the mainstream system should be given support according to their individual needs. Otherwise, the barriers they face will affect their ability to participate in society later in life, including in higher education and employment.

For students with learning disabilities, this must begin with early assessment, which specialists and professionals agree is crucial to provide timely intervention.

We recommend that assessments should be taken at the pre-school level, to enable early identification of a child's specific requirements, which is why access to early childhood education is so vital, particularly for children with special learning needs.

A detailed assessment report should be made available to the parents, school and relevant experts. Parents and carers can use the information to better understand the child's developmental needs and equip themselves to address such needs at home, as well as share their experiences and work closely with professionals on holistic support measures and strategies.

The report can also help to ensure a seamless transition between pre-school, kindergarten and primary school, whereby children with special educational needs can continue to receive appropriate services and assistance. Above all, any education policy should take the diverse needs of students into consideration.

Another critical component of inclusive education is the availability of educational psychologists, occupational and speech therapists, and counselling professionals to support the progress of students with special learning needs in mainstream schools.

In Hong Kong, there remains a manpower shortage in this area, which must be promptly addressed by the Education Bureau, higher learning institutions and other relevant professional bodies.

The success of integrated education also depends on teachers' attitude and training. Unfortunately, misconceptions and a lack of understanding on this front remain common. The EOC's study found that more than half of the surveyed principals, teachers and professionals believe that excluding students with special learning needs from regular classes was not discriminatory. Such views only serve as additional obstacles to ensuring that all children can access quality education.

To encourage teachers to embrace inclusive education, they must be provided with appropriate training. Pre-service and in-service teacher training programmes in tertiary institutions should include special education and inclusive education as core components. A monitoring process and appropriate audit are also necessary to ensure such training is relevant for real-life application.

Teachers and principals should also be educated on equal opportunity principles. In particular, the benefits of inclusive education should be emphasised and clearly communicated to parents, in order to break down stereotypes and clarify misunderstandings.

Teachers and principals must take the lead to implement a caring and safe campus for all students regardless of their disability.

Our recent meetings with the leaders of the city's tertiary educational institutes showed there is both acceptance and support to embrace an inclusive policy for tertiary education.

All institutes are ready to admit students with special needs, and are willing to share expertise and experiences in making university life accessible to students who need further assistance.

As a community, we must come together to build a truly inclusive education system, with the recognition that every child, given the appropriate support and care based on their individual needs, can reach their full potential and achieve their dreams.

We must acknowledge that many of the barriers standing in our way are not merely physical, but also social and attitudinal. Undoubtedly, they are within our power to change. What we need is commitment. Our children deserve the chance to learn together and from each other. As role models, we must enable them to access these opportunities.

Dr York Chow Yat-ngok is chairman of the Equal Opportunities Commission

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as The inclusive way

Education officials in Papua’s Jayapura district have set a target of ensuring that all children enrolled in the sixth and ninth grades this year finish primary school or junior high school, in a province where up to a quarter of school-aged children don’t have access to education.

Alpius Toam, the head of the Jayapura Education Office, said on Saturday that the move was part of efforts to improve the quality of education in the district.

Papua province has one of the lowest school attendance rates in the country, with up to 15 percent of primary school-aged children and 25 percent of junior high school-aged children not going to school, according to the Central Statistics Agency (BPS). The figures were from 2012, the latest year for which statistics are available.

Alpius attributed the higher rate of attendance in junior high school on the large number of students dropping out because the poor quality of education they received at primary school left them unable to cope beyond sixth grade.

“We need to improve [the school system] so that a student can get a good education in primary school and continue on to junior high school with no problems,” he said as quoted by state news agency Antara.

He added his office had received multiple reports of students struggling in junior high school because they could barely read or write.

“This puts extra pressure on the educators and eventually affects the education process for all students, all because some students aren’t get a proper education in primary school,” Alpius said.

He added the push to get students to complete junior high school was also part of a campaign by the Education Ministry to ensure that all Indonesians finish at least the ninth grade.

Hardship posting

Part of the ministry’s wider efforts to improve the quality of education nationwide will focus on the introduction this year of a program in which candidate teachers must spend a year teaching in regions such as Papua and other underdeveloped or remote areas, in order to qualify for civil servant status.

Supriadi Rustad, the Education Ministry’s director responsible for teacher training, said last month that those that completed the program would get a “bachelor’s degree in teaching in frontier, outlying and underdeveloped regions,” or SM3T.

He said the program was initially conceived in 2011 to induce university graduates looking to become teachers to take a posting in so-called hardship areas, and although participants would get civil servant status at the end of their period, it was not at the time a requirement for attaining such status.

Among the inducements for getting young people to teach in remote areas is higher pay than in urban or developed areas.

“Since the advent of the SM3T program, regions that have long had a shortage of teachers because of their isolation are now seeing a gradual but definite increase in the quality of education,” Supriadi said.

“That’s why we’ve now decided to make this program mandatory for all candidate teachers.”

Civil servant status for teachers typically entitles the holder to a higher salary than non-tenure teachers, a range of benefits, and a guaranteed pension for life upon retirement.

Supriadi said some 2,400 people entered the SM3T program when it first rolled out in 2011. The following year, there were 2,600 new candidates, and last year the number of new entrants was up to 2,800.

All those taking part were graduates of the 12 nationwide campuses of the Indonesian Teaching Academy (LPTK).

Supriadi said some of the provinces where the candidate teachers were assigned included Papua, West Papua, East Nusa Tenggara, Aceh, Riau Islands and East Kalimantan.

“In Papua specifically, they were assigned to teach in the hinterland regions of Asmat, Paniai and Yahukimo,” he said.

One year of the new curriculum

In addition to the SM3T program, this year will also mark the completion of the first year of a controversial new curriculum introduced last year by the Education Ministry for primary schools.

The curriculum emphasizes a shift toward “softer” subjects like Islamic studies, civics and culture, at the expense of English, computers and science in some schools, which has been a focal point of critics, who argue that it risks churning out a generation of young people less capable than previous generations of competing on the global level.

The ministry, however, counters that the number of subjects that primary school students were learning needed to be distilled down to alleviate the pressure on students, and given a more local spin.

The ministry also says subjects such as English have not been scrapped completely, and that students who wish to study them can still do so after school hours.

For its first year of implementation, fewer than 6,400 out of more than 148,000 primary schools nationwide adopted the new syllabus, with the ministry saying it would take time to train all teachers on the new curriculum.

Mohammad Nuh, the education minister, said last month that his ministry was seeking to train some 1.3 million teachers this year, out of the nearly three million nati

KARACHI: 

The educated in Sindh worry about the education system across the province. They feel that while the biggest chunk of the blame goes to political influences and agendas, everyone needs to be held responsible for the dire situation.

Speakers at a conference titled ‘Education: The Way Forward’ organised by Sindh Association of North America (Sana) at the Pearl Continental Hotel on Saturday critically discussed the educational challenges faced by Sindh.

Despite repeatedly criticising previous governments – both military and democratic- the speakers were quick to point out that teachers, bureaucrats and parents themselves need to take responsibility.

Sukkur Institute of Business Administration director Nisar Ahmed Siddiqui called for a drastic overhaul in school curriculum and criticised the ‘cheating culture’ that plagues students of most colleges.

Senior educationist Fazlullah Qureshi, felt that private organisations need to come forward if the government fails to do anything to improve the education system.

Prominent economist and Balochistan government adviser Kaiser Bengali said that the government needs to revamp the whole education system. “There is no need for 50,000 schools in the province,” he said. “Only 15,000 are enough to provide quality education.” He was also critical of the role that teachers play during elections and called for the Election Commission to address it.

Sana president Jamil Daudi said the organisation wants to help bring about change in the province’s education system.

Government viewpoint

The total education budget for the province is Rs134 billion, revealed Sindh education minister Nisar Ahmed Khuhro. Out of this, Rs121 billion is spent on staff salaries, he added.

“We have nearly 49,000 schools in Sindh while Punjab has around 60,000,” said Khuhro. “However, we also have around 25,000 private schools.” The education minister then went on to talk about what the government is doing in terms of education. “We have established 40 universities in the last 10 years and we are providing free education to children between the ages of five and 16,” claimed Khuhro, before quickly admitting that a lot of work is still required. “Despite all of this, education quality in the province leaves a lot to be desired.”

The minister claimed that some senior teachers are better paid than certain ministers, adding that the system has not improved despite facilitating the teaching staff financially. In order to highlight the dearth of competent teachers, he said that while thousands of candidates applied for the 1,200 vacancies, only 700 passed the written test.

“We need to ensure that political agendas do not influence management of Sindh’s education,” said chief secretary Sajjad Saleem Hotiana. “However, it is important to remember that these influences exist all over the country and not just in Sindh.”

Education secretary Fazlullah Pechuho was also critical of Sindh’s education system. “There are 10 schools in certain areas while there are none in others,” he claimed. “We need to increase our pace in order to achieve the goals that have been set for 2015. Let’s confess that we are all responsible for the current predicament.”

US Consul General

The United States (US) consul general Michael Dodman said that education is the first step towards the development of a country. “To provide support for education in Pakistan is one of US government’s top priorities,” said Dodman during the inaugural session. “Education is vital for economic growth.”

Dodman claimed that many education initiatives are underway and added that 5,000 high school students are being provided English language classes across the country – out of these,1,700 students are from Sindh with a majority of them being from Karachi.

“The key is sustainability,” he felt. “While we hope that US funded programs will make a difference, the effort to create sustainable improvements in the quality of education must come from Pakistan.”

The coming year will witness multiple attempts—in the form of lawsuits, ballot initiatives and state-sponsored legislation—all of which are aimed at removing job protections and democratic rights for teachers. The aim of these initiatives is to punish teachers and students for the crisis of capitalism and funnel ever-greater amounts of public funds meant for public education into the pockets of the ultra-rich.

Billionaire-backed education reform groups, having failed to enshrine antidemocratic teacher dismissal procedures into law using the state legislature, are now seeking approval for two ballot measures which, if passed in the November 2014 election, would lead to mass teacher layoffs and lay the foundation for further public school closings and charter conversions.

The first measure, proposed by the organization EdVoice, makes use of recent teacher sexual abuse scandals to create a two-tier dismissal process for teachers. In a blatant attack on democratic rights, those teachers accused of more egregious types of misconduct would actually be subject to an accelerated dismissal procedure regardless of any actual legal findings or the veracity of the accusations made against them. EdVoice is among a number of pro-charter school organizations operating in California backed by large corporate interests. The group was founded in 2001 by Reed Hastings, founder and CEO of Netflix and also a founding member of Green Dot charter schools, which is among the largest charter school operators in the state. Also active in the organization’s founding were Los Angeles billionaire Eli Broad, former GAP CEO Don Fisher and former state assembly members Ted Lempert and Steve Poizner, the latter of whom mounted an unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in 2010. The group receives significant backing both from the individuals above as well as the Walton Family Foundation.

Bill Lucia, former executive director of the state board of education and current president of EdVoice, made the ballot initiative’s antidemocratic aims explicit in a recent comment to the Sacramento Bee: “As we’ve witnessed over the last two or three legislative cycles, the Legislature has gotten caught up in trying to make the issue of improving the law contingent on treating everyone the same,” he said. According to Lucia, the proposal draws a “bright line about the type of the more egregious version of misconduct.”

The proposal makes clear the antidemocratic character of the “education reform” movement, backed by billionaires and the Democratic Party.

The initiative would allow dismissal hearings involving more severe types of misconduct to be conducted solely by an administrative law judge. It would also make the accused teacher responsible for all legal fees involved with any appeal regardless of outcome. Written charges against teachers could also be continuously amended during the course of the hearing. Complaints, reprimands, punishments and other disciplinary actions would become a permanent part of teachers’ personnel records regardless of their actual validity or length of time passed.

The initiative arrives on the heels of Assembly Bill 375, a similar measure that had passed the state legislature before being vetoed by the governor in late 2013. AB 375 mandated the completion of all dismissal cases within a period of 7 months, would have restricted teachers’ right of appeal to the administrative court itself and would have allowed teachers to be suspended from their positions at any time of year.

Despite the failure of AB 375, the education reform movement was still able to garner significant anti-teacher victories during the course of the year, including the passage of Assembly Bill 449.

AB 449, also known as the California Teacher Accountability Bill, (see“California state legislature passes new attack on teachers” ) punishes school superintendents who do not report teachers who are disciplined or found guilty of misconduct to the state credentialing board within 30 days, which effectively bars them from future work as teachers.

Both of these reactionary bills received full support from the state’s teachers unions.

The California Teachers Association (CTA) issued a press release in 2012 fully supporting the passage of AB 375. It read, in part, “CTA supports streamlining and expediting the dismissal process to keep students safe and safeguard the integrity of the profession.” The union’s press release also brazenly claimed that the bill would “protect the rights of educators.”

As far as AB 449 was concerned, the CTA applauded it as well, claiming it “will go far in ensuring that persons who pose a threat to students will be removed from the classroom and barred from working in any school in the state.” The United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA), representing teachers in the state’s largest school district, also welcomed the bill, as it would, according to UTLA president Warren Fletcher, “ensure district superintendents are held accountable.”

Last month, the UTLA also staged candlelight protests against so-called “teacher jails”—a system in Los Angeles schools which removes teachers facing charges from classrooms at their regular salaries while disciplinary proceedings are underway. Aside from claiming that the teacher jails were a form of “harassment,” the union provided no justification for its decision to launch the protests. Given the protests’ timing, however, one can fairly infer that they’re meant to confuse and disorient membership so that quicker teacher dismissal procedures can be put in place instead.

In addition to the EdVoice proposal, a consulting firm associated with former Washington DC School Chancellor and current head of the anti-teacherStudents First organization Michelle Rhee, is advancing another. This proposal, which also contains teacher dismissal language similar to theEdVoice plan, seeks to remove seniority and teacher tenure as a factor when school districts fire teachers. The measure would base such decisions solely on teacher performance evaluations and student test scores. Students Firstattempted to push a similar measure through the California Legislature in 2012 before that bill died in committee. One of the bill’s champions in the state senate was Ron Calderon, currently the subject of an FBI inquiry into claims that he has accepted more than $88,000 in bribes from hospital executives and film studio heads.

The ballot proposal is in line with the political mission of Students First and other billionaire-backed education reform organizations to end teacher tenure and depress wages.

Should the bill fail to make it onto the November ballot or should voters reject it, other avenues are vigorously being pursued.

One of these is a lawsuit scheduled to be heard in the California Superior Court of Los Angeles County on January 24. Vergara v. California would strike down five provisions of the state’s education code related to teacher dismissal including teacher tenure provisions. The lawsuit is being initiated byStudents Matter, a group created by the education reform movement for the purpose of litigating attacks against teachers and public education.

The law firm of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, which represents Students Matter, claims the continued presence of underperforming teachers in public schools represents a violation of equal educational opportunities for children as individual teacher effectiveness is considered to be the only significant factor in determining students’ educational and career outcomes.

Entirely absent from the proposals of EdVoice, Students First, and Students Matter, is any mention of billions in cuts to public education, increased class sizes and massive financial hardship for working-class students and families making a quality education nearly unrealizable for all but the children of the very wealthy.

The idea that these initiatives are being launched out of concern for children is a colossal and absurd fraud. Private schools and charters stand to gain billions from new legislation passed at the state and federal level. The Obama Administration’s Race to Top Initiative along with its newly created “Economic Promise Zones” are designed to pump billions of dollars into school districts which implement such anti-teacher initiatives providing a financial bonanza for charter schools in those areas.

Similarly, the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) of state Governor Jerry Brown is poised to bring in nearly $2 billion in the next fiscal year into economically depressed school districts with little state oversight over how the money is being spent. The implementation of the LCFF is based around the same anti-teacher agenda as promoted by the education reform groups. It will mean a full-scale assault against teacher and school staff salaries. For all of its railing against ineffective teachers, the education reform movement and its backers in the Democratic Party rarely, if ever, discuss plans to train and hire effective teachers as an alternative.

Teachers have no friends within the Democratic Party and their own trade unions are making every effort to implement and buttress the political attacks against them. They must organize completely independently of the Democrats and the unions and organize with other sections of the working class both in the United States and internationally to break the stranglehold of profit over education. This is the only way forward for teachers and student youth.

The argument about what is adequate and what is equitable has been waged since the state first gave serious scrutiny to the inequalities in the cost of educating children in 1949, under the Gilmer-Aikin Law. At the time, the law was an attempt to address the dire straits schools were in following the Depression and World War II. The law's chief architect, state Sen. A.M. Aikin Jr., once said of his days as a legislator, "I came here thinking a child ought to get an equal educational opportunity whether he was born in the middle of an oil field or in the middle of a cotton field."

Despite considerable progress in the past 50 years, Aikin's vision has not been fully realized. And it will not be as long as the quality of a child's education and available resources is determined by the ZIP code in which they happen to be born.

At one point, the state's share of public education funding was 87 percent. Today, it is a paltry 44 percent. This is simply unacceptable. As a state, we must invest in public education. It would be misguided to suggest that, because fewer tests are given, the curriculum will somehow become less rigorous.

The notion of giving all children access to the best resources is even more critical, given the state's changing demographics. For more than a decade now, urban school district student populations have been largely made up of minorities. A few years ago, that demographic shift became the reality in Texas public schools as a whole: Ethnic minorities have become the majority.

Conversely, it is those same minority students who all too often are taught by the least experienced teachers and have much less access to technology and other advances necessary to prepare them for the careers of tomorrow.

Texas needs to find a long-term, reliable solution to public school funding. The time for management by crisis - placing Band-Aids on problems to buy a few years between lawsuits - has long since passed.

Texas can do better, and it's time we did.

When the Texas Legislature cut $5.4 billion from school coffers in 2011, school districts and other interested parties filed suit claiming that, as a result of the cuts, the state is failing to live up to its constitutional obligation to provide an adequate public education to all students.

After several weeks of arguments, state District Judge John Dietz agreed. In a ruling from the bench in February, Dietz determined that the Texas school finance system is unconstitutional, but he did not make a formal, final ruling.

Since then, the 83rd Texas Legislature restored $3.4 billion of those funds. And during that same session, lawmakers passed legislation greatly reducing the number of end-of-course exams required in high school. Beginning Jan. 21, Dietz will hear from all sides regarding the impact of restoring those funds.

You can expect the state to argue that because testing requirements have been loosened, educational standards have been lowered, and thus the current funding level is adequate. Nothing is further from the truth.

If we are to prepare students for college and the workforce, academic rigor must be increased.

Texas ranks in the lower 20th percentile among all states in per-pupil spending for public education. Some say Texas ranks 49th, others claim it's closer to 40th. Either way, one could argue that even before the 2011 cuts, schools did not have the sufficient funding necessary to prepare students for college and careers in a highly technological age.