The data offers the first US-wide comparison between charters and education authority (i.e. local government) schools. "This is part of a bigger research picture that finds little evidence that charters are performing better than public schools," says Alan Krueger, professor of economics and public policy at Princeton University.

The information was supposed to have been collated in January, two months after other NAEP reports, but was delayed while officials performed a "sophisticated analysis" to qualify the data, says Sharif Shakrani, deputy executive director of the national assessment governing board, which sets the exams. "It should have been put into the public domain," adds Shakrani, who called the union’s action "completely appropriate".

Responding to these revelations, US education secretary Rod Paige suggests a distinction between "students falling behind and students climbing out of the hole in which they found themselves". He says the purpose of charters is to provide an alternative to students poorly served by their previous schools.

But Amy Wells, education professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College, says there is no evidence that charters are predominantly dealing with legacy problems from state schools. "Some have been open for ten years. To blame state schools 13 years into the charter movement is ludicrous. Neo-liberal, free market ideology is fuelling charters. The idea is to deregulate and let the market work its magic, but this report says this doesn’t work in education," says Wells.

Roughly 2,700 of America’s 88,000 state schools are charters and their ranks are expected to swell as the White House’s sweeping No Child Left Behind Act tags thousands of schools for closure for missing testing targets. President Bush has apportioned $318 million (Rs.1,431 crore) for new charters in 2005.

Charters are operated autonomously by businesses, teachers, churches and other groups as another public education option. But the sector has been plagued by profiteering scandals. Last week, California’s largest charter operator — under investigation for alleged financial impropriety — closed more than 60 schools, leaving 10,000 students school-less.

Secretive accreditation process row

The Bush administration and republicans in the US Congress want university accreditation reports — mostly confidential — to be made available to students and their parents. For more than a century, no one has monitored university quality except associations of the universities themselves in a secretive accreditation process that is largely independent of the government.

The universities and accrediting associations fear that publication would discourage schools from being forthright with accreditors — and open the accreditors to lawsuits if they are publicly identified as having filed negative evaluations. The controversy over the accrediting process has ignited a debate about the question of how universities, whose tuition fees are rocketing and graduation rates are dropping, should be regulated. The debate is so divisive that the two major organisations representing accrediting agencies are taking opposite sides.

University officials and some accreditors say they are willing to accept requirements that certain statistics be made public, including graduate success rates. "The accreditation system is not perfect," says Congressman Howard ‘Buck’ McKeon, chairman of the house 21st century competitiveness subcommittee. "While it may be a uniquely American institution, it is also one that all too often perpetuates the status quo on campuses. Low graduation rates may be compounded by the fact that parents and students lack the necessary information to determine whether a particular college or university is a quality institution or appears to meet the needs of that particular student," says McKeon.

But others complain this would encourage unfair comparisons of dissimilar universities. They say it is sufficient for the public to know whether a school is accredited or not, and the standards and procedures used to evaluate it.

This response is sharply derided by university critics. "In a nutshell," the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a conservative higher education watchdog group, says in a report, "accreditation gives students, parents and public decision-makers almost no useful information about institutions of higher education".

University accreditation began in 1885 when administrators of legitimate universities were looking for a way to distinguish themselves from less respectable competitors. They established accrediting agencies, which arrange voluntary peer reviews. Professional programmes are separately accredited by more than 70 professional associations, such as the American Bar Association.

Unless a school fails to meet accreditation standards altogether, the results of these evaluations are not made public. But they are vital. While no law requires them to be accredited, schools without accreditation are not eligible for any of the more than $60 billion (Rs.270,000 crore) per year earmarked by the federal government for higher education.

The proposed College Access and Opportunity Act follows the administration’s campaign to hold public primary and secondary schools more accountable for the success of their students.

Simon Fraser’s broad-based education initiative

Vancouver’s Simon Fraser University is to make maths students master Milton and literature students learn linear algebra in a reform that will stress breadth of study over specialisation.

Simon Fraser campus: breadth over specialisation

"The purpose is to improve students’ abilities to communicate effectively, to improve their reasoning abilities and to expose them to the ideas and forms of inquiry of an array of disciplines," says Dennis Krebs, who headed the task force implementing the curriculum. The requirements will eat up 30 percent of every undergraduate’s course load, which is the norm in most top-tier US colleges.

Schools in Canada generally cut a middle path between the narrow specialisation of British degree programmes and the imposed breadth of many US colleges. Toronto University and McGill University in Montreal require classes outside students’ specialty but these account for only a tenth of the degree.

Opponents to the changes, which will cost Simon Fraser C$1 million (Rs.3.6 crore) to implement, fear that students will lose interest in courses they are forced to take, and will lose the freedom to explore interests outside their specialty.

Voucher system stimulus to government schools

When Elin Deboussard (17) decided which Plus Two school she wanted to attend, she didn’t give state schools a second thought. "Everyone knows the independent schools are better. The teachers are younger and more engaged," she said as she started at Viktor Rydberg Jarlaplan, Stockholm, in early September where she is taking an arts programme specialising in drama. "There’s also more prestige if you go to one."

Elin is typical of middle school leavers across Sweden who are taking advantage of increased school choice since the government ended the state monopoly of upper secondaries a decade ago. Stockholm’s education authority recently admitted that the number of pupils attending independent Plus Two schools in the capital had doubled in the past four years.

All Swedish pupils are eligible to apply to independent schools, which are funded by a voucher system. This has put state schools under pressure to attract students as independent schools are creaming off the brightest pupils. Admits Bjorn Johansson, a spokesman for the Stockholm authority: "Many state schools are suffering under competition from the independent sector."

Independents such as Viktor Rydberg get so many applications that only pupils with the highest grades are accepted. "The more we do to ensure we have a stellar reputation, offering specialist option courses and closer ties with the business community, the more qualified our intake is," says Dr. Margret Benedikz, an English teacher at Viktor Rydberg.

Independent schools were designed as centres of excellence, specialising in national programmes that all upper-secondary pupils are required to follow. Some programmes, such as construction or business and administration, are vocationally-oriented. Others, such as natural science, and social science are intended to prepare pupils for university.

Some independents tried to charge fees, but the government quickly intervened, introducing a voucher system where the local council has to provide independent schools with resources equivalent to those given to state schools on a per-pupil basis. However, independents are also free to seek donations from parents and sponsorship from companies.

Japan

Compensated dating epidemic shock

Every weekday, 14-year-old Junko Satoh is forced to wear the look that throws the nation into moral turmoil. Cotton socks, loafers and prim navy suit — her school uniform — are highly provocative stuff for Japanese men wrestling with a Lolita complex, and children like Junko can be vulnerable to unpleasant groping assaults by unseen hands on crowded subways. Schoolgirls in uniform are a national sexual obsession. And many have turned such interest into a means to make money, while educators seem powerless to prevent them.

Japanese school girls in uniform: moral turmoil

Enko, to give it its street name, is when men, usually in their 40s or 50s, arrange to meet girls, usually middle or high-school age, for a date for which they will pay them around £100 (Rs.8,000). According to the latest survey, in around 25 percent of cases, men use the sexual services of their ‘dates’. "Teachers know that some of their female students are involved in enjo kosai. But they feel there is no way to stop it," says Jennifer Liddy, a teacher at Asahi Mura middle school in north-west Japan.

The introduction of sex education courses into the notoriously rigid Japanese curriculum is not enough, she says. "The girls are from middle-class homes, and show no guilt. They are not rebellious or trouble-makers, so they are not easy to identify."

Shinji Miyadai, an authority on schoolgirls as sex objects and education professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University, says high school girls are copying adults in living for money and high image products. "No one has ever presented other values of the Japanese people." Child prostitution cases grew by 10 percent in six months this year, despite a new ban on soliciting of sex from, or by, those aged below 18 via online dating services. And the trend is towards ever-younger girls, say police.

The public was shocked last month when police in Kyoto broke up a prostitution ring involving 15 girls as young as 13, which allegedly amassed 3.5 billion yen (Rs.147 crore) during its three years of operation. Comments Masako Kihara, an expert on sex education at Kyoto University: "There is a lack of political leadership with regard to prevention and education, nor are there any mechanisms in schools for responding quickly and effectively when problems emerge."

Tough times for talibes

Like many 11-year-old schoolboys, Ali hates Monday mornings. But it is not double maths that makes him grimace — it is the begging that his teacher makes him do.

Ali is one of thousands of Senegalese talibes sent to live in religious daara schools to learn the Koran but who end up scavenging on the streets for money to fund their Muslim schoolmasters (marabouts). "There are good marabouts who teach the Koran, but also bad ones who run a child business," says Cire Kane of Synapse Network Center, a group working with street children.

Every day Ali must take his marabout 300 CFA (about Rs.25), enough to buy two loaves of bread. "He’ll whip me if I don’t," he says, shaking a tomato-pasta tin at passers-by in the capital, Dakar.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that 100,000 children are begging in Senegal, with talibes the "vast majority". Many leave their families in the countryside to move to city-based daaras and some marabouts argue that with no salary and 30 talibes to support, they have no choice but to send the children out for cash.

Senegal is a religiously tolerant country. Muslims make up 95 percent of the population but Christmas is widely celebrated. Most parents want their offspring to learn the Koran but know an academic education will open more doors given that French is the official language. Some marabouts are trying to bridge the gap. "My pupils are able to go to French schools, live with their parents and learn the Koran without having to beg," says Mohamed Diallo, who gives after-school and weekend lessons.

Mbaye Ndoumbe Gueye, an education official in charge of reforms, says the government is also trying to meet parents’ wishes. "Where there is the demand two hours a week instead of one are now set aside for religion and Arabic in French schools," he says. "But we also need to look at the daaras themselves. We can’t concern ourselves with 80 percent of pupils and forget about the other 20 percent. The daaras need to provide a good all round basic education so the children can get a job and be a part of everyday life."

And aid workers like Kane say there is no time to waste if Senegal is to prevent today’s talibes from becoming tomorrow’s legion of unemployed with an unhealthy taste for the street.

Arab world’s first co-ed boarding school

The first co-educational boarding school in the Arab world is being built in Jordan. The mixed school represents a radical departure from regional trends towards greater gender segregation and has the personal backing of King Abdullah.

While co-educational schooling is common in Jordan and many other Arab countries, the idea of a mixed boarding school is new. The King’s Academy — due to open in 2006 — is expected to be modelled on Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts (USA), where the king went to school.

King Abdullah

Critics of the pricey new project say it will be of little benefit to the majority of Jordanians and will merely widen the chasm between the Western-educated elite and ordinary Arabs. But Prof. Masri claims the school will become a model for best practices for the state sector, while partnerships between King’s Academy and selected state schools will allow for teacher exchange programmes. Also, one in seven pupils will be admitted on scholarship.

Such partnerships will pose a challenge to Jordanian educators. King’s Academy is planning to follow the American curriculum, adopt a pupil-centred approach and encourage the development of critical minds. Teaching techniques used in most Jordanian state schools rely heavily on rote learning.

Varkey-Alokozay education lifeline

Sunny Varkey, the India-born chairman of Global Education Management Systems (Gems), the largest provider of private education in England, has struck a deal with a cigarette importer to build new schools in this war-ravaged country.

Gems and the Alokozay Group, both based in Dubai, plan to create a network of fee-paying schools in Afghanistan. The investment has been welcomed by children’s charities but questioned by anti-smoking campaigners. Gems operates 13 independent schools in England and its directors include Mike Tomlinson, chairman of the British government’s working group on 14-19 education.

Sunny Varkey

But the deal is questioned by the anti-cigarette group Action on Smoking and Health. A spokeswoman for the lobby group says the partnership is "inappropriate, at the very least" and that the group hopes that health education in the schools would not be affected. Parents at Bury Lawn, a Gems operated school in Milton Keynes, have also expressed concern about the ethics of the deal. But the children’s rights charity UNICEF says that new schools urgently need to be built in Afghanistan.

Comments Edward Carwardine, communications officer for UNICEF, Afghanistan: "The demand for education is immense in Afghanistan as children, especially girls, have been denied their right to schooling for so long."

A Gems (UK) spokeswoman says Alokozay’s dealings in tobacco are only part of its business and the connection between the Varkey Group and Alokozay is believed to have developed as they both worked with hospitals. She says that building the new schools in Afghanistan is "a brave thing to do".