Education BLog

With the annual Teacher's Day falling on Thursday and students in big cities visiting their teachers to express their thanks, those who worked on their special posts should be remembered as well.

ONE MAN'S PERSISTENCE

In the Yingxin Village of Changfeng County in the agricultural Anhui Province, a school has survived for 13 years, with the number of its students changing from 12 to 60. The headmaster, teacher and staff were just one single person -- the 56-year-old Tang Quanyou.

"Since I took this job, I must do it well," said the man with a smile, wrinkles showing on his sun-tanned face.

Tang became a teacher in 1975 after graduation from a local middle school. At that time, he was assigned to the Shangdu Primary School, which has two thatched cottages and three teachers.

The other two teachers left after two years, while Tang taught all the subjects alone.

In 1979, the school was merged into the Bazhang Primary School, when Tang finally ended his solo stint.

However, this change meant that many children had to make a round trip of 10 kilometers on a rugged path.

In 1998, at the suggestion of villagers, another teaching site for students in low grades was set up, and Tang became the headmaster.

He teaches all the subjects in the school--Chinese, mathematics, geography, art and physical education.

To teach his students the broadcast gymnastics which nearly all schools had to do, Tang went to the schools in the county seat several times.

Now every morning, villagers can see an interesting scene: a gray-haired man jumping in front of a group of kids to the sound of music.

"Students in the low grades were like a piece of white paper; you can write anything on it," he said, noting that it was why he considered the job important.

"For those kids, he even slept in the school and our land became run-down," said Tang's wife Gao Guozhen. But in 2006, Tang managed to drag her into the school as well. Since then, Gao became the chef, cooking for the kids.

Tang's efforts paid off. His fellow villagers frequently dropped in, giving him some vegetable or eggs. Nobody burned wasted crop straws near the schools, for fear of affecting Tang's classes.

Sixteen kids entered the school this Sept. 1, five of whom were just five years old.

"They are too young," Tang smiled, adding that he even had to feed them with water and take them to toilet during classes.

The teacher didn't know that his students prepared a special gift for him for the Teacher's Day.

Outside the school, wild flowers were blooming. "We will give our teacher a most beautiful bouquet," a boy whispered to a Xinhua reporter.

The first scholarships under the China-Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Scholarship Scheme have been awarded to nine students from four Pacific island countries, the Suva-based PIF Secretariat said on Thursday.

The scholarship scheme between the China and the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat is in addition to any bilateral scholarships between China and individual countries in the region. It is open to all Pacific Islands Forum members excluding Australia and New Zealand.

Of the first nine scholarships awarded under the Scheme, five are from Samoa, two from Fiji, one from Solomon Islands and one from Papua New Guinea. The scholarships cover fees and a living allowance as well as expenses for travel to China and within China.

The students will be studying a range of subjects in various universities and institutes in different parts of China, including international politics, urban planning, law, computer science and technology, international economics and trade, tourism management, information management, information system, accounting and bioengineering

They will be studying the Chinese language for the first year before they study in their specific areas of interest.

"These scholarships provide an excellent opportunity for young people from our region to gain first class qualifications in a range of disciplines as well as learning the language and culture of China, which will stand them in good stead on their return, said Tuiloma Neroni Slade, secretary general of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat.

The Forum Secretariat will be accepting applications early 2010 for the next lot of scholarships.

The National Stadium, or the Bird's Nest, will open to teachers free of charge on Teacher's Day which falls on Sept. 10.

All teachers will be taken on a free tour of the stadium upon providing ID certification at the gate, said an officer with the stadium's ticket office Wednesday.

The move aims to pay tribute to the teachers and provide a practical example of the traditional Chinese virtue of respect for teachers and education.

Located in the southern section of the Olympic Green in Beijing, the Bird's Nest was the main stadium for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Occupying 21 hectares, it has a floor space of 258,000 square meters and seating for 91,000 spectators.

It has grown into an iconic building and one of China's major tourist attractions since the Games.

"She sells sea shells by the seashore," parroted 40 Chinese youngsters with perfect diction in a steaming summer-holiday classroom.

Your scribe was taken aback by this linguistic display after inadvertently finding himself in front of a chalkboard for the first time following a move to Hainan to study Mandarin - full-time!

Although the sharp group of 12-year-olds easily twisted their little tongues around the sentence above, they found more mirth than success in, "How much wood would a wood chop chop if a wood chop could chop wood?" (spoken at a hundred miles an hour).

Out of sympathy for my charges, I then took a shot at one of the most infamous Chinese tongue twisters.

"Si shi si (4 is 4), shi shi shi (10 is 10), shi si shi shi si (14 is 14)," I stuttered with a modicum of success. When my attempt at 40 is 40 (si shi shi si shi) and 44 is 44 (si shi si shi si shi si) degenerated into "shi shi shi si si si", we were in the same boat.

By now, still sweating profusely from nerves and the absence of air-conditioning in a tropical classroom, I had run out of quirky lines and the interest in my lesson began to wane.

But just as I resorted to a text book, thankfully an illustration of a chicken led me to a teacher's aide infinitely more helpful than a tongue twister: onomatopoeia.

Now, with good authority, I can say that "b'gerk" should be the first thing taught to young Chinese learning English.

The students laughed wildly each time I bellowed it out, although the accompanying dance and flying sweat beads may have also had something to do with it.

More accustomed to "gu, gu, gu" when imitating a chicken, the sound of the above even caught the attention of those daydreamers thinking of any place cooler than that sweat box.

When they repeated "b'gerk' too flatly, my advice - to pronounce the second syllable using Mandarin's first and highest tone - worked a treat and the school soon sounded like a fox in a hen house.

Naturally a rooster's "Cock-a-doodle-doo!" followed suit - much to the dismay of my protgs, for whom "zhi zhi zha zha," had always been the sound of the bird shaped like their own country.

Now all and sundry were eagerly anticipating which member of the animal kingdom their crazy Australian would imitate next, as my teaching debut morphed into what Mayor Quimby on The Simpsons would surely "declare Onomatopoeia Day".

Again all were agog, and some in fits of laughter, to learn Westerners used "woof woof" for a dog's "wang wang". "Wang wang?" I asked, silently incredulous.

And a few sparse eyebrows were raised at the news "a-choo" was actually how those silly foreigners mimicked a sneeze - not "a-ti" - and that a "dong" (first tone) at the door was actually a knock.

Continuing the hilarity, "gua gua" (fourth tone) gave way to "ribbit" as we impersonated a frog together, just as "ba-a-ah, ba-a-ah" replaced "mie" as the din of a sheep flock.

As "quack quack" flew south from my mouth to their developing minds, "ga ga" (first tone) passed for a duck to my growing ear for Chinese.

The humor the youngsters found in these examples came as a pleasant surprise to a complete novice of a teacher, as did their ability to pronounce difficult words correctly.

Although a lumberjack's productivity was out of reach, in just one attempt they had mastered the word "usually", a word even the most fluent Chinese English speakers make a hash of. "Ewerully" has indeed provided me a chuckle or two over the past two years.

But I've never laughed as hard as those kids when they first heard a waiguoren playing chicken.

China's demand for teachers in its nine-year compulsory education is expected to drop by 1 million or 12 percent from the figure in 2008, according to a report released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Tuesday.

The report listed a sharp drop in the number of students receiving compulsory education in primary and junior high schools at that time as a major reason for the prediction.

By 2020, the number of students receiving compulsory education in primary and junior high schools could decrease by more than 18 million, or about 11 percent from the figure in 2008, the report said.

Junior high students is expected to number 41.57 million in 2020, a 15 percent drop from 2008, while primary students could number 93.5 million.

China's nine-year compulsory education covers primary and junior high school, according to the Law on Compulsory Education.

China's family planning policy, which was formulated in the early 1970s, encourages late marriages and late childbearing, and limits most urban couples to one child and most rural couples to two children.

In the first half of the 21st century, China will witness a peak in its total population, working-age population, and elderly population, according to the National Population and Family Planning Commission.

One third of China's total population, about 437 million people, will be citizens over 60 years old in 2050, while its population of 16 to 60-year-olds will hit the peak of 990 million in 2016, government figures showed.

The results of an international English test released Tuesday revealed that more than 80 percent of the city's graduating college students have effective command of the language.

The University Grants Committee of Hong Kong (UGC) Tuesday announced the results of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) taken by final year students of UGC-funded undergraduate degree programs under the 2008/09 Common English Proficiency Assessment Scheme (CEPAS).

Almost 11,800 final year students, or about 71 percent of all full-time and part-time undergraduate final year students, participated in CEPAS in 2008/09.

The average overall score was 6.69 on a nine-point scale. About87 percent of the students obtained a score in the 6.0 to 7.5 range, which means they are "competent" or "good" users.

Among the four modules of the system, students, on average, did better in "reading" and "listening", scoring overall 7.34 and 7.15respectively. The average scores in "speaking" and "writing" were 6.04 and 5.97 respectively.

The CEPAS results provide useful reference for the eight UGC- funded institutions in formulating their English language enhancement strategies and programs. It also provides a common framework for assessing and documenting graduating students' English proficiency.

IELTS has been adopted by UGC as the Common English Proficiency Assessment since 2002/03.

China's top juice maker, Beijing Huiyuan Beverage & Food Group Co. Ltd., has signed a strategic agreement with the One Foundation, a charity project operating under the Red Cross Society of China, for a long-term philanthropic partnership, China Daily reported Monday.

According to the agreement, Huiyuan donated 1 million yuan (142,857 U.S. dollars) in one lump sum to the One Foundation.

Since the agreement became effective this month, Huiyuan also will donate 1 yuan to the charity fund for every bottle of its C-She-V-He juice purchased by consumers. All donations will be earmarked for children's and educational programs carried out by the non-government organization.

After acquiring a small cannery in 1992, Huiyuan Group has grown into the largest fruit juice producer in China.

The beverage and food giant has since donated 300 million yuan in cash and in-kind services to charitable causes. It has supported poverty relief, education and youth development efforts, as well as sports and cultural causes.

In addition, the Hong Kong-listed company has been keeping its commitment to "bringing nutrition to consumers while benefiting rural areas and farmers", according to the newspaper.

The One Foundation has established cooperation with a group of enterprises. In addition to Huiyuan, partners include China Merchants Bank, Alibaba, Hengan, Microsoft, Versace, Tetra Pak, San Migual Corp. and Tomson Group.

Shigeru Aoyagi, the Country Director of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Monday urged all stakeholders in Afghanistan to take serious action toward improving access to quality, relevant literacy programming in the country.

UNESCO, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the UN Human Settlements Program (UN Habitat) once again urged all relevant stakeholders to take serious action toward improving access to literacy programming in the country, especially for those areas most underserved, most vulnerable to exclusion and with high numbers of persons living in extreme poverty, Aoyagi told a joint news briefing with the representative of UNICEF and UN Habitat here.

"UNICEF provides support to the ministry of education to implement women's literacy course which benefit to average of 80,000 women each year. And 386,000 women have been benefited from this assistance since 2006," said Catherine Mbengue, the representative of UNICEF.

Mbengue also said that their organization has faced many challenges. The main challenge is that many people in Afghanistan believe that education of girls are not so important.

Afghanistan remains one of the least literacy countries in the world, where only 34 percent of the population can read and write,the majority of whom live in urban areas.

Michael Slingsby, representative of UN Habitat, noted that the rural areas are more alarming, 74 percent of Afghans (90 percent of women and 63 percent of men) lack of literacy skills.

Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari has said that at least 50 million Pakistanis out of around160 millions total population cannot read or write, according to local media reports on Monday.

"This state of affairs demands a review of our development priorities and re-examination of our strategies," the president said in his message on the International Literacy Day to be observed on Sept. 8.

"Pakistan is lagging behind the most of the countries of the region in the areas of literacy and primary education," Zardari said.

According to the Human Development Index (HDI), Pakistan is ranked 136 out of 179 countries of the world.

"We have, so far, been able to make little progress in changingthe situation," the president admitted.

He strongly recommended legislation by the Parliament to recognize and declare "free primary education" a fundamental human right in the Constitution of Pakistan.

Zardari proposed the formation of a high level National Literacy Council to ensure that a well coordinated and effective literacy drive is launched throughout the country.

Zardari urged the educational planners to adopt a multi-pronged strategy for eradication of illiteracy and provision of basic education to all: children, youth and adults.

Meanwhile, MirHazar Khan Bijarani, Pakistan's Federal Minister for Education, has renewed commitment of the government to achieve literacy rate of 86 percent by 2015, the official news agency APP reported.

The Chinese Language and Culture Education Foundation of China (CLCEF) received Monday a 20 million yuan (2.9 million U.S. dollars) donation to encourage overseas Chinese youths to study the country's language and culture.

The donation was made by Agile Property, a real estate company from Hong Kong. In January 2008, the foundation received its largest yet donation of 30 million yuan from the same company.

A spokesman with the foundation said the overall 50 million yuan would be used to train Chinese language teachers and support overseas Chinese youths to study Chinese.

According to the foundation, most overseas Chinese have the tradition to study and inherit Chinese culture. However, limited by local sources, overseas Chinese schools have encountered various problems, including shortage of money and teachers and outdated teaching materials.

Li Haifeng, director of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council, said, "Chinese culture is the bridge linking overseas Chinese friends with their native country, and it's of great importance to carry out Chinese culture education as a key part of our overseas Chinese affairs."

The non-profit foundation was established in September 2004 under the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council, aiming to support the overseas education of Chinese language and culture.