Education World

Archive for July, 2010

The Chinese government will offer greater financial support to education for ethnic minority groups in the next decade, says a national education plan released Thursday.

The Outline of China’s National Plan for Medium and Long-term Education Reform and Development (2010-2020) says allocation of public educational resources shall favor minority-inhabited areas.

“Speeding up educational development for ethnic minority groups is of far-reaching importance for promoting socioeconomic development among the people and in the areas inhabited by them, and for enhancing unity between people of different ethnic backgrounds,” the outline says.

Efforts shall be made to promote coordinated development of all kinds of education at all levels in minority-inhabited areas, it says.

Border counties and impoverished counties in ethnic autonomous areas shall be supported to meet government standards for the construction of school buildings for compulsory education, with special efforts devoted to building boarding schools, it says.

Development in senior middle school education in the minority-inhabited areas shall be speeded up. Support shall also be granted to areas with poor education in a bid to renovate, expand or build senior middle schools, it adds.

No effort shall be spared to expand vocational education in minority-inhabited areas, and more support shall be granted to secondary vocational education in these areas, according to the outline.

And more support shall be granted to educational development for ethnic minorities with small populations, it says.

Efforts shall also be made to advance bilingual teaching, open Chinese language classes in every school, and popularize the national common language and writing system.

However, minority groups’ right to be educated in their native languages shall also be respected and ensured, it says.

Schools in minority-inhabited areas shall get more help from their counterparts in other parts of the country under a “pairing-assistance” program, it says

The education for ethnic minority groups has seen marked progress in recent years, it says.

Thousands of children in the Hamas- ruled Gaza Strip flew simultaneously thousands of kites, entering the Guinness Book of Records as they succeeded to fly the biggest number of kites in one place.

The event was organized by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in an attempt to provide the children of the impoverished territory with some solace and entertainment on the summer holiday.

The Guinness organization did not assign an arbitrator to the even where colorful hand-made kites were flown from a former Jewish settlement in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahiya.

“The kids succeeded in flying 7202 paper kites that they made themselves,” UNRWA’s chief in Gaza, John Ging told a press conference in the location of the event.

In July 2009, thousands of Gaza kids managed to fly 3200 kites in the same location. This year’s record is the highest in the world.

“I’m very proud of these kids,” Ging added. “They need to live like the other kids of the world.”

The UNRWA announced last week that more than 7,000 Palestinian children to enter the Guinness Book of World Records as they, at the same time, dribbled basket balls for five minutes.

The event was organized in the destroyed airport near Rafah City, south of the Gaza Strip.

Breaking world records is part of the UNRWA’s summer games programs that serve at least 250,000 children from Gaza.

UNRWA is a UN body that provides Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan with health care, education and food supplies.

The kites carried slogans calling for lifting the siege of the Gaza Strip as symbolic expression of the kids feelings to live under such conditions.

The Gaza Strip has been placed under tight blockade since the Islamic Hamas movement, one of Israel’s bitter enemies, grabbed hold of the territory violently in 2007.

Mexico and China have great potential to expand the scope of cooperation, Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa said Wednesday.

After rapid growth of bilateral ties over recent years, plenty of room remains for the two countries to get closer, she told Xinhua on Wednesday in an interview ahead of the fourth meeting of the Mexico-China Permanent Binational Commission.

At the meeting, to be held here Thursday and Friday, the two countries will be able to structure a work program for the period 2011-2015, a guide for the development of bilateral ties, said Espinosa, who will jointly preside over the meeting with her Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi.

The program is aimed at deepening political dialogue on a range of topics, including climate change, financial architecture and reform of international financial institutions, and thus creating a stronger voice for developing countries, she said.

Meanwhile, Mexico hopes to expand cooperation with China in education, culture, science and technology and other areas, and to increase trade between the two countries, she added.

“The truth is that there is a very strong trade flow from China to Mexico, because China is our second commercial partner. We would like at the same time to see more presence of the Mexican exports in the Chinese market,” Espinosa said.

“We already have some products in that market, but we think that we also can contribute to the Chinese consumer with products of high quality at competitive prices.”

Mexico also welcomes more Chinese investors, said the foreign minister, noting that current Chinese investment in Mexico is “much lower than the potential” of a country like China, which boasts many powerful and internationally competitive enterprises.

The governments of Mozambique and Cape Verde on Wednesday discussed ways of strengthening the relations of cooperation between them.

State radio says that for the purpose, presidents Armando Guebuza of Mozambique and Pedro Pires of Cape Verde met in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, after attending the summit of the African Union.

According to Radio Mozambique, Guebuza and Pires consider the relations of cooperation between the two nations which use Portuguese as their national language as excellent, but stressed the importance of strengthening them.

Radio Mozambique quoted Pires as saying that Mozambique and Cape Verde should work together for the benefit of the two peoples.

According to Pires, Cape Verde would like to cooperate with Mozambique in the fields of education and training.

Currently the two countries, members of the Community of the Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP), cooperate in the fields of defense and security.

It is summer vacation time for most students, but Huang Guiqin, a retired hotel manager in Hubei’s capital city Wuhan, believes this is the best time for young children – along with their parents – to learn, not about knowledge that would ensure them future financial success, but the essential etiquette tips and mannerisms that will help them become better people.

Huang, 52, has been running a series of free local seminars known as “Community Loyalty and Filial Love Classes” for willing parents and their children on Chinese traditions, morals and etiquette over the past three years.

Doubts about Huang’s ability to teach the class have never been in short supply, especially considering that she has no formal education and even speaks Mandarin with a heavy local accent.

But the class has nevertheless grown from less than 50 students in its first year to 200 this summer.

“Residents in the community welcome the class,” Huang said.

A clearly warm-hearted woman, Huang said she has been observing the society during her first years after retirement and found many problems.

“Why do people produce poisonous food? Why do some children kill parents for money? Why do we see increasing juvenile delinquencies?” Huang asked. “Because our society too often define peoples by the money they make, and parents usually value kids only by scores they earn in exams.”

Too narrow a definition for success has allowed a younger generation to ignore the importance of being a good person, such as taking responsibilities, respecting others and loving people, Huang added.

At first, Huang thought of providing Chinese classical teachings to restore understandings of traditional values.

“Classical books such as Dizigui (Standards of being a good child and student) are the best texts for this purpose,” she said, adding that loyalty and filial love are essential to smooth relationships and are pillars for one’s moral development.

Helen Clark, the administrator of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), on Wednesday kicked off a two-day official visit to Brazil, and she is expected to sign a strategic partnership framework agreement between UNDP and the Brazilian government, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky announced here.

“UNDP Chief Helen Clark today begins a two-day official visit to Brazil, meeting with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as well as other government officials,” Nesirky said at a daily news briefing.

“During her visit, she will also sign a strategic partnership framework agreement between UNDP and the Brazilian government,” the spokesman said. “South-South cooperation initiatives and continued action for achievement of the Millennium Development Goals are among the top priorities for the agreement.”

The United Nations is expected to host a summit in September to review the progress and difficulties in the global efforts to reach the Millennium Development Goals, a series of internationally accepted targets to reduce poverty, boost education and improve gender equality by 2015.

Clark, the former prime minister of New Zealand, became the UNDP administrator in April 2009. She is the first woman to lead the UN agency.

UNDP is the UN global developmental network. It is on the ground in 166 countries, working with them on their own solutions to global and national development challenges.

International donors vowed 1.1. billion U.S. dollars to reconstruct Kyrgyzstan on Tuesday after month’s of deadly ethnic clashes, UN officials said here Tuesday.

The money will be distributed over a period of 30 months.

As poverty being one of the country’s key sources for the outbreak of ethnic clashes, prospects of aid will help preserve an harmonious atmosphere.

Aid allocated to help fund the public sector, economic recovery and build infrastructure this year totals around 600 million U.S. dollars.

Control over the restructuring programs is made possible through a new constitution adopted in a referendum in July. Laws against corruption have been strengthened and “help destroy the schemes of grand larceny of people’s money that were devised by the previous regimes,” said Kyrgyzstans President Roza Otunbayeva.

Kyrgyzstan’s economy is expected to shrink by 5 percent this year, a severe repeal from earlier estimates of a 5.5 percent growth before the uprisings that displaced President Kurmanbek Bakiyev in April.

Clashes between Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbeks in June affected 400, 000 people and expatriated 375,000 people internally or across the border, mostly fleeing to neighboring Uzbekistan. Up to now 75,000 people haven’t returned to Kyrgyzstan due to damaged or destroyed houses, or fear for personal safety.

Small clashes ballooned into devastating violence by ethnic Kyrgyz mobs in Uzbek neighborhoods in Kyrgyzstan’s second-largest city Osh. The violence advanced to Jalal-Abad, north of Osh, and left hundreds of minority Uzbeks dead, reports said.

Major markets and businesses were ravaged, around 2,300 homes were devastated and the south has been deprived of important sources for jobs and development.

The official death record stands currently at 351, but government officials say the actual amount of people who died is much higher,

Both the United States and Russia uphold military bases in Kyrgyzstan.

According to Otunbayeva, around 100 million U.S. dollars are needed to rebuild the economy of Osh, and another 350 million dollars to reconstruct homes in Osh and Jalal-Abad.

As a way to root out corrupt practices, Otunbayeva swifted moves to nationalize a chain of businesses, as a reaction on the April revolt.

“Nationalization was made necessary by exceptional circumstances and the desire to cancel the effects of the illicit acquisition of assets by aggressive takeovers, at below-market prices, and through the use of administrative resources by the deposed President, his family and his entourage,” Otunbayeva said.

The UN’s humanitarian partners on Tuesday also decided to revise the amount required for aid in southern Kyrgyzstan upward to 96 million dollars.

The UN aid will primarily be carried out to education, food security, agriculture, health, protection, community restoration and shelter, says Neal Walker, the United Nations resident and humanitarian coordinator in Kyrgyzstan.

Meanwhile, the spokesperson, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Melissa Fleming, told reporters in Geneva its teams in the hard-hit cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad have “difficulties in accessing basic medical services, and live in conditions without electricity and poor waste management.”

UNHCR counsels the local population on how to restore lost or destroyed personal documents, reconstruct houses and set up emergency shelters. It also assists Kyrgyz authorities to increase their capacity to issue new documents.

Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Taner Yildiz said on Tuesday that the bilateral relations between Turkey and Turkmenistan should be reshaped under the perspective of the highest level cooperation, the semi- official Anatolia news agency reported.

Speaking at the third meeting of Turkey-Turkmenistan Inter- governmental Economic Commission in the Turkish capital Ankara, Yildiz said that further development of Turkey-Turkmenistan relations would make significant contributions to the regional stability.

“We need to make more efforts to diversify and improve our economic and commercial relations as well as our cooperation ties, ” he said.

“Turkey is a powerful country with a well functioning market economy. We have succeeded in ensuring macroeconomic stability as a result of our determined economy policies,” he said.

“We attach great importance to our relations with Turkmenistan which succeeded in increasing its trade volume 55 percent to 10 billion U.S. dollars in the last five years. Turkish contractors have undertaken more than 600 projects in Turkmenistan worth of 17 billion U.S. dollars. Investments with Turkish capital amounted to 1.3 billion U.S. dollars,” he said.

Meanwhile, Deputy Chairperson of the Council of Ministers of Turkmenistan Muhammedow said that they aimed at further increasing trade volume with Turkey.

“Commercial and economic relations between our countries have gained momentum lately. We also want to further develop our cooperation in the areas of energy, agriculture, tourism, education, health and construction. Turkey is our second biggest commercial partner,” he added.

China’s central government spent 137.8 billion yuan (20.3 billion U.S. dollars) to boost Tibet’s development from 2006 to 2010, the regional government said Tuesday.

The money funded 188 key projects covering infrastructure building, urban development, environmental protection and cultural conservation, the regional government said in a press release.

Among them were eight new projects including a highway linking Lhasa’s city center with the Gonggar Airport, it said.

The initial plan for Tibet’s development from 2006 to 2010 included 180 projects with a total investment of 109.76 billion yuan, and eight new projects were approved this year to accelerate regional growth.

The plan helped 80 percent of Tibet’s villages to be connected by road, provide safe drinking water for all its 2.76 million people and free education up to high school level for all children.

The funding also helped build power plants and telecommunications facilities in remote villages.

Aimed at improving living conditions in Tibet’s rural areas, the plan funded the building of 15,000 new homes for Tibetan farmers and herders, and 95 village hospitals.

It also financed construction of Tibet’s fourth airport, the Gunsa Airport in the northern Ngari Prefecture that opened on July 1, and a 100,000-kilowatt photovoltaic plant in Ngari.

Though it had reported fast growth over the years, Tibet remains one of China’s most underdeveloped regions due to its tough natural conditions and a weak economy, and relies heavily on investment from the central government.

The central government launched an aid program in Tibet in 1994, under which officials and professionals from other parts of the country are encouraged to work in the plateau region.

In the first half of this year, Tibet’s GDP grew by 11.2 percent from the same period last year to reach 20.32 billion yuan (about 3 billion U.S. dollars).

Padma Choling, chairman of the regional government, said Tibet’s economy had been restored to the level it was before March 2008 when riots disrupted social and economic development.

The UN Iraq envoy and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization ( UNESCO) on Monday strongly condemned the attack on the Baghdad office of pan-Arab news channel Al-Arabiya, which killed six people, with UNESCO calling for efforts to bring those responsible to justice, a UN spokesman said here.

Martin Nesirky, the spokesman for the secretary-general, told reporters that the secretary-general’s special representative for Iraq, Ad Melkert, “condemned in the strongest terms the attacks that targeted the regional satellite channel Al-Arabiya, in which four of its employees and another two bystanders were killed.”

“The attack of this morning shows once more that an immediate response is needed through an effective agreement on the formation of a new government that will be dedicated to the protection of citizens and freedom of the press,” Nesirky quoted Melkert as saying.

A suicide bomber driving a minibus blew himself up in front of the Baghdad office of Al-Arabiya, which is one of the popular Arabic news stations, killing six people, reporters said.

Also on Monday, Irina Bokova, the director-general of UNESCO, ” condemned the attack today. She added that journalists must be able to go about their work freely, without fearing for their lives,” Nesirky said.

“She called on the Iraqi authorities to do everything within their ability to ensure that the perpetrators of this crime are brought to justice,” the spokesman added.