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Researchers at the Vita Laboratories in Helsinki have discovered a new coronavirus variant dubbed Fin-796H, which displayed mutations formerly discovered in the British and South African in a “unique” combination. The “newly-discovered variant differs from expectations in that it does...

Im Zusammenhang mit EU-Kohäsionspolitik kann Sachsen besonders viele Erfolgsgeschichten vorweisen. Das liegt nicht zuletzt an dem innovativen Ansatz der Stadtentwicklung, der im Freistaat vorangetrieben wird. Die drittgrößte Stadt des Bundeslandes, Chemnitz, arbeitet schon lange nach diesem Leitbild.  Wenn man an...

Das Oberhaus des polnischen Parlaments hat am Donnerstag die Kandidatur des stellvertretenden Außenministers Piotr Wawrzyk für den Posten des Menschenrechtskommissars abgelehnt.

Une femme kenyane qui a épousé un Australien handicapé a raconté à la BBC comment les gens la traitaient de profiteuse après que des photos de leur mariage aient été diffusées en ligne.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson will urge G7 leaders to support a treaty on pandemic preparedness through the World Health Organisation at a virtual summit on Friday. Johnson is also expected to urge wealthy countries to back a new 100-day...

Slovakia has dumped a plan to negotiate with Russia to buy the Sputnik V vaccine, after a junior coalition partner vetoed buying a product which has not been registered by the European Medicines Agency, Prime Minister Igor Matovič said.

A year after the racist terrorist attack in Hanau took the lives of nine people of colour, as well as the shooter and his mother, some in Germany are reflecting on efforts to address racism and right-wing extremism in the...

La réconciliation annoncée par les autorités burkinabé, qui ont mis en place un super ministère pour se charger de la question, est diversement appréciée au sein de la classe politique.

Pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Biontech had requested EU €54.08 per vaccine dose last June, which was then lowered though negotiations to €15.50 per dose. According to research published on Thursday by NDR, WDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung, the companies also stated in the offer...

Dans son discours adressé à la Nation, le Président Abdelmadjid Tebboune a annoncé la grâce présidentielle pour 30 détenus du Hirak. Le journaliste Khaled Drareni ferait partie de cette liste des détenus graciés par Abdelmadjid Tebboune ainsi que plusieurs autres détenus politiques. Dans un geste d’apaisement à l’adresse du mouvement de contestation populaire, le Président […]

L’article Algérie : Tebboune gracie plusieurs détenus du Hirak et… Khaled Drareni ? est apparu en premier sur Afrik.com.

Neither a public application nor any other formal selection procedure preceded the nomination of Zoltán Csehi as the country’s new member of the European Court of Justice by Hungarian Justice Minister Judit Varga. According to Telex sources, Csehi had been a...

Jeudi (18 février), le European Policy Centre a fait le point sur l’état de la cohésion européenne un an après le début de la pandémie du Covid-19.

Közel egymillió ember nem jut tiszta és biztonságos ivóvízhez Louisiana államban, mert a téli viharok és a rekordalacsony hőmérséklet súlyos károkat okozott a vízközműhálózatok infrastruktúrájában - közölte csütörtökön John Bel Edwards, az Egyesült Államok déli részén fekvő tagállam kormányzója.

95 des 111 grandes entreprises cotées en bourse étudiées (86 %) ne parviennent pas à s'aligner sur une trajectoire de 2 °C ou moins d'ici 2050.

Remote teaching in Bangladesh. Credit: BRAC

By Safiqul Islam
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Feb 19 2021 (IPS)

School closings and the varied impacts of remote learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic are a global challenge. Educators worldwide have been struggling to meet contemporary educational standards in this environment. But this challenge is followed by yet another: how to assess the readiness of students to resume in-school education when schools open. At BRAC, the international nongovernmental organization that operates 25,000 schools in Bangladesh, serving 750,000 students, we have developed an approach that could be helpful.

Schools in Bangladesh have been closed since March 2020, with remote education taking their place. That poses a very practical problem. When students return, likely in the first quarter of 2021, they will have had greatly varied educational experiences.

That variety of experiences will be evident globally, not only because approaches to remote teaching are so varied, but because student access to it is. In many parts of the world, Internet access is limited; that is as true in the United States as it is in Bangladesh. Rural areas have less access than urban areas. Wealthier areas, and wealthy families, have more access than poorer ones. Smaller families have fewer family members to share the home computer than larger ones.

There are also differences specific to the student and family; some students respond well to remote learning; others do not. Some have parents who are better able to help them than others. Some are in settings that are more conducive to study than others. Some deal with stress and uncertainty better than others. This is universal.

In Bangladesh, BRAC has addressed these varied circumstances by drawing on television, radio, and telephones to create new educational platforms and curricula for use depending on local conditions. Those formats enhance both the potential and the reality of remote learning, but of course cannot completely erase the differences in student experience.

A feature phone brings remote learning home. Credit: BRAC

The challenge of student readiness in Bangladesh can be understood simply through considering the case of a new third-grader. If that student had been struggling academically two years ago – in first grade – and had received just two months of in-school education in second grade (before schools closed in March), he or she could be quite unprepared for third grade in 2021. Even though that student would basically still be at second grade level, he or she will resume in-school education in third grade, because the Government of Bangladesh has instituted automatic promotions for all students when schools reopen.

Contrastingly, a student who thrived in first grade and was well served by remote learning in second grade could be fully ready for third grade.

The challenge for schools and teachers is, therefore, to assess each student and create remedial opportunities, so students are properly prepared to succeed. But that requires a new approach. Never before have schools welcomed students while having so little understanding of what the students learned the year before.

When BRAC schools resume, we will not start with normal classes. We will instead assess the diverse competencies of the students and provide remedial support as needed, so that within six months, we will have everyone back at grade level.

In the assessment phase, we will have three groups and six sub-groups, in order to address sufficiently the range of needs. The three groups – green, yellow, and red – will designate those students who are ready for the new grade, those who had not achieved enough in the previous grade, and those who are a year behind that. The sub-groups allow for further variation.

Those who are ready for the new grade will proceed at grade level, while those who are not will receive remedial support in accordance with their group and sub-group. Those in the green group will also serve as mentors, providing peer support to those who are not yet as advanced.

In order to have fewer students in classrooms until the pandemic ends, students in first grade will have their classwork indoors, while students in second and third grades will have a mix of indoor and outdoor classes. Students in fourth and fifth grades will have assignments that require them to pursue projects outside. A project to encourage creativity, inquisitiveness, and analysis might, for instance, have them studying trees and preparing presentations on them.

This approach will best serve all students by ensuring that they start at a level appropriate to their readiness and by enabling those who need to catch up to do so as quickly as possible. The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged schools as never before, and the prolonged combination of uncertainty, fear and loss has challenged students as never before. Globally, we must ensure that it does not rob students of the educational attainment that they so greatly deserve.

The author is Director of Education for BRAC, based in Bangladesh.

 

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The post Overcoming the Learning Divide: Assessing What Students Missed During School Closings for COVID-19 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

At present, it is impossible to predict with confidence who will be the winner of the Hungarian parliamentary elections in 2022, writes Szabolcs Dull.

Mario Draghi hat die Vertrauensabstimmungen im italienischen Parlament deutlich gewonnen, nun kann er als neuer Regierungschef loslegen. Was treibt den Ex-EZB-Chef, der Italien reformieren will?

Die neue estnische Regierung hat sich bereit erklärt, den Grenzstreit mit Russland formell zu lösen.

The European Union's migration commissioner Ylva Johansson urged Bosnia on Thursday (18 February) to manage migration properly and share the burden of its migrant crisis equally across the country if it is to stay on course for EU membership.

Only 14% of publicly listed companies in the steel, cement, aluminum, paper and mining sector are on track to meet the Paris Agreement’s 2°C climate target, according to a report by the Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI), a global investor group supported by the UN. Still, some European companies offer hope, EURACTIV Germany reports.