🎓 Higher Education Future | 👨‍💻 AI Challenges | 📱 Mobile Phones Ban & More

SmartEdu News 2024-02-29

🇺🇸 U.S. EDUCATION

AI Is Common Thread Through the Big Challenges Schools Are Facing, New Report Says

For the third year in a row, recruiting and retaining staff is the top hurdle hindering districts’ ability “to deliver extraordinary student outcomes,” concludes a new report from the nonprofit Consortium for School Networking.

The Growing Discontent With American Education

There is a growing discontent with American education. You can sense it swelling like a big wave, evidenced in a mix of troubling stats and trends from waning public perceptions of education to significant declines in enrollment and attendance. Students aren’t just talking about their discontent with education but walking it, too.

California’s Push for Ethnic Studies Runs Into the Israel-Hamas War

The state’s high school students will be required to take the subject, but some object to how the discipline addresses the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

California has grand ambitions for ethnic studies. By 2025, the state’s public high schools — about 1,600 of them — must teach the subject. By 2030, students won’t be able to graduate high school without it.

Higher Education Faces A More Fragile And Contested Future

What is higher education? In a world of ever-emerging difference, the core has scarcely changed in 3,000 years, across almost every variation of time, place and culture: the cultural formation of persons.

The methods of person formation have also been largely constant. The self-forming student is immersed in knowledge, guided by teachers. Everywhere the same technologies have been used: knowledge expressed in texts, on paper and now on screen, classroom organisation, educational assessment, student selection by examination, and certification.

🌎 INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION

New Legal Duty on School Staff To Report Child Sexual Abuse

Teachers will be legally required to report child sexual abuse if they know about it – or face sanctions such as being banned from the profession.

The new requirement will make mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse apply to anyone working in regulated activity relating to children in England – which suggests it would apply to all school staff. However a list has not yet been published.

Government Launches Crackdown on Mobile Phones in Schools

Mobile phones are set to be prohibited in schools across England as part of the government’s plan to minimise disruption and improve behaviour in classrooms.

Poland to Promote New Health Education Programme in Schools

Polish schools expect to introduce a long-awaited health education programme, aimed at addressing public health concerns and promoting healthy lifestyles among children.

On 25 January, Bartłomiej Chmielowiec, the Patient Ombudsman, appealed to the Ministry of National Education urging consideration for the inclusion of a new subject called “Health Knowledge” in the curriculum. Just six days later, Minister of Health, Izabela Leszczyna, announced that efforts are underway to develop a health education programme for schools.

Shanghai to Set Up Universities with Germany, UK

Shanghai's education authorities have announced an annual work plan that includes plans for two new Sino-foreign universities.

These are part of the city's initiatives to promote global education cooperation and exchanges.

The Shanghai Education Commission has signed agreements with German and British universities to set up the Sino-German University of Science and Technology and the Sino-British Arts Institute.