Daily Archives: March 26, 2021

(Photo by Natasha Spencer)

Every Friday, Polina Lyapustina delivers a short essay on some of the mostsensitive topics in the industrywith the intent of establishing a dialogue about the opera world and its future.

On March 24, Opera Managers Association International issued an open letter, demanding solutions to the Global Culture Drain.

During a month marking one year of global quarantine, the association published a very balanced and smoothly written note, where, in 750 words, one barely finds anything to argue, though there are no certain points or solution either. And this probably made me read it between the lines.

In its statement, OMAI asserts that in countries with public support of the opera, artists are doing better, and the industry will certainly recover faster. This (without exhaustive explanation) sets the foundation for the solutions OMAI probably implies and expects. Meanwhile, not a single word is said on the optimization of the industry costs, improvement and update of the labor rights, and rethinking the art-form for the future.

The model in which state economics support (equally) different social and art institutions is Socialism. Though I believe, neither the worldwide tax increases (would you prefer 50 or 60 percent?) nor the abolition of private rights are in the plan. But surely, OMAI didnt mean to change the political systems in the countries around the globe. Giving Germany as an example, the authors of the letter seem to forget, that not only arts but all entrepreneurs and workers received the same type of support. At the same time, German opera freelancers are now fighting with opera managers, who denied them fair payments for the real work.

So many problems were finally surfaced in the last year. They are now no probable but well-known issues to solve. But instead of coming up with solutions, OMAI demands support. As if no one did it before.

Left without their usual work, managers dont ever try to find new ways, though they certainly understand, its their duty:

Can the industry survive this? Opera has existed for over 450 years and has survived many global crises. But what the future will look like when the curtains reopen is uncertain.

Opera Managers Association International (OMAI) was founded to address these questions.

From the complete absence of even the slightest mention of innovative solutions in the letter, we can conclude that, unfortunately, no matter where money and support would come from, its clear that OMAI wants to return to the old state of the opera industry. The one with big stagings and bloated budgets made of gold and glitter but not able to sustain itself. The industry in which artists need government support in difficult situations.

Well, in lieu of the fact that they still wont say it, I will.

Sounds like a lot of work for the managers, doesnt it? Lets admit, we certainly need qualified managing staff for this. But will this work be well-paid in the new reality? Is there, in a better developed and sustainable opera industry, lets say it honestly, a place for managers who make major proclamations and call for support but have no substantial ideas for getting it?

In conjunction with the open letter of Opera Managers Association International, Im asking directly, shouldnt the demand for public support which undoubtedly brings temporary relief, be combined with efforts to make the opera industry smarter, more independent, and maybe even more grounded? That way, in the face of a new crisis, it would be more sustainable and less fragile, making empty letters like this one unnecessary.

Read more from the original source:

Criticisms on Fridays: The Opera Managers Declare Themselves - OperaWire

Valerie Pavilonis

On March 12, Ryan Schiller 22 woke up from a nap around 11 p.m. to a random ping on his phone from the app, Clubhouse. The social network, which relies on audio-chatting in themed chatrooms similar to large conference calls, notified him of a conversation with Yale-affiliated moderators entitled Abolish the Ivy League.

Schiller joined the chatroom, where he was invited to introduce himself to the crowd of listeners as a Yale student. In his introduction, Schiller says he briefly spoke about his co-created app, Librex a mobile app created in September 2019 that allows Ivy League students to anonymously discuss campus culture. About five minutes after his introduction, Schiller says a few other current Yale students came to the chatroom to talk about the apps limitations, in what would develop into a more than 2-hour debate in front of more than 800 listeners. At the helm of this conversation were questions regarding the first amendment, censorship and if college students can establish meaningful relationships with peers across the political spectrum.

All eight students who spoke with the News mentioned discussion as an effective tool for fostering relationships across political lines. But four students were wary about political polarization on campus and five students identified concerns over debates related to identity or civil rights.

Is the Personal, Political?

For Jasper Boers 22, at the heart of polarization on campus is when the personal becomes too political. This can oftentimes lead to broken friendships, anger and lost time at the University, he said. There are people who view politics as part of their identity, but ultimately debate will not always end in compromise, Boers added.

I dont think we should be aiming for a political University, he told the News. While its great that some of these students want to engage in politics, I think four years at Yale are quite short.

Jordi Bertrn Ramrez 24, a member of the Endowment Justice Coalition, told the News that more conversations need to be had with patience and empathy when discussing any political divides. He added that fundamental shifts in value[s] dont happen overnight, and it is best to assume benevolence. But Bertrn Ramrez said the ability to separate the personal from the political is a privilege for some, and that oftentimes marginalized communities turn to protest because they feel there is no other way to communicate with people in power.

When were talking about issues that are about civil rights and creating spaces that are accessible, focusing on debate as being the only and primary source of value debate isnt perfect, Bertrn Ramrez told the News. If I dont know how to argue with you that I deserve my rights, that doesnt mean I deserve my rights any less.

Emma Knight 22, co-Leader of the Yale Political Union, said that it was okay not to always engage in cross-partisan discussion, especially when the debate might involve civil rights.

Not everyone wants to (or even can) seek out intense cross-partisan discussion all the time, and I honestly think thats okay, Knight wrote to the News in an email. Political debate can be exhausting, especially when issues involve ones own rights or identity. I know that I am privileged in many ways, which has contributed to my positive experience with fruitful discussion on campus, and I want to acknowledge the fact that not everyone has had the same experience.

Knight highlighted the parliamentary procedure debate format in the YPU, a debate society she felt has a wide range of ideological backgrounds. Though the format which includes student speakers giving three-to-five minute speeches on carefully chosen topics may seem odd to first-timers, Knight said the unique format helped to emphasize a high standard of conduct. She said that the YPU also seeks to foster relationships outside of a debate setting, so that members can learn to appreciate each other beyond their political beliefs.

Politics in the classroom and on campus

Boers the student president of the William F. Buckley Program thought more engagement was needed in University classrooms.

The Buckley Program seeks to expand political discourse on campus by hosting events, such as debates between two scholars from opposite sides of a given issue. The success of the program high attendance at events and lots of programming shows there is a real appetite for education and participation on issues that are polarized to a certain extent, Boers said. But he emphasized that the organization is not meant to replace discourse that should take place in classes or the broader University.

The real intellectual diversity is, and sort of has always been, in the classroom, Boers told the News. The real thing that students, I think, if they want intellectual diversity ought to be pushing for is a greater representation in Yale classes.

On campus, Boers said that in challenging classes, he found there to be much more of an emphasis on the collective mission of the students to engage with difficult texts. Political disagreements start to dissolve as everyone is working towards understanding the readings.

James Hatch 23 who is an Eli Whitney student and veteran expressed similar sentiments about his first year around a seminar table, discussing challenging books with students who came from different backgrounds.

My philosophy professor from first semester, he said Good leaders are bridge builders, Hatch told the News in an interview. Thats what I see in my classmates I think that academia could be and it should be the place where the example on how to conduct yourself when discussing different, sensitive and difficult issues Yale College should be that.

I think generally in terms of classes with Yale professors, theyre pretty open to most ideas, Ryan Gapski 24, outreach director for the Buckley Program, told the News. I think most students are pretty reasonable too.

Jaelen King 22, the Executive Director of the Black Students for Disarmament at Yale, echoed similar sentiments. The organization is still working to meet with campus groups who have traditionally opposed police abolition, which is BSDYs main goal.

King said that lived experiences, family history and traditions all contribute to the way people think. There is no inherent hatred, King said, and even if he may not agree with one of his peers, the best course of action is to talk it out and understand where the other person is coming from.

Im just a firm believer in the relationships and the power of love and the power of people connecting, more than the idea of an idea being objectively right, or a universal truth, King told the News. But more just like caring about the person enough to work towards coming to a compromise, agreement or forgiveness pattern.

King said its easy to fall into a social niche and stay there at Yale, and that it was up to students to be intentional about stepping out of these spaces to better empathize with others.

Censorship and Social Media

Schiller has described his app, Librex, as one answer to the lack of complex conversations being held amongst Yale students. During the Clubhouse call, he introduced his purpose for creating Librex: to create conversation within campus communities. He added that he wanted people to talk about important issues and connect with one another in an authentic and vulnerable way.

Those couple minutes that I was listening turned into two hours, maybe even more, of me just fully involved in this conversation, Fatma Elsayed 23 told the News in an interview about the Clubhouse chatroom. [I was] explaining to them the context around Librex and having this wider discussion on free speech, which I think is definitely one of the most debated topics about college campuses. But I think sometimes when we talk about free speech, we dont consider what that conversation means for people of color.

Elsayed joined the call to highlight previous harmful posts on the app, which Schiller told the News were from last July and have since been taken down. During the call, Elsayed also opposed the idea that Librex was a solution, or way for us to have invigorating debates that were meaningful at Yale due to the apps anonymity.

College campuses dont need Librex, she told the News. College campuses need classrooms, discussions and debates where people are actually talking face to face.

But Schiller defended the apps anonymity feature, in part because he remembered times when his friends felt the need to self-censor in classes or were excluded from social circles. We all need social communication and want to fit in, he added, which led some of his friends to realize it may not be worth it to openly express their political views. At the crux of the Clubhouse conversation, Schiller said, was a tension between censorship and trusting college communities to be positive through debate and conversation on the app.

Librex has gone through a number of changes since its first inception. From the beginning, users could only access the app with authenticated credentials such as university email addresses, and Schiller said the app has always had the ability to ban users. Over time, the app has expanded security measures by increasing the number of student moderators on each Ivy League server. Schiller, who doubles as a Yale moderator for the app, said the student moderators are provided with access to a moderation interface and are push notified each time a post is reported. He added that, as an app with community standards, if enough people report a post, it is automatically removed. As one of the apps creators, Schiller said he is in constant communication with student moderators across schools and that Librex surveys its users once per quarter.

Schiller mentioned a previous experience where the app had to re-examine its policies the May 2020 student elections at Dartmouth.

On the Dartmouth server, only accessible by the Dartmouth community, there were reports of public attacks or condemning of student candidates on the anonymous app. Librexs previous policy stated that private information, names or the divulging [of] details about peoples personal lives was prohibited for non-public figures such as students. But initially, where candidates for student office fell in the two categories was unclear.

Schiller said that since then, the Librex team voted to remove the posts and updated the rules regarding non-public figures in the context of campus elections. He reflected that there were some posts that went too far. For him, addressing those posts was a learning experience to help him and others figure out the bounds between whats civil and whats divisive.

Schiller acknowledged that there have also been posts on the Yale feed that have gone too far and mentioned the security measures currently in place and the road of development ahead.

Theres always so much work to be done, and theres so much we want to make and so much we want to improve about the app and school community in general, Schiller said.

According to Hanah Jun 23, if someone makes a hateful comment, accountability could mean the ability of other students to a) respond to the comment and/or b) disaffiliate with the person who made the comment. Currently, students can comment underneath posts but all posts are anonymous.

Still, Jun, who also tuned in to the Clubhouse call, said that maintaining ethics on Librex and all forms of social media is easier said than done.

Jun recounted her comments made in the chatroom, whose audience she characterized as having a diverse familiarity with the app.

I was commenting that accountability would be harder to enforce on an app like Librex where posts are anonymous, Jun told the News in an interview. Free speech should be allowed, but there should be some mechanism of accountability.

She added that if hateful speech leads to hateful actions, there should be consequences to a degree. But she emphasized that accountability looks different for each case.

Theres a fine line, Elsayed said. But I also think there are some cases were its very clear.

Knight said that yes, there is a fine line between a controversial take and an offensive take but said people always disagreed on where that line landed.

The Bigger Picture

In general, Jun said, users lose the humanistic aspects of discourse when it is shifted to an online platform. She added that it has some real psychological effects, like people being less respectful of each other and debates spiraling out of control.

Knight wrote that this semester leadership has been working on systematizing the process for responding to harmful comments made on the YPU debate floor. Given our polarized climate, people sometimes dont know about certain dog-whistles or historical contexts, her email read. She added that almost always, harmful speech is unintentional. Four other students agreed.

But Knight noted that regardless of intent, harm needs to be taken seriously to preserve and advance the inclusivity of YPU spaces. Though it is difficult and different depending on each case, doing so means initiating restorative and educational conversations following incidents in order to find understanding about the roots of the disagreement, she wrote.

For Bertrn Ramrez, the origins of contention is where conversations must begin if students are to cultivate long-lasting relationships.

When I sit and I think, what is the root, the fundamental seed of what I care about, what that is is people deserve to be treated with respect and care, and people deserve equitable treatment, Bertrn Ramrez said. But that is already a contested belief, and so the very seed of my activism, the very seed of my advocacy, to some people is already contentious. Thats where the problem starts, and thats where I think the conversations need to begin.

Zaporah Price | zaporah.price@yale.edu

Read the rest here:

Difficult Conversations: Navigating Politics at Yale and Online - Yale Daily News

These are encouraging days for Texas Democrats. Oh, theyre still the semi-lovable bunch that hasnt won a statewide race since prior to the turn of the century, and the party is coming off its most disappointing election cycle in many a cycle.

But the good news for folks in this bunch is that folks in the other bunch are fighting among themselves. As you might remember from family Thanksgivings (remember family Thanksgivings?) there's no fight quite like a family fight. They can be relatively destructive.

OK, lets check the GOP fight card as we see if the Republicans indeed are getting ready to rumble among themselves. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is not happy with Gov. Greg Abbott about post-freeze energy legislation. Patrick also seems crosswise with House Speaker Dade Phelan on this life-and-death topic.

Also, lots of Republicans remain upset with Abbott over his handling of COVID-19. Lots of Dems also are upset with Abbott over this, too, but for diametrically opposed reasons. The unhappy Repubs believe Abbott has been too restrictive. Just the opposite for Dems who are unhappy with the governor.

And now Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, whos been among the Republicans unhappy with Abbott over pandemic policy, is hauling Patrick and the entire GOP-controlled Texas Senate into court to challenge the Patrick-backed Senate rule requiring COVID-19 tests for anyone who wants to get into the Senate chamber, its upstairs gallery or committee hearings.

And on Thursday, Miller blasted out an email to supporters that included this: "Please contactGovernor Abbott at 512-463-2000 and ask him what he intends to do about the Chinese communist takeover of 180,000 acres of strategically sensitive Texas land because, right now, it looks like the answer is 'not much.'"

Also this week, as if we needed further evidence of the GOPs internecine unpleasantries, several Republicanshave formed a new organization aimed at steering the party away from what the new group sees as a self-destructive path. Its an intriguing effort that calls itself the Texas Republican Initiative and announced itself with a statement headlined, The Republican Party of Texas has lost focus, results could be detrimental to Texas.

Its a clear effort to overcome the influence gathered by a further-to-the-right wing that has nosed its way into leadership posts. The new group is "encouraging Republican voters to become more involved in the party, a nod to the notion that the party harbors a silent majority that should fear permanently losing the party to a noisy minority.

Former Texas Secretary of State Carlos Cascos, who was an Abbott appointee in 2014, is president of the new group. Hes also a former Cameron County judge and now serves on the State Republican Executive Committee. He's also mulling a run for the seat being vacated by retiring U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela, D-Brownsville.

We must not be distracted by small, albeit vocal, groups that desire to pivot the partys focus to issues that are not representative of all Republicans, let alone most Texans, Cascos said in announcing the new initiative.

The groups veep is Cameron County GOP Chair Morgan Cisneros Graham, whoin the announcementreferred to growing concerns about the direction of the party. … TRI intends to address these concerns by focusing on the successes of Republicans, not by kicking out Republicans.

Graham also offered this damning analysis of the state of the state party: Currently, the Texas GOP has resorted to being a promotional vehicle for a handful of people to pursue bigger things versus a functional organization that is in charge of supporting and promoting Texas Republicans. Fundraising, outreach and basic organization have been ignored, which will result in Republican losses ... unless something is done.

Its a shot at Texas GOP Chair Allen West. Ill let you decide how veiled a shot it is. For his part, West is planning to be in Laredo on Friday to discuss legislative progress on the partys priority issues, which include election integrity, religious freedom, children and gender modification, abolition of abortion, constitutional carry of firearms without permits, monument protection, school choice for all and a ban on taxpayer-funded lobbying.

Brewing elsewhere on the GOP intramural front, indicted and embattled Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has called in out-of-state reinforcements for what he sees as a legislative battle (in a GOP-dominated Legislature) for funding for his office for what he clearly thinks is the highest and best purpose of a Texas attorney general.

My agency is better positioned than anyone in the country to beat the Biden agenda, he tweeted Wednesday. This natl network of conservative champions understands that. Fellow Texans: Ensure your legislator is FULLY RESOURCING my office. Any cuts are a loss for TX and in turn a loss for USA.

Ken Paxton, Americas last best hope.

Attached to the tweet was a letterfrom the Conservative Action Projectto Patrick, Phelan, Senate Finance Chair Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, and House Appropriations Chair Greg Bonnen, R-Friendswood, to applaud the work Texas is doing to stand up for conservative causes nationwide. Much of this work has been done by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose office has been a crucial force in protecting the country from government and constitutional overreach.

Any reduction to the Office of the Attorney Generals budget will result in tremendous harm to the state and nation, the out-of-staters told state budget writers. The cause of liberty and justice cannot afford that.

Among the signatories are former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese and other conservative stalwarts, including Kelly Shackelford of the First Liberty Institute and L. Brent Bozell III of the Media Research Center.

Now we wait to see how these battles play out. Im guessing Millers lawsuit against Patrick and the Senate will get dead-ended in a judicial branch that tends to be very hesitant to get involved in how the legislative branch does its thing. Andif the courts decide to rule on the merits of the lawsuit, I see a solid chance of a ruling that the COVID-19 restrictions are a reasonable response to an extraordinary situation.

Theres going to be plenty to keep an eye on as the legislative session progresses and the Repubs running the show navigate their differences as they position themselves for the next elections. The differences are so pronounced that Patrick recently pronounced this: One question I just want to make clear, because it's been in print because the media likes to do this: I am not running against Greg Abbott. OK? I'm not going to run against Greg Abbott.

The broader question confronted by the Texas GOP is the same one confronted by the national GOP. Is what we see now, including fringe rule focused on fringe issues, what were going to get for years to come from the Republicans?

Or, as the new Texas Republican Initiative seems to want, can it revert to being an important voice with important input on the real issues of the day?

Texas and America need the latter.

Excerpt from:

Herman: The Texas GOP. There's no fight like a family fight. - Austin American-Statesman

This paper was written by Martin Gustafsson

SUMMARY

The United Nations Secretary-General, Antnio Guterres, echoed the concerns of people and organisations around the world when he recently referred to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on schooling as a generational catastrophe. Children and youths are falling behind in their learning, and this is expected to have an impact lasting decades, especially if longer term effects on economic development and future earnings are taken into account.

This report focusses on the impacts of the pandemic on learning proficiency, specifically as measured by Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Indicator 4.1.1. Over the last couple of decades, there has been a growing awareness of how crucial learning proficiency, especially that of younger children, is for human development. The evidence is clear that improvements in proficiency underpin future economic development, and the building of more cohesive and equal societies. The indicators on learning proficiency are among the most discussed indicators within the SDG framework.

There have been a number of attempts to understand and quantify the learning losses caused by the pandemic, with a view to shaping the necessary mitigation strategies. The current report represents one such attempt. What was clear around the end of 2020, when the pandemic was still far from over, is that the effects of the pandemic on schooling and learning were large, yet it was still too early to gauge precise effects. Moreover, while education actors around the world have responded to the crisis in often heroic and innovative ways, the optimal approaches to mitigating long-term impacts remain unclear. The pandemics threats to education are unprecedented in their nature and magnitude. While a wealth of evidence on how learning occurs, and what improves educational quality, is enormously helpful in charting the way forward, a greater understanding about the specificities of the pandemic and schooling is needed.

This report brings certain important specificities to the fore. This is done in a manner which emphasizes issues education planners would be familiar with, and need to grapple with. Though the model developed for the current report uses country-level data, the aim is not to provide guidance to individual countries. Rather, this report aims to provide global projections, and to identify dynamics which planners must focus on. These include: the magnitude and nature of the pandemic-related disruptions, not just to schools, but also pre-school institutions; the relationship between disruptions in the contact time of learners and losses in learning proficiency; the movement of age cohorts through the schooling system, and what this means for future proficiency levels and recovery strategies; what recovery means in terms of accelerating learning, and the point at which one can expect a return to trajectories envisaged before the pandemic.

The model producing the projections, in an Excel file, uses as its point of departure a projection model published by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) shortly before the start of the pandemic. A key input in the new model is the contact time with teachers that children have lost, per country, from February to November 2020, expressed as a percentage of the regular school year. These statistics take into account partial closures, including situations where schools are open but attendance occurs on a rotational basis. By 11 November, the average child had lost 54% of a years contact time. Time lost is then converted to a fraction of a year of learning lost. Evidence, both from before and during the pandemic, point to an important effect: interruptions in contact time lead to learning losses which are larger than what is suggested by the actual time lost. This is because learners tend to forget skills acquired even before the interruption. A forgetting ratio of 2.0 is used in the model: for every month of contact time lost, two months of learning are assumed to have been lost. A value of 2.0 is in line with the limited evidence we have on the magnitude of the ratio. Thus, if on average 54% of the school year has been lost, just over a years learning will have been lost on average. The model takes into account the fact that a years learning is not the same across the world: countries which perform relatively poorly in internationally comparable assessments, do so because the amount of learning occurring between one grade and the next is lower. The model assumes that learning losses in each country are coupled with worsening inequality: learners who performed well previously, and would often be socio-economically advantaged, experience smaller learning losses than learners who did not perform well previously.

Beyond 2020, the model assumes learners moving into, for instance, Grade 6 will continue to be less proficient than what could be expected without the pandemic, because these students lost learning in a previous year. In fact, without any remedial acceleration, or catching up, Grade 6 learners up to 2025 would all be equally behind in 2025 children who were in Grade 1 in 2020 would reach Grade 6. But the model assumes that even beyond 2025, Grade 6 children would display the effects of the 2020 disruptions, because these disruptions affected pre-schools too. Though the data on pre-school disruptions in 2020 are very limited, it appears pre-schooling was as disrupted as schooling in Grade 1 and above. The model draws from UIS data on pre-school participation to gauge the probability within each country of pre-school disruption effects having been felt when children enter school.

What is also taken into account is the possibility that children who were in utero during 2020 could experience exceptional cognitive development difficulties. This draws from evidence that a social and economic shock such as the pandemic can have a lasting impact which is especially large for children who were in utero during the shock. While in many countries these effects may not endure beyond a few years, it nonetheless seems important to bear in mind within any projections which age cohorts of children were in utero during the onset of the pandemic.

The trajectory which has just been described is illustrated by the red curve in the following graph, which focuses on Grade 3. The red curve represents the worlds children in Grade 3, drawing from the data of individual countries, and assumptions such as the 2.0 forgetting ratio discussed above.

In 2019, around 59% of the worlds approximately 132 million children who should be in Grade 3 were proficient in reading. Thus, 54 million children in 2019 were not reading as they should. The 54 million includes roughly 12 million children who were not attending any form of schooling in 2019, who are all considered non-proficient for the purposes of this analysis. The figures for proficiency in numeracy would be similar. It is estimated that the learning losses associated with the pandemic would reduce the percentage of proficient children at the Grade 3 level to 49%. This means the number of non-proficient children at this age would increase from 54 million to 68 million the pandemic would push 14 million children at just the Grade 3 level below the proficiency threshold.

The red curve points to a return to the original proficiency trajectory for Grade 3 only in 2030. The grey and black curves reflect scenarios where there is successful catching up, or remediation, in the form of more learning than usual. For instance, the grey curve represents an acceleration of 10% a year. This means learners would need to learn 10% more than a normal years worth of learning, in order to catch up to where they would have been without the pandemic. In that scenario, a return to the previously envisaged trajectory would occur earlier, in 2027. Accelerating learning, especially in developing countries, has been on the agenda for many years, and there is now considerable research to inform optimal strategies. At the same time, it should be kept in mind that acceleration to take a schooling system to new levels of proficiency is not the same as acceleration to recover from a loss in historical levels of proficiency. The latter is likely to be easier to achieve as teachers and administrators are familiar with the desired end result, and are very likely to see it as desirable and achievable.

In the original trajectory, represented by the green line in the graph, gradual but ongoing improvement was envisaged. This is based on earlier projections released by the UIS, which draw from evidence of learning gains seen in international testing programmes. The graph serves as a reminder of an important matter. Countries which were experiencing ongoing improvement before the pandemic need to ask themselves what factors were driving this. These factors, which are likely to be linked to the quality of training of new teachers, support to all teachers, and accountability systems, should continue to receive attention. Planners need to balance the focus on remediation programmes aimed at addressing the learning losses, against a continued focus on other drivers of long-term development. Put differently, while addressing the pandemic-related learning losses, countries should also strive to ensure that new learners entering school, who would not have experienced disruptions, though they may have experienced pre-school disruptions, reach levels of proficiency close to those seen before the pandemic or, even better, in line with a countrys previously envisaged improvement trajectory.

Projections for the end of primary and end of lower secondary levels are also provided in the report. At these levels, similar dynamics apply, but a return to a pre-existing trajectory occurs around three years later for the end of primary and five years later for the end of lower secondary. These lags can be shortened with the right learning acceleration.

Projections from the three levels analysed Grades 3, 6 and 8 permit an estimation of how many of the 1.06 billion children across eight age cohorts, corresponding to Grades 1 to 8, would move below the proficiency threshold as a result of the pandemic. The number of children of these ages falling below the threshold would increase from 483 million to 581 million in 2020. The pandemic would push just under 100 million children below the proficiency threshold. This number excludes children who would carry learning losses with them into Grade 1 as a result of disruptions to pre-schooling, and adolescents in schools and post-school institutions above Grade 8 who would suffer the educational effects of the pandemic.

There are key challenges which are not captured in the above graph. One is that education budgets are expected to decline as a result of the economic effects of the pandemic. This will compound the problems, especially if teachers feel they are bearing more than their fair share of the budget cuts, and if spending on teachers puts pressure on spending on educational materials. Reductions in spending on school meal programmes could have very serious negative consequences for the physical and cognitive development of children from poor households. The report discusses these matters, which are to some extent within the control of education planners.

What education planners have little control over is the economic effects of the pandemic on households, the most serious effect being a worsening of poverty. One result of this could be an increase in the percentage of children not in school. Little is known at this stage about the likely magnitude of this. While poverty may make it more difficult for households to send children to school, reductions in child labour, the abolition of school fees in many countries and increases in the coverage of school meal programmes in the last two decades are all factors which would work against higher levels of dropping out, especially for younger learners.

Tragically, increased dropping out is unlikely to affect the SDG proficiency indicators to a large degree. This is because those countries where more dropping out is most likely are also countries where children had low levels of proficiency even before the pandemic. In sub-Saharan Africa, in particular, only 20% of lower primary children are proficient in reading, yet 81% of primary-aged children are in school. Given the strong links between socio-economic background and learning, one can roughly say that outside the middle class, few learners in this region become proficient. And given that the poor are most likely to drop out of school, the result would be more non-proficient children outside school and fewer non-proficient learners in school. Clearly, even if more dropping out does not have an impact on the SDG proficiency statistics, the matter is a serious one in terms of, for instance, child nutrition and psychological well-being. Moreover, there are degrees of non-proficiency. Children should be as close as possible to the level of proficiency they should ideally be at.

Of the previously mentioned figure of 100 million children across eight age cohorts who would move below the proficiency threshold, 34 million would be children in Central and Southern Asia, while 29 million would be in Eastern and South-eastern Asia. These would be the two worst affected regions in absolute terms. In terms of percentage point changes in the percentage of proficient children, the largest decline is seen in Latin America and the Caribbean from 70% to 51% in Grade 3, for example. Sub-Saharan Africa sees rather small declines. This is because even in 2019, the percentage of children who were proficient was low for instance 20% at the Grade 3 level. Much of the learning losses occurring in this region would occur among children already below the level of proficiency. Put differently, the SDG indicators on learning proficiency provide a rather limited picture of the impacts of the pandemic on learning in sub-Saharan Africa.

Countries with effective programmes to monitor progress in, for instance, early grade reading will be in a good position to compare likely future trends without the pandemic, to actual outcomes with the pandemic, of the kind presented in the current report. Such comparisons will assist in determining what the effect of the pandemic has been on learning outcomes, and what remediation seems best. Countries which do not have these monitoring programmes will find it harder to interpret what lies behind the unusual trends which can be expected in the coming years. In particular, such countries may find it difficult to determine exactly how large the initial learning losses of 2020 were. The shock to learning brought about by the pandemic should be a catalyst for building back better, specifically improving the monitoring of learning, and taking teacher training, support to schools, and school accountability systems to new levels.

Read the original post:

Pandemic-related disruptions to schooling and impacts on learning proficiency indicators: A focus on the early grades - World - ReliefWeb

THE countrys welfare system needs to be reformed and now may be the time to give it the attention it deserves.

Member of Parliament for St. James North, Edmund Hinkson, raised the matter as the Estimates Debates continued on Wednesday. Hinkson stressed that the COVID-19 pandemic presents an opportunity for the reformation and transformation of our economy and society and hence, he spoke of a few areas in need of change.

While thanking Minister of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs, Cynthia Forde, for the work she has been doing to assist those in need, even this year, coming to the assistance of fire victims in his very own constituency, Hinkson however said that the Welfare system, which falls under her Ministry, needs some tweaks.

Our Welfare system, and again the time is now, needs to be reformed. I know that there is a Committee of Cabinet looking into that. I believe it is headed by the Honourable Member for St. Michael South Central, (Marsha Caddle), but we cant continue with a situation where there is so large intergenerational welfarism, where someones grandmother has been on welfare, the parents and now them. This will require of course a whole of government, a whole of society approach to the issue, but it has to be tackled, Hinkson

remarked.

We have to move away from our peoples dependence on welfare. I believe, Sir, that the department should carry a new name to start with, a new reformation, maybe the Human Development Department or the Social Development Department would help, but the reality is that our educational system and many ministries have to be involved in this approach as well, he further stated.

To this end, Hinkson also called for curriculum reform in the education sector to assist in this effort.

Our Ministry of Education is again led by an extremely able Member of Parliament for St. Michael South East (Santia Bradshaw), who brings to her ministerial task passion and commitment to effect change, but the time is now to effect this change. We need of course curriculum reform. We havent had that for 20 years now. That is paramount. We cannot continue under the system that we now have, which of course was founded still on a colonial system, he commented.

Acknowledging that every child will not be academically inclined, but that every child has worth and skills, Hinkson voiced his support for the abolition of the Common Entrance Exam, which his government has spoken to. He also noted the need to create greater opportunities for young people to be engaged and for those who are not so academically inclined, to have greater access to technical and vocational opportunities to develop their skills, so as to ensure that the reform needed in the welfare system can take place. (RSM)

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Welfare system in need of reform | Barbados Advocate - Barbados Advocate