School vouchers scheme starts rolling

The Bush administration has announced proposals for America’s largest government-sponsored private school voucher scheme just days after its own survey found that state schools do as well as or outperform, private schools.

Margaret Spellings, US education secretary, is accused of placing ideology before sound policy by pushing vouchers in contradiction to the findings released by her own department. Adding to the political embarrassment, she confessed that she has not read the report which bears her name and singles out conservative Christian private schools as "significantly" trailing state schools academically, when English language status and race are taken into account.

Conservative Christian private schools are among the biggest participants in voucher schemes already operating across America. The proposed $100 million (Rs.450 crore) Opportunity Scholarship programme would be the first national roll-out. That its name scrupulously avoids the v-word is a gauge of the contention vouchers stir up in US education circles.

Low-income students in schools failing to achieve testing benchmarks six years running would be eligible for annual grants of $4,000 (Rs.1.8 lakh) towards private school fees. Proponents say vouchers offer educational equity to pupils right now, rather than waiting for school-level reform efforts to take effect. They say by targeting pupils in chronically underperforming schools, which might be years from getting their act together, they are giving students a shot at the same start in life their wealthier peers are able to pay for.

Comments Spellings: "Sixty-two percent of Americans make choices about which community to live in because of the quality of schools. But it’s not right for those who can’t (afford this) to be trapped in schools that don’t perform." Vouchers also inject vital competition into public education, spurring state schools to raise their game in an education marketplace in which students and parents may vote with their feet if they are not satisfied, supporters say.

But opponents see vouchers as a right-wing hobby horse that drains money from state education. Christopher Lubienski, assistant education professor at the University of Illinois, says the US education department report, which looks at scores on common reading and maths tests taken at ages nine and 13 across more than 6,900 state schools and 550 private schools, undermines the premise of vouchers by "undercutting assumptions that private schools are the superior model".

It shows that "private schools get better results largely because of the students they’re dealing with," says Lubienski, who published similar findings last year.

Austria

Bad news for Dr. Arnold Schwarzenegger

An Austrian court has ordered the country’s first private university to revoke an honorary degree it awarded to California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Imadec University, Vienna gave an honorary doctorate of business administration to the former actor at a special ceremony in October 2001, citing his lifetime work in particular with children in US ghettos, and his services to the Austrian economy.

At the time, Christian Joksch, president of Imadec — Austria’s first private university which focuses on economic studies and law — said: "He is a living example of what a person starting from nothing can achieve."

But, almost five years on, Vienna’s administrative tribunal ruled not only that the university was not in a position to award honorary degrees as it could give titles only to people who had studied there, but also that it could confer the degrees of executive MBA, international MLE and LLM (Master of laws) only.

The court described the university’s action as a "breach of administration" and fined it an undisclosed amount. But Joksch says they will appeal against the decision as the degree was conferred before 2003 when reforms to higher education laws were introduced that prevented the private institute from awarding honorary degrees.

Lynne Truss, bestselling author and professional pedant, says that children are being let down by schools’ failure to correct grammatical errors. Comments the creator of the punctuation guide Eats, Shoots & Leaves: "There just isn’t enough emphasis on writing in the school system. Not enough correcting of errors; not enough enthusing about the mechanics of language."

Truss, who has also written Eats, Shoots & Leaves: Why, commas really do make a difference! a 16-page illustrated version of her bestseller aimed at primary pupils, says: "I think getting children to notice punctuation is a big moment in their reading. Exams just test how well kids have absorbed their notebooks."

This sentiment is echoed by Tom Wickson, English teacher at the £ 23,625 (Rs.20.08 lakh)-a-year Harrow school. Harrow sixth-formers are being given remedial spelling lessons after one in eight failed a basic literacy test. Many pupils with A-grades in GCSE (class X exams) could not spell simple words or punctuate simple sentences. "Simple technical accuracy is not prized as highly as it once was," laments Wickson.

Truss’ new book includes the now-famous joke, told in the orginal version, in which a panda walks into a cafe, eats a sandwich, whips out a pistol and fires two shots in the air, then departs. By way of explanation, he points to a poorly punctuated passage in a nature manual: "Panda," it reads, "Large black-and-white mammal. Eats, shoots and leaves."

The primary version, though, reflects fears about gun crime in schools: instead of drawing a pistol, the sandwich-loving panda brandishes a bow and arrow.

The organisation at the forefront of the drive to revive Africa’s universities is slowly regaining donor confidence after initially struggling to respond to concerns about weak organisation and dubious relevance.

The Swedish agency Sida is expected to resume funding the Ghana-based Association of African Universities (AAU), and the UK has recently announced a four-year grant of £3.5 million (Rs.29.75 crore) for a project to help African universities support development efforts, in line with the UN Millennium Development Goals and Commission for Africa proposals.

Sida has given funds to the AAU since 1993. Last year, it commissioned an assessment of the organisation prompted by unease over the AAU’s focus, programme coherence, education activities and staff, poor financial reporting and overdependence on donors, outmoded corporate governance and apathetic members. In late July Johan Bergqvist, a Sida spokesman said that the AAU has "complied with most of the issues raised by institutional assessment".

An AAU application for further Sida funding became obsolete during the assessment process, but Bergqvist says the agency plans to resume funding and has asked for an updated proposal "with a more holistic presentation of activities planned and performed by the AAU". He adds that Sida, which is jointly financing an AAU universities management programme with the Netherlands, has sent the 2005 assessment’s terms of reference to other donors for comments. "Many agencies welcomed this exercise as it should confirm the status of the reform activities performed by the new AAU management."

A new AAU constitution and strategic plan were endorsed by its four-yearly conference in Cape Town in January 2005, and the organisation emerged with a more coherent and weightier role. Njabulo Ndebele, AAU president and vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town, says that the AAU’s goals are to "enhance its visibility and relevance to its membership, to strengthen and consolidate its organisational capacity and to achieve greater financial robustness".

The new emphasis is on co-ordinating activities through regional chapters such as the Southern African Regional Universities Association (Sarua), which is based in Pretoria. Prof. Ndebele says that strong regional organisations are "vital to achieving the AAU’s objectives" and that Sarua has "pointed the way in effectively mobilising" higher education leaders to tackle Southern African Development Community goals.

The UK’s £ 3.5 million will go towards the "mobilising regional capacity for revitalising higher education in Africa" programme, which supports collaborative projects between the AAU, regional tertiary associations and national vice-chancellors’ bodies. Key partners are the African Union, the Africa Capacity Building Foundation, the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the International Development Research Centre and Partnerships for Higher Education in Africa in the US.

OECD

Waning interest in global education campaign

Anti-poverty groups have attacked OECD aka G8 leaders for failing to give more cash to help ensure the 100 million children not in school worldwide can get a basic education by 2015. The crisis in the Middle East cast a shadow over this year’s G8 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, which campaigners had hoped would pledge the funds needed to meet last year’s promises to increase aid.

The G8 countries had pledged to give $50 billion (Rs.22,500 crore) extra aid per year to developing countries by 2010, cancel their debts, and give the World Bank a leading role in co-ordinating support for development. While the leaders said they were working hard to fulfill the promises made on the back of public interest generated by the Make Poverty History campaign and Live 8 Concerts, campaigners say progress has been patchy and slow, particularly on education.

Britain had announced landmark rises in funding to education in the hope of persuading other G8 nations to follow suit. But there has been no stampede so far. It took pressure from the UK and France to ensure a review of progress on Africa next year.

Says Lucia Fry, co-ordinator of the Global Campaign for Education: "The sand is slipping through the hour glass. All children have to be in school by 2009 to complete it by 2015. So it’s clear that G8 nations other than the UK, are failing to grasp the urgency of the challenge."

Patrick Watt, Action Aid’s UK policy co-ordinator, criticises the failure to put sufficient money behind the World Bank’s Fast Track Initiative, a global mechanism for funding universal primary education. "Four years on from the establishment of the Fast Track Initiative, a financing gap of $ 400 million this year is preventing some of the poorest countries from implementing plans while 100 million children remain out of school. This summit has done nothing to address this crisis," says Watt.

Since last year’s summit, 19 countries have had their debts to the World Bank, IMF and African Development fund cancelled, releasing about $1 billion a year for education, health and other poverty reduction measures. According to Action Aid, to achieve their promise of an extra $50 billion of aid to Africa by 2010, G8 countries need to step up their commitments each year, but Italy and Germany are not planning to do this and the rate of rise in funding from other countries is too slow to hit the target. The charity wants the debts of another 40 of the poorest countries cancelled.

Canada

Philanthropist commemorates nanny

A Canadian businessman who made a large donation to a university has decided to buck the trend of having a building named after him. Instead, he has asked for it to be named after his childhood nanny. The new home of the Coady International Institute at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia will be named the Marjorie Desmond Learning Pavilion, after the woman who helped raise John Chisholm and his siblings. Chisholm (60), who runs a construction company, donated C$ 1 million (Rs.4.15 crore) towards the building. Desmond, who died in 1991, had a 30-year-old relationship with the extended Chisholm family.

Buildings, business schools and endowed chairs at universities worldwide bear the names of key benefactors. Chisholm says he is "not the type" to put his name in big steel letters on a university building facade. His 42-year-old company, Nova Construction does not even carry a sign.

He has fond memories of Ms. Desmond. She began working for the family of six children at the age of 15 when Chisholm was 12. When the siblings grew up and had children of their own, Ms. Desmond, who never had children, began caring for the extended family. "In an era of vanity charity, this is a refreshing and inspiring gesture," says Mary Coyle, vice-president of St. Francis Xavier. She adds that Chisholm’s modesty and generosity — this is the largest gift the institute has received and the third largest for the university — has inspired others to make similar unnamed donations.

When asked what Ms. Desmond would have thought of the gesture, Chisholm said his former nanny disliked being under the spotlight and added: "She’d probably give me hell."

Australia

Varsity programmes for Muslim clerics

Melbourne and Sydney universities are considering proposals from the federal education department that they train Islamic clerics. The courses would provide an alternative to the training offered at centres in Egypt and Saudi Arabia where many aspiring imams go. The plan is to prevent students being subject to fundamentalist and terrorist teaching.

Prime minister John Howard established a Muslim Community Reference Group last year to advise him on how best to tackle terrorist threats from local Muslims. The group suggested that local imams should study a curriculum that emphasised spiritual, rather than political Islam. Brendan Nelson, former education minister voiced support for the federal government providing funding for the development of imam training.

Victoria University in Melbourne held discussions with the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils about developing a joint curriculum offering Australia-based training for Muslim clerics. The university has one of the most multicultural student enrollments in Australia and is located in a community with a significant number of Muslims. The Islamic Women’s Welfare Council of Victoria has also backed the plan for local teaching of imams. It says the proposed courses would range from undergraduate to Ph D level, while the degrees would be taught by academics and local and visiting imams.

A council spokeswoman says that although some universities already offer Islamic courses, they are not designed to train imams. According to her, all other religions in Australia had access to similar types of degrees.

Fehmi Naji El-Imam, a prominent Melbourne Muslim cleric who chairs a clergy training sub-group within the council says he would ensure only moderate theologians are hired to lecture students. El-Imam warns that the proposal should not be seen as a means of eradicating Islamic extremism. "The more people fluent in Islam, the less power hardline preachers are going to have," he says.