Global education news from IPS

BANGKOK, June 21 (IPS) - Once again, parents in military-ruled Burma are counting the cost of a primary education for their children in public schools. It is an annual ritual that comes with the beginning of a new school year, which coincides with the onset of the monsoon rains in June.

KOLKATA, India, June 17 (IPS) - In a small, dingy and humid room in Metiabruz, a poor Muslim-dominated locality in Kolkata in eastern India, at least 20 Muslim women are talking with excitement about their aspirations and why they decided to study information technology (IT), a short-term course offered for a minimal fee by a non- government organisation operating in their locality.

MEXICO CITY, May 13 (IPS) - Learning to do aerial acrobatics has not only helped 13-year-old Atenas Padilla overcome her fear of heights, but also to become more tolerant and creative.

SRINAGAR, May 13 (IPS) - Shameema Wani, 40, never imagined a simple venture, begun from scratch, would grow into the 2,000-strong business enterprise, employing mainly women, that it is today in this capital city of India’s disputed Jammu and Kashmir state.

JOHANNESBURG, Jun 14 (IPS) - The World Cup is wreaking havoc with a key millennium development goal in South Africa: as the football tournament hit its stride, not a single child across the nation attended school.

BUENOS AIRES, Jun 9 (IPS) - A new school to train football referees to work amateur-level tournaments in Argentina aims at providing skills and a legitimate source of income for young people from poor homes.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 5 (IPS) - In a country where many poor children dream of "making it big" through football or modeling, retired Brazilian football stars Leonardo and Raí could have simply basked in their fame. But they decided instead to combine sport with education, art and skills training.

MEXICO CITY, May 28 (IPS) - Consumer organisations and experts say the Mexican government's plan to remove junk food from schools is a step in the right direction in the fight against obesity in this country, which has the highest rate of childhood obesity in the world, and the second highest rate for adults, after the United States.

KINGSTON, May 28 (IPS) - This week's ongoing standoff in Jamaica, in which 73 people have been killed as police search for a wanted gang leader in the Tivoli Gardens neighbourhood of Kingston, is focusing renewed international attention on the island's seemingly intractable violent crime rate.

NEW YORK, May 27 (IPS) - The American Civil Liberties Union has launched a letter-writing campaign designed to persuade book publishers not to use the "ideologically-slanted standards for social studies textbooks" approved by the Texas State Board of Education as a model for use in other states.

BERKELEY, California, May 27 (IPS) - It might be hard to imagine that a woman's attendance at a university would be contingent upon the way she dresses.

MONROVIA, May 26 (IPS) - In a small office tucked behind the stairwell in Liberia’s Ministry of Education, the once-proud staff of the Girls’ Education Unit appear defeated.

PESHAWAR, Apr 27 (IPS) - "I don’t feel any fear. My parents do. They instruct me almost every day to stay away from crowded places," said Afaq Ali, a Grade 1 student in this capital city of the militancy-wracked Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan.

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka, Apr 26 (IPS) - Two cyclists from the minority Tamil community are shooed away by government soldiers as they approach this northern Sri Lankan city’s only Buddhist temple while President Mahinda Rajapaksa is paying a visit.

CAPE TOWN, Apr 24 (IPS) - Miss, Miss, there are tiny creatures here in the water!" a Grade 7 pupil shouts excitedly, trying to draw attention to his water sample. At first, the liquid looks clear, but upon closer examination, one can make out a tiny aquatic invertebrate.

JOHANNESBURG, Mar 25 (IPS) - "Some said, how can women dancers tell us about climate change? Some said, how can dancers talk about planting trees? Others asked, how can women dancers build schools? But now the government says a drum has managed to fill our granaries, a dancer has managed to build schools."

BUENOS AIRES, Mar 25 (IPS) - "I wanted to take a self-portrait, and I thought about keeping a straight face, but it came out all weird, with these very long arms," says Liliana Cabrera about the photo she took with a camera she made herself, out of a condensed milk tin, at a workshop in an Argentine prison.