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Translated by Ben Krasner, Accademia Britannica, Arezzo

 

Kampala, 12/12/05 

Six children who were sleeping inside their “home”, the mouth of a large drainage outlet, died when somebody set fire to the cardboard and paper which they had used to cover themselves. According to the news agency MISNA, these young fire victims are representative of around 20,000 children who have been made homeless  because of sickness, first and foremost AIDS, and because of the conflicts which have bloodied Uganda in recent years.

Islamabad, 11/12/05 

A vaccination campaign for 800,000 children has started off in the area of Pakistani Kashmir which was devastated by the earthquake of October 8. The report in the daily paper, The News, says that the campaign is aiming to prevent tetanus, measles, diphtheria and whooping cough. More than 73,000 were killed in the quake which also left half a million homeless, and meanwhile the harsh local winter has arrived. The international community has promised aid of more than 5 billion dollars.

Paris, 9/12/05

One hundred years after the law which separated church and state, thus making France a secular nation, a long period of official hostility towards private education may now be considered over. When passing comment on the anniversary, the news agency France Presse noted that tolerance is not only widespread but this fact in itself is a good argument for secular education.

Paderborn, 8/12/05 

Because there is too much talk about sex at school, a group of Baptist families in the Paderborn district have decided to take their children out of school. The weekly Der Spiegel reported that, after protesting in vain against the sex-education lessons, some Baptist families have chosen to send their children to private religious schools while others, indeed, have decided to move abroad.

Chicago, 7/12/05 

What is certainly a much-changed production of Hamlet, and one revised for our times, has been put on stage by the Alternatives, a group of Chicago young people. We learn from a CNN report that the play’s main character is no longer  a prince but the son of a nightclub manager who chats animatedly with Ophelia on his mobile phone. As for the famous soliloquy To be or not to be, our Hamlet from Illinois recites this in a kind of rap rhythm.

Washington, 6/12/05

If students of Asian origin do better than average students at high school, this is not because they are more intelligent but because their families take school a lot more seriously. This, at least, is the thesis put forward by two Korean scholars, according to a report written by Jay Mathews, columnist of the daily newspaper Washington Post. One way this may be seen is the way Asian parents customarily check their children’s homework and keep informed about  how well they are doing in class.

La Plata, 27/11/05 

“Dream World” is the name of a school in this city specialising in teaching kids with cognitive problems. It has been operating for 25 years and has always retained an intimate, family atmosphere close to the founder, Susana Lopez. Now, however, it has need of space to expand because its well-known success story means the demand for entry has increased and multiplied. As reprted in daily newspaper Clarìn, so far the education authorities have not heeded the appeals.

Bangalore, 14/11/05 

The Indian district around Bangalore is waging a campaign against child brides. The Times of India reported what one woman had to say: “When I reached puberty, my mother told me it was time to leave school and look for a husband.. I protested, I wept but my relatives threatened me and in the end I had to give in to their demands.”

Buenos Aires, 6/11/05 

Even the school system in Argentina has to face the problem of juvenile violence. The newspaper Clarìn reports that more than 14,000 acts of physical aggression between students were recorded in the past four months. In the capital alone, this school year has seen 176 particularly serious episodes. The problem  usually starts with a dispute over something quite banal which then blows up out of proportion.

New Orleans, 5/11/05 

The first schools have now opened in New Orleans after the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent collapse of the levies. The New York Times story relates how the Catholic schools, which have always had a prominent role in the city’s scholastic life, have been especially quick to reopen. Before the disaster, these schools had 25,000 students.

Jerusalem, 5/11/05 

Ahmed al-Khatib, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy died after being shot by some Israeli soldiers. They thought the toy pistol he was aiming was a real weapon. The Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post explained that the boy’s parents have donated the boy’s organs for transplant and that these may be gievn to whoever may have urgent need, ne they Arab or Jew.

London, 4/11/05 

Students need a wide range of educational experiences and should have at least one school excursion each year. This was announced, according to the BBC, by the English Minister for Education, Andrew Adonis, who explained that the government is working with the unions to eliminate the main obstacle to organising excursions which is the teacher’s responsibility in the case of an accident.

Paris, 4/11/05 

“A new approach to brain circulation”: this is how Nicolas Sarkozy, the French Minister for Education, will present his plan for the “selective immigration” of students at the beginning of 2006. The news was reported by the agency AFP mand it seems that the minister’s criterion for selection will consider not only the student’s curriculum but also the needs of both France and the student’s country of origin.

Karachi, 4/11/05 

The Pakistani press gave prominence to the appeal launched by Queen Rania of Jordan for the world to intensify its aid to the people hit by the earthquake of October 8. The newspaper The Nation in particular underlined how the Queen had insisted on the urgent need to help 4,000,000 children with vaccinations, medical care, housing, food and education.

Harrisburg, 1/11/05

Some families in Dover, Pennsylvania, have demanded that the local school authorities delete every reference to “intelligent design” in biology syllabuses. This is the creationist version of evolution as opposed to the Darwinian theory. CNN explained that this legal action is based on an appeal to the US Constitution which guarantees the separation of state and religion.

Berlin, 1/11/05 

Berlin’s school structures have been pared to the bone and, worse, many teachers are often absent through sickness. Certain areas of the city, for example Reinickendorf, are showing up to a 50%  reduction of lessons. The weekly Der Spiegel reports that one group of parents has decided to solve the deficiency by organising private lessons in premises available for public use.

Cairo, 31/10/05 

For the fourth time since the Taliban were ousted from Afghanistan, a school for girls has been burnt down. This happened, according to the Egyptian newspaper Middle East Times, in Logar province, 60 kilometers from Kabul. The fundamentalists even burnt down the tents where lessons were being held while the classrooms were being rebuilt. The Taliban believe education is reserved for men only.

Buenos Aires, 6/11/05 

Even the school system in Argentina has to face the problem of juvenile violence. The newspaper Clarìn reports that more than 14,000 acts of physical aggression between students were recorded in the past four months. In the capital alone, this school year has seen 176 particularly serious episodes. The problem  usually starts with a dispute over something quite banal which then blows up out of proportion.

New Orleans, 5/11/05 

The first schools have now opened in New Orleans after the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent collapse of the levies. The New York Times story relates how the Catholic schools, which have always had a prominent role in the city’s scholastic life, have been especially quick to reopen. Before the disaster, these schools had 25,000 students.

Jerusalem, 5/11/05 

Ahmed al-Khatib, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy died after being shot by some Israeli soldiers. They thought the toy pistol he was aiming was a real weapon. The Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post explained that the boy’s parents have donated the boy’s organs for transplant and that these may be gievn to whoever may have urgent need, ne they Arab or Jew.

London, 4/11/05 

Students need a wide range of educational experiences and should have at least one school excursion each year. This was announced, according to the BBC, by the English Minister for Education, Andrew Adonis, who explained that the government is working with the unions to eliminate the main obstacle to organising excursions which is the teacher’s responsibility in the case of an accident.

Paris, 4/11/05 

“A new approach to brain circulation”: this is how Nicolas Sarkozy, the French Minister for Education, will present his plan for the “selective immigration” of students at the beginning of 2006. The news was reported by the agency AFP mand it seems that the minister’s criterion for selection will consider not only the student’s curriculum but also the needs of both France and the student’s country of origin.

Karachi, 4/11/05 

The Pakistani press gave prominence to the appeal launched by Queen Rania of Jordan for the world to intensify its aid to the people hit by the earthquake of October 8. The newspaper The Nation in particular underlined how the Queen had insisted on the urgent need to help 4,000,000 children with vaccinations, medical care, housing, food and education.

Harrisburg, 1/11/05 

Some families in Dover, Pennsylvania, have demanded that the local school authorities delete every reference to “intelligent design” in biology syllabuses. This is the creationist version of evolution as opposed to the Darwinian theory. CNN explained that this legal action is based on an appeal to the US Constitution which guarantees the separation of state and religion.

Berlin, 1/11/05 

Berlin’s school structures have been pared to the bone and, worse, many teachers are often absent through sickness. Certain areas of the city, for example Reinickendorf, are showing up to a 50%  reduction of lessons. The weekly Der Spiegel reports that one group of parents has decided to solve the deficiency by organising private lessons in premises available for public use.

Cairo, 31/10/05 

For the fourth time since the Taliban were ousted from Afghanistan, a school for girls has been burnt down. This happened, according to the Egyptian newspaper Middle East Times, in Logar province, 60 kilometers from Kabul. The fundamentalists even burnt down the tents where lessons were being held while the classrooms were being rebuilt. The Taliban believe education is reserved for men only.

New York, 9/09/05  

The first day back at school for more than a million New York students went off calmly and in an orderly fashion. The New York Times reported how Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor, paid a visit to three of the approximately 1400 schools. He saw a grade school in Brooklyn and two high schools, one in Queens and one in the Bronx. The Mayor up for re-election, but some of his rivals also managed to use the new school year to get the media's attention.

Prato, 8/09/05

This new scholastic year sees the Marco Polo school in Prato creating an Italian record: the first grade in one elementary school is entirely made up of immigrant children. The daily newspaper La Repubblica pointed out that, while most of these children are Chinese, there are also Pakistani, Indian, Albanian and Latin American students in the class too. Many of them need to learn not only how to read and write Italian but also how to speak the language.

Atlanta, 7/09/05 

The effects of hurricane Katrina, which devastated a number of American states, have also had a heavy impact on schools. According to CNN, in the state of Louisiana alone, 135,000 students of public schools and 52,000 private school students cannot attend lessons either because their schools were damaged or destroyed or because they were evacuated. These students are scattered throughout a number of states from Georgia to California.

London, 6/09/05 

Even though the government has allocated a billion pounds over the last ten years in an attempt to fight the problem, truancy continues to undermine the effectiveness of the UK school system. The BBC quoted a report resulting from a recent investigation which showed how an average of 70,000 students are absent for no reason from lessons every single school day. 

Stuttgart, 5/09/05 

Germans are debating a Stuttgart magistrate's verdict whereby families and students are denied the right to choose their own school. The weekly paper Der Spiegel explained how, when a number of families requested schooling in one high school, their children were sent to another, less crowded school. When they protested through legal channels, their protests came to nothing.

Chandigarh, 3/09/05

The students in a college near Chandigarh called a three-day strike in order to protest the XXX that one of them had received. The authorities reacted by denying all of them access to classes and services. However, as The Times of India reported, after the strikers had spent a night in tents set up outside the college, an
agreement was reached and the strike was called off. 


Buenos Aires, 31/08/05 

The Minister for Education in Argentina has distributed 1,200,000 copies to the families of students attending the second cycle of primary schools. The daily newspaper Clarìn explained that the idea was to involve parents in the education process by creating closer relationships between schools and families, both of whom are involved in educationg yougsters..

Melbourne, 27/08/05 

The decision of the school council of an Anglican secondary boys' college, Mentone Grammar, to accept girls into the school has provoked strong reactions from the boys' families. The newspaper The Australian reported that the head, Timothy Argall, called the police after receiving threatening phone calls. He has been called a revolutionary by even his mildest critics.

Paris, 21/06/05 

During their twice-yearly conference, French teachers who follow the methods of Charles Freinet illustrate their vision of what education is about. It is based on the principle that a student is an active participant in the learning process. The newspaper Le Monde summed up the basics: no official marks but only self assessment and self correction, complete freedom to students in their choice of subjects, and collective conflict management.

Jarkata, 27/05/05 

With more cases of polio being reported in Java, the Indonesian government has decided to carry out a massive vaccination campaign involving over 5 million chldren under five years of age. The news agency MISNA reported that the strain of this polio virus comes from Nigeria and that the disease was probably contracted by pilgrims in Mecca and then brought to Indonesia.

Paris, 26/05/05 

As a result of the recent demonstrations against the school reforms bearing the signature of the French Education Minister, Fillon, around 40 students have been remanded for trial. Le Monde reported that they are accused of violence against the police and damage to property. In some quarters, this is seen this as an example of repression of the student movement, while others have asked the judges to show clemency since many of these young people are about to do their baccalauréat examinations.

Hamburg, 25/05/05 

With school closures and staff cuts, the German economic crisis is starting to affect the education system. Der Spiegel reports that teachers, parents and students are already up in arms in three laender: Hamburg, Saxony and the Saar, while unrest is growing in others. In some cases the protests are about the lengthening of journeys to school which result from the concentration of schools and institutes in a single area.

Rockville, 24/05/05 

Our children are suffering from educational discrimination. This is one of the slogans being used by the crowd of parents demonstrating outside the school district office in Montgomery county, Alabama. According to the Washington Post, the demonstrators are asking for the gap to be closed between what black and hispanic students achieve scholastically and their white or asian counterparts.

Buenos Aires, 18/05/05 

Argentinian schools are experiencing the worst crisis in their history, according to Hugo Yasky, the general secretary of one of the national teachers' unions, whose views were reprted in the daily newspaper Clarìn. Yasky believes that this situation originated under the bad management of President Menem's government in the 1990s. The union leader has asked for a new set of laws   which will direct finances towards achieving equality of educational opportunity.

Washington, 28/04/05 

The second Bush administration has given the Educational Secretary, Margaret Spellings, the task of responding to the very widespread hostility to the No Child Left Behind program, by which the White House intends to improve educational attainment in the American system. According to the report in the New York Times,  some experts are convinced that a number of basic points in the law urgently need revision.

Annapolis, 28/04/05 

Of the twenty one students from a Maryland Institute who went on a school trip to Costa Rica, seventeen had to be disciplined for misbahavior and five were eventually expelled for using marijuana. As the Washington Post saw it, many parents of students who did not go on the trip because they could not afford the necessary $2500 were feeling happy that, in so doing, they had kept their children out of the way of temptation.

Los Angeles, 27/04/05 

A Californian student was suspended from lessons for answering the phone in classtime. The Los Angeles Times reported that the boy's protests were to no avail, even though the call had come from Iraq where his mother is serving in the American armed forces. Some bitter reactions followed the inflexible decision of the school's principal.

London, 13/04/05 

The role of parents should be placed squarely in the center of the educational system in any reform of Britain's schools. The Labor Party made this one of the cornerstones of its recent electoral program and, according to the BBC, Tony Blair's government will give the School Inspector the power to close any schools which fail to attain satisfactory standards.

Beijing, 13/03/05 

The Chinese government has decided to gradually eliminate school fees in country districts. An article in the newspaper, China Daily, reported how the Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao, announced this during the Communist Party Congress. It is hoped that this measure will help to counteract the growing tendency of country youngsters to give up attanding school.

New York, 12/03/05 

According to an article in the New York Times, there is a new way of celebrating one's 21st birthday when, for the first time, a young person can legally drink alcohol in a bar. The ritual is called “21 for 21” and has already resulted in some deaths. The birthday person goes to a bar at midnight on the appointed day and drinks 21 shots of alcohol before the bar closes, in other words in a very short time. It has been suggested that the right to drink in a bar should have to start in the morning rather than midnight, so that more time is available to assimilate the alcohol.

Kinshasa, 12/03/05 

Street kids have become a national problem in the Congo and in Kinshasa, the capital, alone they number between 30,000 and 40,000. They live from day to day at the minimum subsistence level. An Awareness Day has been arranged to study the problem, according to a report from MISNA, the news agency, and the aim is to get to the root of the problem which is, first and foremost, the crisis situation found in the family.

London, 11/03/05 

The fact that they already speak the universal language may be the reason English people can speak so few foreign languages, and the school authorities have decided to do something about the situation. The BBC reports that £115 million has been made available to improve language teaching in schools. Among other things, the program will include employing 6,000 new teachers and providing refresher courses for another 27,000.

Luanda, 11/03/05 

In just one province of Angola, the province of Bie, which is about 600 km from the capital, Luanda, 35,000 people have been killed and 55,000  injured because of landmines. This is the tragic aftermath of the civil war. According to figures reported by MISNA, there are 15 million landmines in the country, which means one and a half for every citizen. There are about 70,000 mutilated people in the country, including 8,000 young children.

New York, 10/03/05

The gap between the largest ethnic groups in America can be seen not only in their relative incomes but also in the level of schooling. According to a study reported in the New York Times, 81% of white children finish secondary school, compared with only 45.4% for Afro-Amercians and still less, 42% for Hispanic-Americans.

London, 6/03/05 

Differences based on ethnic lines can also be seen in the United Kingdom and, as an article in The Times explains, it has been suggested that black youngsters whose average marks are lower than their white schoolmates should be taught in separate classes. Even though this proposal is supported by sound educational arguments, it has obviously met a lot of opposition and in fact it is clear that it will be unworkable.ile.

Atlanta, 6/03/05

Mercury is highly toxic and should therefore be banned from school science labs. This is the proposal made by a number of environmental groups in the US, as reported on CNN. Recently, a school had to be closed for the second time in succession because some phials of mercury broke, and environmentalists think students should not have face such possible dangers.

Beijing, 4/03/05 

When some dangerous materials exploded near a school, around twenty children were killed and a number of others injured, some seriously. These materials were in the keeping of a mine worker who lived near the school which is situated in a small village in the Chinese province of Shanxi.  The BBC report of the incident explained that the Chinese follow the dangerous practice of giving explosives to the safekeeping of a single person who then very frequently keeps them in the home.

Cardiff, 2/03/05 

A trip to school ended badly for a group of primary school children from South Wales. The BBC reports how their school bus had an engine breakdown and had to stop. Another school bus came by and fifteen children could be transferred on board, but there was no room for everybody. While the other children were waiting for a third bus to arrive, the broken down bus was violently hit by a passing truck. Twenty children were injured, one seriously, and everybody suffered from schock.

Buenos Aires, 11/02/05 

The last three years of the Argentinian high school will now conclude with marks given for mathematics,language, social & natural Science. This reform was announced by the Minister of Education, Daniel Filmus, and will involve a million students. The daily newspaper La Naciòn reports that the students living in Buenos Aires are not included for the moment, as they are asking for a public debate about the new measure.

Paris, 11/02/05 

There will be no reform of the Baccalaureate, the famous exam known simple as the bac, which is the French high school leaving certificate. This was announced by the French Minister of Education, François Fillon, after 100,000 high school students had protested in Paris and in other cities. The students are afraid that the exam will lose its prestige, according to the news agency France Presse.

Edinburgh, 10/02/05 

Talking letters. This is what is needed to be able to teach reading and writing English more rapidly. The letters of the alphabet should correspond to the sounds, or so an experiment counducted in 19 primary schools in the Scottish county of Clackmannshire has led the authorities to conclude. The BBC explains that children taught with this method are three years ahead when compared to the norm.

Kampala, 9/02/05 

Around 25,000 children have been kidnapped in Uganda in the last 18 months, according to the agency MISNA, and they have been forcibly enlisted in Our Lord's Resistance Army. This is perhaps the worst aspect of the civil war which is scourging Uganda, where 100,000 people have been killed and at least a million villagers living near the fighting have been forced to abandon their homes.

London, 21/01/05 

Videogames have often been accused of negatively conditioning young people if not actually alienating them. But it seems they might provide good teaching tools. This came out of a research study conducted by the prestigious London Institute of Education. An appropriate use of electronic games so widely in use can in fact accustom students to sum up a situation rapidly, to solve problems and to learn through trial and error.

Minneapolis, 20/01/05 

Francisco Serrano is a young man with no money, no job and no home. He thought his old school might be able to help him solve his problems. Because he looks younger than his age, he managed to mix with students, sleep in the school building and take showers in his former Minneapolis high school over a three week period. According to CNN he even took classes.

Harrisburg, 19/01/05 

Evolution is only a theory and not a scientific truth. According to this belief, the heads of a number of Pennsylvania schools have introduced a Project Intelligence according to which the world is so complex that it must be the fruit of some mysterious will. The agency Associated Press reports that the evolutionists are protesting that this is simply a secular version  the creationist theory.

Tokyo, 14/01/05 

60 years after the end of the war, the shadow of history continues to darken relationships between Japan and its neighbours. A pilgimage by the prime minister Koizumi to the shrine of Yasukuni, where those fallen in the war are honored, has provoked portests from China and Korea. The memories of the Japanese occupation are still very much alive in both these countries. The newspaper Asahi Shimbun appealed to these former enemies to bear in mind the fact that two thirds of today's Japanese were born after the war had finished.

Rome, 12/01/05

The average age of Italian teachers is 48 and a half, and it is increasing. In 2015, the average age will reach 54. These figures come from a study conducted by UIL Scuola, a teachers’ union, and were reported in the daily newspaper La Stampa. At present the employment of new personnel is blocked which means that in 10 years only 1.7% of teachers will be under 35. In addiiton, the number of teachers with permanent contracts has fallen from 722,000 in the year 2000 to the current 707,000.

Buenos Aires, 12/01/05 

A new law will attempt to safeguard students in schools in Argentina. One of the effects will be to establish routine inspections of buildings and equipment and to make nominate a person to be responsible for the safety aspects in each school. An article in the newspaper La Naciòn explained how this innovation was adopted because a young relative of ex-president Raùl Alfonsin was killed by glass fragments from a door that had been slammed shut by the wind.

Rome, 11/01/05 

What are Italian High School students’ favorite school subjects? According to an inquiry referred to in the daily newspaper La Repubblica, first place goes to physical education which was chosen by 70% of students interviewed. This is followed, but a long distance down the list, by history and foreign languages (39%) and, even further down the list, geography and math (33%). Italian and art history are liked by only 30% and scientific subjects appeal to a mere 18%.

London, 10/01/05 

The kind of petty crime which has been widespread for some time in British schools usually reaches a peak in January. This is when youngsters customarily bring their Christmas presents to school to show their friends and classmates. In a BBC report we learn that the authorities are conducting a campaign to put potential crime victims on the alert. They are advising young people to keep their school bags securely closed and to keep their money and their mobile phones separately.

Colombo, 10/01/05 

The devastating seaquake of December 26 is causing further repercussions now that schools are resuming classes. In Sri Lanka as few as 25,000 of the 100,000 students in the affected areas have gone back to school, according to a BBC report. Many of the absent students are victims of the disaster, others lost their families or their homea. The same situation is to be found in the nearby Indian state o Tamil Nadu.

Lima, 8/01/05 

Children in a desolate bidonville located in the Peruvian port of Callao have lead concentrations in the blood that can reach as high as 60 micrograms per deciliter, six times the level described as saturnism, a level of intoxication that can be fatal. The newspaper Le Monde reports that the cause of this situation is in the pollution caused by the local mining industry.

Houston, 30/12/04 

According to Phyllis Wilson, a Houston kindergarten teacher, there is a disturbing lack of speech therapists in Texas and in the other States of the Union while, unfortunately, speech problems are widespread throughout the school-age population. Teachers at present have to make do with trial-and-error methods or must simply try and get on with the job. CNN has calculated that by 2012 the USA will need no fewer than 120,000 speech specialists.

Concord, 29/12/04 

To encourage children to drink more milk, plastic bottles are needed rather then the present inconvenient cartons that are used. This is what came out of an inquiry carried out in 320 New England schools and is the opinion, quoted by Associated Press, of Steve Taylor from the Agricultural Board of the state of New Hampshire. The advice was well received and many school canteens have already made the changeover.

Los Angeles, 21/12/04 

An investigation conducted into the LA school district has revealed, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times, an alarming picture of the psychological state of the teachers. Most of them suffer from frustration, depression and panic attacks. Among the reasons for this situation are severe social tensions which show up as lack of discipline and bullying in multi-ethnic classrooms.

Xian, 14/12/04 

Inquiries are being made about a high school teacher in this north western Chinese city who is alleged to have asked his students to write their own epitaphs. According to the daily newspaper Xinmin Evening News, the teacher, whose name is Geng Xiaohong, maintains in his defence that writing one's own epitaph is an extremely useful exercise to help develop a sense of values in young people and to encourage them to ask questions about the meaning of life.

Wellington, 14/12/04 

The international survey known as PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) recently placed New Zealand students midway in a classification of school achievers, between the best and the worst. The situation has caused much discussion although The Dominion Post, a local newspapr, pointed out that, with the exception of math where the classification this time is lower, New Zealand's position has effectively remained unchanged since the previous survey carried out in 2003.

Ragusa, 13/12/04 

Three days without television for the youngsters of Ragusa. This initiative, we learn from the news agency ANSA, was organised by the Province and the local Olympic committee. They have adopted a slogan saying "No to the sedentary life. No to obesity" and the idea is to encourage young people to turn off their TV sets and use the time saved actively in doing some kind of sport. Indeed, everybody in the family is being invited to go to the gym.

Ajaccio, 12/12/04 

For some time now, Corsica has seen fresh outbursts of racism, with a number of violent attacks on North Africans especially. The local authorities have decided it is time to put a stop to this situation. The news agency France Presse describes how all the schools on the island are taking part in a campaign to disseminate information about necessary it is for citizens from different ethnic groups to learn to live together.

Baltimore, 12/12/04 

If it is true that so many of today's young people are adverse to reading, why not try to encourage them with comics? The Washington Post recently published an article about how this strategy will be tried out in the schools of Maryland. The idea is that, since comics enjoy great popularity in America, they could be used not only to teach children how to read but also for teaching other subjects.

London, 10/12/04 

About 10,000 English school-age youngsters have given up school. A recent study quoted on the BBC has underlined the fact that almost all of these students had either been suspended or expelled for different types of bad behaviour. Such displinary measures are to the permanent detriment of the student all too often and it is therefore necessary to find alternative solutions to these problems.

Washington, 7/12/04 

The results of the PISA survey are causing discussions also in America. US students are being beaten by their contemporaries in most Asian and European countries. And not only, as CNN reports: once again America is divided along ethnic lines since black and Hispanic students have lower achievements than white students.

Rome, 6/12/04 

Very bitter arguments have arisen in Italy on account of the decision taken by some primary school teachers not to display Christmas cribs this year, in order not to offend the sensitivity of Muslim students and their families. The newspaper La Repubblica has registered the reaction of a great number of both Catholics and lay persons who consider the sacrifice of such a strongly-rooted and innocent tradition on the altar of political correctness to be totally ridiculous.

Burnham-on-Sea, 13/11/04 

Although Mikhail Smethurst is only six years old, he is derided, humiliated and even beaten while at school. The reason, according to his parents, is that he is a Muslim. He attends St Christopher’s primary school in the English town of Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset, and the school has not only been reported but it has been asked to pay damages. The BBC story relates how, among other things, the boy was habitually called “mud face”.

Trapani, 12/11/04 

Unlawful detention and abuse of disciplinary measures – these are the accusations against a female primary school teacher in Salemi, located in the Province of Trapani, Italy. According to the story in the newspaper La Repubblica, this teacher of English tied a seven-year-old boy to a chair and closed his mouth with adhesive tape, because he was too vivacious in class. The teacher’s response is that it was all part of a game.

Eindhoven, 11/11/04 

The wave of violent reactions in Holland following the murder of the film director, Theo van Gogh, by an Islamic fundamentalist has not spared the schools. After a bomb damaged a Muslim institute in Eindhoven, a fire destroyed a Catholic school in the same city which is attended by students of a variety of faiths. CNN calculates that the number of attacks against religious sites reached 18 in a period of about ten days.

New York, 11/11/04 

The baby girl she was bringing up was dead and so she had simply thrown the body onto a rubbish dump. This tragic story began when the mother reported the girl’s disappearance, but the truth came to light after the body had been discovered amongst the rubbish and the mother had made a full confession. The press agancy AP, reported how the child suffered from a serious brain disorder and had died of natural causes.

London, 10/11/04 

An enquiry conducted in a certain number of schools in England, Scotland and Wales has revealed, according to the BBC, that the quality of the food served in school canteens is unsuitable, to say the least. Authorities have been asked to be pay more attention to this matter and, in particular, to eliminate dispensing machines which supply drinks and snacks of dubious nutritional value.

Philadelphia, 9/11/04 

According to the Pennsylvania school authorities, the experiment in which some public school were handed over to private management has been successful. In the Philadelphia area alone, some 45 schools out of 265 took part in this “privatization” experiment, even though as the Washington Post pointed out, it wasn’t really privatization but the simple expedient of using outside services. Despite its success, the policy was aroused fierce opposition..

Fuyang, 9/11/04 

The deaths of thirteen babies from malnutrition in the Chinese city of Fuyang has brought to light a foodstuffs fraud involving around a hundred people. The agency MISNA reports that milk powder was being sold that contained very few nutrients. Analyses have revealed that some shipments of this product contained only a sixth of the nutrients normally present in powdered milk.

Còrdoba, 30/10/04 

”I’ll shoot the lot of you with my father’s pistol” – this is the way a ten-year-old Argentinian boy, son of a policeman, threatened one of his female schoolmates in a letter. He explained that he would shoot her and her girl friends too. The daily newspaper Clarìn reported that the threat was taken seriously and that the boy has been taken away from his school temporarily and entrusted to a team of psychologists.

Addis Ababa, 29/10/04 

After a number of cases of poliomylitis were registered in the north of the country along the Sudanese border, Ethiopia carried out a widespread vaccination campaign involving 750,000 children. In reporting this news item, the agency MISNA recalls that polio is still present in many African states and that during the first nine months of this year more than 700 youngsters have been afflicted.

Indianapolis, 28/10/04 

She thought the children were asleep and so she went off to have something to eat. This was the excuse of an Indianapolis woman after one of  the children, who had both been left alone in the house, fell from a window. A neighbour related to CNN how she had seen the children together at the window calling for their mother. The two-year-old boy who fell is not in a serious condition and both he and his baby sister were immediately placed in protective custody.

London, 22/10/04 

The BBC reports that music teachers in English schools are extremely dissatisfied. This has nothing to do with their teaching situation but stems from the fact that the less well-off families cannot afford to pay the extra money needed for music lessons and so their children are excluded. Of those who do study music, the girls usually choose flute or violin and the boys guitar or drums.

Washington, 21/10/04

It's election time also in Washington's Centreville High School. The Washington Post relates how the students, guided by their teachers, enact simulations of the debates and issues which are very similar to those of the candidates taking part in the Presidential race to be decided on November 2. This initiative is designed to stimulate an interest both in both politics and in the way the legislative system works.

Paris, 20/10/04 

François Fillon, French Minister of Education, is ready to launch a widespread consultation campaign before the vote takes place on proposed laws regarding new education directions. This law has been preceded by a bitter debate about making English language lessons compulsory even in primary schools and, according to the newspaper Le Monde, will be voted on in spring to go into effect in autumn 2006 at the start of the new scholastic year.

Mexico City, 20/10/04 

Greater efforts need to be made in the vitally important sector of primary education. This is what the Mexican school workers union is asking for. According to the newspaper Excelsior, the chief secretary of the union, Rafael Ochoa Guzmàn, is asking that educational programs be developed over the whole period of the school cycle in order to free these programs from their present dependence on annual fighting for funds.

Mulhouse, 19/10/04 

Now that the initial running-in period is over, during which a certain tolerance was accepted, the contoversial law forbidding the open display of religious symbols in French schools is being applied in earnest. The agency AFP reports how two female students were expelled from a secondary institute in Mulhouse after all attempts to persuade them to remove their veils had failed. They can now enrol in distance-learning programs.

Milan, 19/10/04 

They wanted to get out of a Greek test, or at least have it postponed, but they only succeeded in creating a disaster of unforeseen proportions. Some of the students of the long-established Parini Liceo Classico in Milan broke into the school during the night and opened the bathroom taps. The report in the newspaper La Repubblica estimated the damage at hundreds of thousands of Euro. The entire school had to be closed for ten or so days.

Paris, 8/10/04 

Viper in the Fist is the title of Hervé Bazin’s novel which narrates the long struggle between a ten-year-old boy and the cruel and opressive woman who is his mother. The novel has now become a film directed by Philippe de Broca with its exterior scenes shot in the English countryside in Devon. The news agency France Presse quotes the director as saying that he wanted to invite comparisons with the literary world of Charles Dickens.

Philadelphia, 7/10/04 

The education authorities of the  Philadelphia schools district have asked the cooperation of religious organisations to help stamp out bullying and juvenile violence. This proposal, however, has led to bitter debates in the state of Pennsylvania. CNN reports that many critics consider this type of cooperation to be not only improper but even illegal, as it violates the principle of separation of church and state.

Belfast, 7/10/04 

A Northern Irish teacher who had been accused of sexually harrassing a female high school student was suspended from classes for two years. Later a law court acquitted him of the charge. At this point, as was reported by the BBC, the teacher’s colleagues went out on strike. According to their way of seeing the matter, any disciplinary action against the teacher should have been decided only after he had been found guilty in a court of law.

Lüneburg, 6/10/04 

The guiding spirit of CISV – Children’s International Summer Villages – is to help children from countries all over the world to live together. CISV has a camp in a Lüneburg school complex, near Hamburg and it is this camp which inspired an article in the weekly magazine Der Spiegel. The report charts the history of how this institution was founded in 1947 at the prompting of the American psychologist Doris Allen.

New York, 5/10/04 

Too many people, and too many children in particular, are dying in Palestine and Israel. For this reason, as reported in the United Nations, the representatives of the eleven member states of the Security Council, including the US delegates, expressed the wish that the Israeli government would suspend their military operations in the Gaza Strip. They are hoping for a return to the negotiating table in order to break the cycle of attacks followed by reprisals followed by further attacks.

Baghdad, 1/10/04 

The news agency AFP reports how 5 million Iraqi students went back to school this year two weeks later than usual and with a terrible feeling of insecurity and uncertainty. Just after the press conference when the Minister of Education, Sami al-Mouzaffar, announced the reopening of schools, a ferocious attack in the center of Baghdad caused the deaths of 34 children.

Managua, 17/09/04 

The experience of a group of deaf children in the Nicaragua capital, Managua, was the starting point to lead a group of scholars from New York’s Columbia University to work out a theory of “innate language ability’.  The children of Managua were communicating with a type of sign language that they themselves had invented. The report of this research in Science magazine explains that children have no need to be actually taught how to speak; all they really need is a context in which they can interact socially.

London, 10/09/04 

There is no connection between autism and the triple vaccine used to protect children against measles, mumps and German measles. The medical journal The Lancet has recently published this result of a specialist study on a sampling of 5,000 children. In 1988 the same journal printed the report of a theory advanced by a previous study which suggested that use of this vaccine might be linked to an increase in cases of autism.

Geneva, 8/09/04 

According to data published  by UNICEF to coincide with an international day promoting literacy, 120 million children do not have access to education and two thirds of these are girls. Lack of schooling makes children more vulnerable to poverty, to extortion and to AIDS.

Paris, 8/09/04 

Even though the kidnapping of two French journalists in Iraq was designed to pressurise the French government into repealing the law banning the display of religious symbols in schools, the law nonetheless took effect when schools reopened after the summer holidays. A week after the start of lessons, the French Minister for Education, François Fillon, speaking on Europe 1, said that no more than 100 – 120 Muslim female students had refused to remove their veils.

Houston, 7/09/04 

During the school year 2000/2001, more than 3,000 students in the Houston school district of Texas left school in the middle of their studies. This has led to new strategies and measures designed to keep even the most difficult kids at school. According to CNN, one of the ideas is to distribute these students into smaller classes and to offer support systems to keep a check on their progress.

London, 6/09/04 

Infantile and childhood obesity has become a problem even in the United Kingdom and the government has decided to try and tackle it. The BBC reports that  the attack will take place on two fronts: on the one hand, schools will be encouraged to promote more effective and continuous physical education programs and on the other school canteens will be more strictly controlled in order to reduce significantly the salt, sugar and.fat content of the food served.

New Delhi, 4/09/04 

In the decade between 1991 and 2001, the precentage of people able to read and write in India rose from 52 to 65%, an increase of 13%. The agency MISNA reported that the state of Kerala had the highest literacy rate with 91% of the population able to write, while the least literate state was Bihar still afflicted by endemic poverty.

Paris, 1/09/04 

Jules Ferry, the French Minister of Education who founded the modern school system in 1882, is the number one choice of names for the nearly 70,000 schools in France, according to a survey carried out by the newspaper Le Monde. Second choice is Jean Monnet, the European statesman, and third is Jean Moulin the partisan hero. Schools are also named after writers, scientists, French monarchs and even trees and flowers.

Braunschweig, 30/08/04 

There is no reason to enrol children in school at the age of 5 instead of 6 just because they are intellectually gifted. This was the opinion of a judge in Braunschweig, according to an article in the German weekly Der Spiegel. It would seem that, rather than force gifted children to sit in classrooms,  it is better to give them an extra year of worry-free childhood where not only intelligence is important but also physical development and social skills.

Buenos Aires, 29/08/04 

Tell us the stories of your dreams: this is the invitation that Argentinian students have received from the Minister of Education through a national radio progam. The daily newspaper Clarìn reports that the children’s dreams reveal their humor but also a sense of social disadvantage. One boy related how he dreamed of electricity after the solar panel battery of his building broke and his home was left in darkness. Another dreamed of becoming a doctor as there is none in the area where he lives.

New Delhi, 27/05/04 

After the unexpected electoral victory by Sonia Gandhi’s Congress Party, education is being treated as a top priority by the new Indian government headed by economist Manmohan Singh. According to the report in The Times of India, this sector will be financed by a surtax applied to income tax. At least this is the government’s proposal and it has the support by a coalition of a number of left-wing parties.

London, 26/05/04 

The number of students expelled from English schools for violence or lack of discipline has declined for the first time in three years. Nevertheless, with 9,290 cases in 2002/2003, the number still remains high. In a report on the BBC, we learn that there has been no parallel decrease in antisocial behavior. The figures for expulsions refer mainly to 14-year-old males from families with an Irish background.

Paris, 26/05/04 

Probably because they are all stressed out after a difficult year that has seen a lot of union action, fewer French teachers took part in recent continuing strike action to express their opposition to the government’s school policies. The unions are not, however, giving up. They told the agency France Presse that the Ministry for Education can expect anything but a smooth start to the new school year next autumn.

Louisville, 21/05/04 

Professor Ede Warner of the University of Kentucky wants the Ku Klux Klan banned from the university and, in order to obtain his wish, he is willing to go before the courts to have the Klan called a terrorist organization. However, according to opinions expressed on CNN, he will find it difficult to demonstrate his case. The Klan might have been a killer organization in the past, but today its activities are limited to hate campaigns and propaganda.

Bogota, 15/05/04 

Working in conjunction with an adult gang, three youngsters planned to have their schoolmates kidnapped by highjacking a school bus. But the police force of the small Colombian town of Cucuta was able to nip the plan in the bud, luckily, because the youngsters had already received a pistol and they had been promised a share of the ransom money. As Associated Press pointed out, Colombia is the country with the highest rate of kidnappings in the world..

Harare, 6/05/04 

A large number of private school head teachers in Harare and Bulawayo, the biggest cities in Zimbabwe, have been arrested. The BBC reported that they have been accused of excluding as many African students as they can. The Justice Minister Aeneas Chigwedere says that all of these schools, which were reserved exclusively for whites during the colonial period, have remained racist in their policies.

Washington, 4/05/04 

American youngsters are becoming increasingly used to drinking alcohol, but what countermeasures should be adopted to solve this problem are still under debate. Should students be taught how to treat alcohol with common sense or should they be completely forbidden to have alcoholic drinks? Jay Matthews in the Washington Post is in favor of this second option. He believes that, just as “responsible smoking” is not a workable policy, there is no such thing as “responsible drinking”.

Rome, 16/04/04 

How many children are there working in Italy? The newspaper La Repubblica reports on a difference of opinion between IRES, a research institute operated by one of the big Italian trade unions, CGIL, and the Minister for Social Affairs, Roberto Maroni. The union speaks about 400,000 under-age workers while the minister thinks that the real figure is little more than a third of this number. The union thinks the minister should deal with the problem rather than minimise it.

Paris, 16/04/04 

The new  Secretary for Disabled Persons in France, Marie-Anne Montchamp, has announced that, as from January 2005, a new law will come into effect guaranteeing equal rights with other citizens to all disabled persons. The law is still in its preparation phase, but already it is clear that the first result will be to allow any disabled person to attend French schools. According to the agency France Presse, the text of the law will be examined by the French parliament before the summer.

Sao Paulo, 14/04/04 

The growth of criminal activity in Sao Paulo, one of Brazil’s most heavily populated states, has reached worrying levels. The daily paper Diario de S. Paulo reports that between 1980 and 2000 more than 190,000 murders took place, a twenty-fold increase on the previous twenty year period. Many of those killed were young or even very young people and most of the murders involved firearms.