The scandal at Mandella was the second bombshell to rock Milwaukee’s 14-year-old parental choice program this school year, spurring local lawmakers to beef up the monitoring of participating private schools. It emerged last year that James A. Mitchell, founder of Alex’s Academies of Excellence, funded by the scheme since 2000, served nearly 10 years in prison for rape and remained on probation for tax fraud.

Milwaukee is considered a model for school choice, which some believe offers deprived urban children their only chance of a decent education, by offering them publicly-funded vouchers to escape inner-city state schools for better-equipped private schools.

But Anneliese Dickman, co-author of a recent study of Milwaukee’s programme, says choice is meaningless unless parents can make informed decisions. Private schools have resisted calls for greater accountability, citing concerns about ceding independence, she says. "People [assume] that if it’s private it has to be better. Some of these schools are good, but others are pretty atrocious," she adds.

Other initiatives in the states of Ohio, Florida, Maine and Vermont have similarly limited supervision. But the scheme approved by Congress for Washington DC will feature tight regulation and standardised testing.

Unprecedented education public debate

President Chirac

Last month, the commission conducting the debate presented its preliminary findings to the education minister, Francois Fillon in a 637-page report, Le Miroir debate. It reflects the concerns and views expressed by more than one million participants — nearly all of them teachers — in 26,000 public meetings, 50,000 e-mails, 1,500 letters, and 300 submissions from students, family and professional associations and organisations. The commission’s website recorded 400,000 hits.

Fillon welcomed "this consultation on a scale and richness without precedent," and has promised to present legislation in parliament in the autumn.

The debate focused on 22 questions covering themes such as the values of republican education; the curriculum and evaluation; whether schools should have greater autonomy; teachers’ relations with pupils and parents; and whether the balance between educating children and adults should be redrawn to include more involvement in the world of work. Each public meeting dealt on average with three questions, and the commission found the issue that stood out was "how to motivate pupils and make them work efficiently," which was raised at about half the local debates. Such public attention is likely to have repercussions for the evaluation system and teacher training.

Claude Thelot, the commission’s chairman, says it indicates that "not only must teachers transmit knowledge, but they must ensure that it is well received and understood." Whereas previously "a teacher was recruited because he was good at maths, now he must show he’s equally good at teaching."

The participants’ second concern, raised at nearly a quarter of the meetings, was "How to fight successfully against violence and incivilities". This was of particular interest to many teachers who reported their feelings of isolation when dealing with the problem, calling into question the role of parents and the educational hierarchy. Other major preoccupations were how schools should adapt to pupil diversity, helping pupils with difficulty and how parents and other partners outside school could contribute to children’s achievement.

The commission will report back in June with recommendations for future changes.

Controversial education reforms repealed

Spain’s newly elected socialist government is to repeal the previous conservative administration’s controversial education reforms, which included plans for compulsory religious classes.

Led by the former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar, the right-of-centre Popular Party (PP), introduced a radical education reform bill entitled Quality for Education, which it planned to introduce in 2004-5. The highly unpopular proposals would have made religious instruction a required part of the curriculum in state schools and increased government funding for private schools.

Jose Luis Zapatero

Although 94 percent of Spaniards are Catholic, a recent survey showed that most people favour the strict separation of church and state. Under the proposed legislation, students at primary and secondary levels would have been required to study religious education for three hours per week, compared with five hours of mathematics.

Now, under the socialist government, religious studies will remain on the curriculum, although only for pupils who choose the subject. Other measures which Zapatero has pledged to overturn include the introduction of "occupational initiation programmes" for less-able over 15s and special classes for gifted pupils.

Call for ban on junk food

British ministers are facing calls to ban vending machines selling junk food from schools after a Times Education Supplement (TES) survey revealed that eight out of 10 parents wanted them removed. Some 78 percent say that schools should not be allowed to provide the machines which are estimated to operate in 95 percent of secondaries and can earn schools up to £15,000 (Rs.12 lakh) a year.

The survey of 736 parents by FDS International, which promoted TES’ Get Active campaign aiming to improve health among the young, is the third in the past six months to find a clear majority of parents opposing vending machines. Last October a poll of 1,000 people for the Guardian put the figure at merely seven out of 10. In November, 81 percent of parents surveyed called for a ban.

The Department for Education and Skills has no plans to ban vending machines. A spokeswoman says that the decision whether to install machines in schools rests with the head teacher and governing body. "We believe that they are best placed to understand the individual needs of their schools and pupils," she says. The government recently published a Healthy Eating Blueprint showing heads how they can contribute to pupils’ well-being, and highlighting a pilot project which tested using the machines to sell healthier products.

Coca Cola has also been persuaded to remove its logos from the 4,000 machines it operates in British schools. However, ministers have so far fought shy of an outright ban. Headteachers argue that the machines generate valuable extra cash for schools, and that if they were banned, pupils would just buy fizzy drinks, crisps or sweets from shops outside school.

Ministers, who have been encouraging schools to provide drinking fountains, will be pleased by the fact that 84 of the parents polled believe their school makes fresh water available.

Budget cuts endanger higher education

Six universities in serbia and montenegro are facing possible closure after their governments announced that budgets will be cut by 70 percent. The cuts will leave the universities with combined funding of less than 323 million dinars (Rs.24 crore) a year. Some of the institutions are concerned that they will be unable to pay utilities bills, and that faculties and even universities will have to shut down as early as June.

Comments Marija Bogdanovic, dean of Belgrade University: "It is impossible to maintain courses with just 30 percent of the budget. We won’t be able to pay our amenity bills, let alone staff wages. I don’t know what the authorities are thinking. We have about 80,000 students at our university — I don’t think I can make it clear enough that we will not be able to survive on so little money. Teaching requirements will not be met, and we will not be able to achieve basic standards of hygiene on the campus."

Science departments will be the first to be affected by the cuts, because they need the most materials, according to Prof. Bogdanovic and her colleagues at the five other universities. The finance plan has set aside 3 million dinar (Rs.22 lakh) for all the science faculties of the six universities — the same sum previously required by their chemistry faculties.

Mirko Rosic, dean of the 12,000 student Kragujevac University to the south of the capital says he has appealed to the government to revise its financial plan with the suggestion that money be siphoned from the government’s natural catastrophe fund. "We have started an initiative to force the government to change its plans," says Rosic and adds that Kragujevac had only just managed to get by on last year’s budget by redeploying existing debts.

Academics fear that they will be unable to fulfil the terms of the Bologna agreement on convergence signed by the Serbian-Montenegrin government last year. "If we do not invest in our universities, then we will not be able to fulfil the Bologna terms or compete on an international level," says Bodgan Djurcie, Belgrade’s vice-dean.

Non-standard English boom in Asia

Joseph lo Bianco, the man who wrote Australia’s first national language policy in 1987, now professor of language and literacy education at the University of Melbourne, has called for an urgent "revitalisation" of the nation’s language policy and teaching practices.

"People make a big mistake if they think the power of English in the world means we don’t have to learn another language," he warns. "There are two big disadvantages in this era of globalisation: not knowing English if you’re not a native English speaker, and being monolingual if you are an English speaker." What makes the second problem so pressing, says Lo Bianco, is the growing number of Asian nations that have developed stable, non-standard varieties of English.

There have been high-level calls in several Asian nations for English to be made a co-official language: from South Korean president Roh Mooh-yun, from Taiwan’s president Chen Shui-bian in 2002 and Japan’s late premier Keizo Obuchi in 2000.

Such calls, according to Lo Bianco, demonstrate that "their varieties of English are very stable indeed… These are national varieties of English with their own internal kinds of correctness. They don’t have to sound like Britons, Americans or Australians," he says. And yet Australians abroad, and teachers at home, treat these varieties of English as "not correct", rather than simply "non-standard".

"The majority of communication in English in the world is now between non-native speaker and non-native speaker," says Lo Bianco. "And English is a generator of local kinds of identity whether through spoken forms, film or literature as in India."

This should be at the forefront of any English language teacher’s mind. "English language teachers don’t need to relearn English — they need to be aware that what counts as correct English does vary. They need training in communication to help them negotiate across different norms," says Lo Bianco, who is also calling for reforms in language policy as it affects Australian school students. "Only 10 percent of class XII kids study a second language," he reveals. "That figure should be more like 50 percent. And whether we’re teaching them English or a second language, there should be more emphasis on communication. They need to hear samples of interaction within other varieties of English, and between those varieties and their own," he says.

After many years consulting on language policy in Australia — most recently as head of the Canberra based think-tank Language Australia — Lo Bianco has spent much of the past five years working on language policies for other nations, including Sri Lanka, Scotland and the US.

Segregation trauma of Roma children

Lucia, a bright 10-year-old, told the visitors to her class that she wants to be a cook when she grows up, but has no idea where she will work. It was hardly surprising: she had never been inside a café, let alone a restaurant. Lucia is a Roma, or gypsy, one of 151 at the Letanovce special school for "mentally handicapped" children aged six to 15 in eastern Slovakia. Like every pupil in this village school she is a victim of the Slovakian government’s policy of educational segregation.

Roma children: biased IQ testing victims

The IQ test is taken at regional psychological-pedagogical counselling centres. Roma children find them daunting. For example, when an examiner asks a child what letter "sun" starts with, they tend to answer in their first language — Romanes — saying "k" (the Romanese for "sun" is "Khamoro"). Such an answer would be regarded as wrong and evidence of IQ deficiency, and the child would be sent to a special school. Once on the tramlines of special needs, children hardly have a way out.

Schooling obtained at one of these educational ghettos is not regarded in law as completed primary education, so they cannot proceed to regular secondary school and take the final exam. Even those Roma who do make it to a mainstream school are invariably segregated into separate classes. Non-attendance and drop-out rates are high and rising. Only a handful of Roma are studying at university and very few become teachers.

It is no surprise that their representation in public life is infinitesimal, too. With Slovakia having joined the EU on May 1, its pledge at a European education ministers meeting on intercultural education in Athens last November to take action to end its system of educational apartheid looks distinctly hollow.

Roma across Europe suffer from personal and institutional racism and weak policies, according to Save the Children, which has urged the Slovak government to adopt anti-discrimination legislation and end segregation in schools.

Grim struggle to rebuild higher education

Afghanistan’s five universities are beset with corruption, under-funding and poor living conditions, despite the international community’s expressed intentions. In February, entrance exams taken by 40,000 prospective students were declared invalid after it was discovered that the questions had been sold. More than 6,000 students will have to resit the exams, according to Mohammed Shariff Fayez, the higher education minister.

This crisis follows protests against education ministry proposals to charge students for their hitherto free tuition. These in turn came in the wake of last November’s student protests over living conditions at Kabul University.

Fifty years ago Kabul was considered Asia’s finest university. It was built with US money, and British and French academics taught in 14 faculties with international links. But in spring 1992, mujaheddin guerrillas captured Kabul and the campus became a battlefield. Books and equipment were stolen, burnt or sold. The university never recovered.

"It will take us many years to catch up," says Mohammed Afzal Banuwal, vice-chancellor for academic affairs. "Our first problem is salaries for our 400 professors and lecturers. Seventy percent (of them) work with non-government organisations for extra money, and it is difficult for them to be here for the students.

"We want to bring new blood into the university and have had requests from academics in India to work here. We are desperate for them to come but can’t afford to pay the salaries they are used to. We were expecting more support from the international academic community. We need to bring our curriculum up to international standards. We are starting from the beginning again but cannot do it alone," says Banuwal.

Yet around the campus, signs proclaim cooperative projects with foreign institutes. Comments Martin Hadlow, director of Unesco’s Kabul office. "It’s unfair to say there has been lack of support. Unesco has completely refurnished the faculty of journalism, and we sent eight professors overseas for re-skilling and teacher upgrading. We had an international book drive for the library and spent thousands of dollars in getting books delivered, and we have a full-time English language teacher at the Education University. A lot of people have put a lot of effort into helping the higher education sector."

The German Academic Exchange Service has organised a retraining project for university staff in Germany and funded an information technology department. Several Berlin University students are training Afghan students to become IT instructors.

But Hadlow says the key problem for higher education is to establish its priorities. "Can a country such as Afghanistan support more than one university? Perhaps it would be better to concentrate on vocational training, rather than turning out MA students," he says, adding that there is still the problem of rebuilding the physical infrastructure and re-skilling academic staff.